Monuments for World War II: Memory and Oblivion in the Balkans and Central-East Europe.
International Interdisciplinary Conference.

Program

Thursday 23rd November 2023

10:00-10:30 Registration

10:30-10:50 Areti Adamopoulou, Professor of Art History, University of Ioannina, Greece
Presentation of the Research Program “WaRs: War and Resistance Monuments in Greece: Documentation of and Historical Approach to Public Monuments, 1945-today”

10:50-11:10 Alexandros Teneketzis, Assistant Professor of Art History, University of Patras, Greece
Research Program “WaRs: War and Resistance Monuments in Greece: Documentation of and Historical Approach to Public Monuments, 1945-today”: The parameters of building a database on monuments

Session 1. Monuments for WWII and their post-1989 fate in the Balkans (I)
Chair: Anna Maria Droumbouki, Senior Research Associate, University of Munich, Germany

11:10-11:30 Božo Repe, Professor of Contemporary Slovenian History, Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia & Božidar Flashman, Research Associate in Contemporary History, Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia
The fate of the monuments of the national liberation struggle and the socialist revolution on the territory of the former Yugoslavia

11:30-11:50 Neža Čebron Lipovec, Researcher and Assistant Professor, Faculty of Humanities, University of Primorska, Slovenia
Idiosyncrasies of the public monuments to WW II in the ‘Political Chessboard’ border area between Italy and Slovenia

11:50-12:10 Vladana Putnik Prica, Senior Research Associate, Art History Department, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade, Serbia
More than a museum? The role of memorial museums in the culture of remembrance on WW II in Yugoslavia

12:10-12:30 Discussion

12:30-13:30 Coffee break

Session 2. Monuments for WWII and their post-1989 fate in the Balkans (II)
Chair: Konstantinos Argianas, Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Ioannina, Greece / Adjunct Lecturer at the Department of Fine Arts at the Cyprus University of Technology

13:30-13:50 Dimitrije Matić, Research Assistant, Institute for Recent History of Serbia
Old Fairground Monument in Belgrade

13:50-14:10 Nenad Lajbenšperger, Historian, Institute for the Protection of the Cultural Monuments of Serbia
Memorial complex Boško Buha: From Yugoslav important site dedicated to young fighters who died in war to unwanted and neglected heritage of Serbia

14:10-14:30 Davorin Vujčić, Art Historian and Museum Curator, Museums of Croatian Zagorje, Croatia
Antun Augustinčić Gallery in Klanjec: Antun Augustinčić, Monument of Gratitude to the Red Army - “ideological beacon” and litmus monument

14:30-15:00 Discussion

15:00-17:00 Lunch Break

Session 3. Monuments for WWII and their post-1989 fate in the Balkans (III)
Chair: Areti Adamopoulou, Professor of Art History, University of Ioannina, Greece

17:00-17:20 Ina Belcheva, PhD in Art History, Postdoctoral Researcher at EIREST, Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University, France
Liberation from the liberators: (De)Construction of narratives of the Monument to the Soviet Army in Sofia after 1989

17:20-17:40 Șerban Liviu Pavelescu, Senior Research Fellow, Department of Security Studies, Institute for Political Studies of Defense and Military History, Romania
Memory, historiography and monuments of WW II in communist Romania. An analysis of the ideological impact on societal memory

17:40-18:00 Claudia-Florentina Dobre, Director of the Center for Memory and Identity Studies (CSMI) and Researcher, “Nicolae Iorga” Institute of History, Bucharest, Romania
Remembering WWII and the Holocaust in post-communist Romania: Memory politics and monuments

18:00-18:30 Discussion

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Friday 24th November 2023

Session 4. Monuments for WWII in Greece
Chair: Kostas Korres, PhD Candidate in History, University of the Aegean, Greece

10:00-10:20 Konstantinos Argianas, Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Ioannina, Greece / Adjunct Lecturer at the Department of Fine Arts at the Cyprus University of Technology
References to classical antiquity in WW II monuments in Athens, Greece

10:20-10:40 Achilleas Fotakis, Postdoctoral Researcher, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece
The monopoly over the dead. Memories of WWII in the Greek Police

