The lecture series “Thinking East Central Europe” is offered by the Philosophical Faculty of Charles University in Prague in cooperation with the Elite Graduate Program in East European Studies at LMU Munich. It forms part of a planned Double Degree programme between the two institutions. Students from both universities will be able to gain insights into the modern social and cultural history not only of the Bohemian Lands and discuss themes central to the formation of identity in this part of Europe in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The first lectures introduce students to the multi-ethnic environment of the late Habsburg Empire and the gradual development of national and political communities heading towards modern statehood. The themes of ethnicity and modern nationalism underpin the lectures on the interwar period and the first decade after the Second World War. The following papers deal with the character, legitimacy and crises of state socialism. The cycle is concluded by two lectures on the emergence and role of older history and literature in relation to modern identity formation in the Bohemian Lands and Hungary.

List of the Speakers and Lectures

Prof. Martin Schulze Wessel (LMU)

Nation und Religion in der Habsburgermonarchie

Prof. Milan Hlavačka (Inst. Der Tschechischen Geschichte FF UK)

Zum Konzept der liberalen Zivilgesellschaft in Böhmen im 19. Jahrhundert

Prof. Jana Osterkamp (LMU)

Secundus inter pares. Böhmen in der föderalen Geschichte Habsburgs

Dr. Richard Biegel, PhD. (Inst. für Kunstgeschichte FF UK)

The Birth of a Metropolis. Prague in the Late 19th Century

Dr. Felix Jeschke (LMU)

Infrastruktur, Staat und Nation in der Ersten Tschechoslowakischen Republik

Doc. Matěj Spurný, PhD. (Inst. für Wirtschaft- und Sozialgeschichte FF UK)

Der lange Schatten der Vertreibung. Nationalismus, gesellschaftliche Dynamik und Aufbau des Kommunismus in der ČSR 1945 bis 1960

Doc. Michal Pullmann, PhD. (Inst. für Wirtschaft- und Sozialgeschichte FF UK)

Die langen 1970er Jahre. Tschechoslowakei im internationalen Kontext

Mgr. Martin Štefek, PhD. (Inst. für Politikwissenschaft FF UK)

The Fall of Communism in Czechoslovakia and the GDR

Prof. Julia Burkhardt (LMU):

Ungarische Mediävistik im 20. Jahrhundert: Themen, Personen, Institutionen

Mgr. Marie Škarpová, PhD. (Inst. für Tschechische Literatur und Komparatistik, FF UK)

Die Geburt der Paleobohemistik im 19./20. Jahrhundert