Project acronym ENTANGLED BALKANS
Project Balkan Histories: Shared, Connected, Entangled
Researcher (PI) Roumen Daskalov
Host Institution (HI) NEW BULGARIAN UNIVERSITY
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), SH6, ERC-2008-AdG
Summary THE OBJECTIVE of this project is to explore the various ways in which the histories of the Balkan peoples were shared, connected and entangled, and in some cases became structurally inter-dependent in the course of the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries; also to explore transfers and crossings within the region and from Western Europe and Russia. What is offered is a provisional open-ended and long-term research program guided by a general paradigm , frame of reference and key concepts. I would rather keep the project open and flexible with regard to substantial issues, though with a clear vision of the general (transnational) perspective. A list of topics includes national and social movements, disputed territories, minorities and refugees, cultural and political transfers. The variegated topics demand expertise in different areas and a trans-disciplinary and inter-disciplinary treatment without regard to established disciplinary boundaries. Systematically applying the transnational and relational perspective to the study of a region as complex as the Balkans has huge cognitive potential and innovative power. The new perspective and cutting-edge methodologies will reveal fresh vistas and bring insights to a number of topics that cannot be restricted in advance. Older research objects will look different and acquire new meanings in the new context and entirely new historical objects will be constituted. The national paradigm of self-contained national histories will be challenged. Such a project may well have wider social and political relevance. There is a positive and integrative value in showing how entangled the histories of the present-day Balkan nations and states were and still are. I would like to imagine such research as promoting good relations rather than fostering divisiveness and separation. This project will also be an input to the European integration of the region, which will hopefully involve the rest of the Balkans in the near future.
Summary
THE OBJECTIVE of this project is to explore the various ways in which the histories of the Balkan peoples were shared, connected and entangled, and in some cases became structurally inter-dependent in the course of the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries; also to explore transfers and crossings within the region and from Western Europe and Russia. What is offered is a provisional open-ended and long-term research program guided by a general paradigm , frame of reference and key concepts. I would rather keep the project open and flexible with regard to substantial issues, though with a clear vision of the general (transnational) perspective. A list of topics includes national and social movements, disputed territories, minorities and refugees, cultural and political transfers. The variegated topics demand expertise in different areas and a trans-disciplinary and inter-disciplinary treatment without regard to established disciplinary boundaries. Systematically applying the transnational and relational perspective to the study of a region as complex as the Balkans has huge cognitive potential and innovative power. The new perspective and cutting-edge methodologies will reveal fresh vistas and bring insights to a number of topics that cannot be restricted in advance. Older research objects will look different and acquire new meanings in the new context and entirely new historical objects will be constituted. The national paradigm of self-contained national histories will be challenged. Such a project may well have wider social and political relevance. There is a positive and integrative value in showing how entangled the histories of the present-day Balkan nations and states were and still are. I would like to imagine such research as promoting good relations rather than fostering divisiveness and separation. This project will also be an input to the European integration of the region, which will hopefully involve the rest of the Balkans in the near future.
Max ERC Funding
1 560 000 €
Duration
Start date: 2009-01-01, End date: 2014-06-30
Project acronym RESOCEA
Project Regime and Society in Eastern Europe (1956 - 1989). From Extended Reproduction to Social and Political Change
Researcher (PI) Ivaylo Boyanov Znepolski
Host Institution (HI) SOFIA UNIVERSITY ST KLIMENT OHRIDSKI
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), SH6, ERC-2010-AdG_20100407
Summary "The ambition of this project rests on the long-established tradition of the comparative politico-historical and interdisciplinary studies of the totalitarian regimes and on the theoretical efforts to elucidate the social dynamics and social change in Eastern Europe during the so called ""real socialism"". It will deal with the relations between regime and society in an attempt to highlight the growing tensions between them.
Without neglecting the important role of the geopolitical confrontation and the dissident movements, this work will search the key factors for the disintegration of communist societies in the common peoples’ modes of conduct. While the regime followed the same guiding principles till its end, individual and community ways kept changing and these shifts affected the whole society. Therefore we should study and critically analyse the evolving motives behind individual and group everyday behavior, their new moral orientations, as well as the changes in the regime practices and the characteristics of the dominant type among party functionaries. The communist regime loses support among social groups, which it favours and considers its social basis.
The project involves one PI who will organise and supervise the work of four senior researchers from the ex-socialist countries while each of them deals with the local aspects of the issue. The PI will study these phenomena in Bulgarian context and at the same time will provide a comparative narrative linking all five case studies.
The comparative analyses of different social practices and dynamics in similar political environments will help us understand the various courses Eastern-European countries took in overcoming their communist past and can serve as a basis for a follow-up research of the Transition process."
Summary
"The ambition of this project rests on the long-established tradition of the comparative politico-historical and interdisciplinary studies of the totalitarian regimes and on the theoretical efforts to elucidate the social dynamics and social change in Eastern Europe during the so called ""real socialism"". It will deal with the relations between regime and society in an attempt to highlight the growing tensions between them.
Without neglecting the important role of the geopolitical confrontation and the dissident movements, this work will search the key factors for the disintegration of communist societies in the common peoples’ modes of conduct. While the regime followed the same guiding principles till its end, individual and community ways kept changing and these shifts affected the whole society. Therefore we should study and critically analyse the evolving motives behind individual and group everyday behavior, their new moral orientations, as well as the changes in the regime practices and the characteristics of the dominant type among party functionaries. The communist regime loses support among social groups, which it favours and considers its social basis.
The project involves one PI who will organise and supervise the work of four senior researchers from the ex-socialist countries while each of them deals with the local aspects of the issue. The PI will study these phenomena in Bulgarian context and at the same time will provide a comparative narrative linking all five case studies.
The comparative analyses of different social practices and dynamics in similar political environments will help us understand the various courses Eastern-European countries took in overcoming their communist past and can serve as a basis for a follow-up research of the Transition process."
Max ERC Funding
1 026 120 €
Duration
Start date: 2011-06-01, End date: 2016-05-31