10:40-11:00 Raymondos Alvanos, Phd in Political Science, Department of Political Science of the Aristotelian University of Thessaloniki & Paraskevi-Danai Manola, MA in Public History, Hellenic Open University
Monuments of WWII: Contesting political identities and the politics of memory in the Greek island of Corfu

11:00-11:30 Discussion

11:30-12:30 Coffee break

Session 5. Monuments for WWII and their post-1989 fate in East and Central Europe
Chair: Alexandros Teneketzis, Assistant Professor of Art History, University of Patras, Greece

12:30-12:50 Petra Hudek, Postdoctoral Fellow, Institute of Contemporary History, Czech Academy of Sciences & Institute of History, Slovak Academy of Sciences
Soviet war memorials in Czechoslovak territory. Glorified remembrance after 1945 and the controversial historical heritage after 1989

12:50-13:10 Indrė Urbelytė, Art Historian and Curator, Lithuanian Culture Research Institute, Vilnius, Lithuania
The uninvited liberators: Imagery of victory and liberation in Soviet Lithuanian monumental art (1940–1990)

13:10-13:30 Kostas Korres, PhD Candidate in History, University of the Aegean, Greece
Historical revisionism of WW II: The Monument to the Victims of the Nazi Occupation and it’s Anti-Monument in Hungary.

13:30-14:00 Discussion

14:00-15:30 Lunch break

Session 6. Holocaust Monuments in the Balkans
Chair: Philip Carabott, Ηistorian, King’s College, UK, Workshop on the Study of the Jews of Greece

15:30-15:50 Vladimir Huzjan, Senior Scientific Associate, Croatian Academy of Science and Arts, Zagreb, Croatia
Holocaust and socialist monuments today: Memory or provocation? Cases in Varaždin, Croatia

15:50-16:10 Pierre Sintès, Associate Professor in Cultural and Social Geography, Aix-Marseille University, France
The memory of the Shoah in two Greek secondary cities. Crossed examples of Rhodes and Ioannina

16:10-16:30 Anna Maria Droumpouki, Senior Research Associate, University of Munich, Germany
“It has taken nearly 70 years…”: Memorialisation of the Holocaust in Athens

16:30-17:00 Discussion

17:00-18:00 Coffee break

Session 7. WWII Monuments in contemporary art and culture
Chair: Irene Gerogianni, Assistant Professor of Art History, Athens School of Fine Arts, Greece

18:00-18:20 Styliana Galiniki, Archaeologist and Head of the Department of Sculpture and Lithography, Mural and Mosaic Collections of the Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki
Potential city: Embodied ephemeral memory of WW II in early 21st century Thessaloniki

18:20-18:40 Melody Robine, ΜΑ in Political Science, University of Sciences, Paris, France
How to forget your past: Artistic interventions on the monumental heritage as a symbol of Bulgaria’s fragmented memory of WW II

18:40-19:00 Fotini Gouseti, Visual Artist and PhD Candidate in Anthropology, Department of History, Archaeology and Social Anthropology, University of Thessaly, Greece & Eva Fotiadi, Lecturer, St Joost School of Art & Design and Researcher at CARADT, Avans University of Applied Sciences
Art monuments and artistic research: Diverse approaches to the traumatic events of WW II and of the Greek Civil War in the Greek town of Kalavryta, and the public spaces that these approaches produce

19:00-20:00 Discussion and wrap-up

No registration is required.
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Contact email: warsmonumentsgmail.com

ORGANIZING COMMITTEE
Prof. Areti Adamopoulou, Department of Fine Arts & Art Sciences, University of Ioannina, Greece
Assis. Prof. Alexandros Teneketzis, Department of History and Archeology, University of Patras, Greece Dr. Anna Maria Droumpouki, Research Associate, Institute of Eastern and South Eastern European History, Department of History, Ludwig-Maximilians- Universität, Munich
Dr. Konstantinos Argianas, Lecturer, Post-doc Researcher, Department of Fine Arts & Art Sciences, University of Ioannina, Greece
Kostas Korres, PhD Candidate, Department of Primary Education, University of the Aegean, Greece