Revisiting the systemic change of the 1990s: sources and methods for new research on post-socialist Europe

Argument of the scientific event

Study day organized by Anne Madelain and Jana Vargovcikova, Centre de recherche Europes-Eurasie (CREE), Inalco, in partnership with the GDR Connaissance de l'Europe médiane

The 1990s have long been identified as a period of unprecedented change. Today, the decade following the fall of the socialist regimes is being reinvestigated by sociologists, political scientists and, increasingly, historians, with a view to proposing new readings of its place in the history of Europe and of post-socialist societies, as well as of its legacies. This reinvigorated interest in the 1990s moves beyond the transition paradigm, primarily by emphasising continuities with the 1970s and 1980s, but also by focusing on moments of uncertainty and non-determination. This renewal of research agendas is particularly noticeable in the fields of business history, memory studies and multidisciplinary research into the narratives of “transition”.

This workshop is dedicated to discussing the question of the sources and methods available for research today on the 1990s, a period of technological shifts at a time when Central and Eastern Europe was undergoing ‘regime change’ and experiencing the radical transformation of institutions, public enterprises and other organisations, the emergence of numerous new non-state actors, the involvement of international organisations, and the shifting boundaries between the public and private spheres.

Drawing on ongoing research, the workshop brings together researchers from several disciplines (history, political science, sociology, economics) and generations working on the transformations of organisations (companies, trade unions and associations). The two days of the workshop are organized in two parts: presentations of participants’ ongoing research projects (first three panels on Tuesday 3 June) are followed by roundtable discussions on sources, methods and analytical categories, addressing the following issues, among others:

 1. The archiving conditions of the period and the shifts in the legal status and types of organisations, but also the violence of the transformations (including the armed conflict in Yugoslavia, but also hasty privatisations or uncontrolled economic evolutions) that often lead to a hybrid character of the sources (e.g. few archived sources).

2. The second theme of the day will be to reflect on the experience with pluridisciplinary research on this period, that of historians, political scientists, sociologists, and economists, including a re-reading of research carried out in the 1990s and 2000s, as well as on the choices of analytical frameworks and conceptual categories for analysing this period.

3. The workshop brings together scholars working respectively on Central Europe and the Balkans to bring out the epistemic potential of a Central Europe-Balkans comparative perspective, with regard to the two regions’ contrasting “socialist pathways” and the common features of their “post-socialist pathways” (the ‘liberal’ turn, the rise of nationalism, the break-up of federal states). 

Working language: English

This day is part of the project Ecrire, décrire analyser la mutation systémique de la décennie 1990 à partir de nouveaux terrains (entreprises, syndicats, associations)(Axe 3 du CREE)

Scientific event program

Thursday, June 3, 2025

Maison de la Recherche de l'Inalco, 2 rue de Lille Paris 7^e

Salon Borel (1^er floor)

9:30am-9:45am: Welcome and introduction (GDR and CREE representatives, Anne Madelain, Jana Vargovcikova)

9:45am-11am: New readings of the systemic transformations of the early 1990s - research projects I

• Vítězslav Sommer (Institute of Contemporary History, Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague): Deindustrialization between central planning and capitalism: The regional economy and Czechoslovak / Czech shoe industry in the 1980s and 1990s

11am-11:15am : Coffee Break

11:15am-12:45pm: New readings of the systemic transformations of the early 1990s - research projects II

• Goran Musić (Research platform "Transformations and Eastern Europe", University of Vienna): Post-Non-Alignment through African eyes: Critical depictions of Yugoslav presence in Zambia in the local press of the late 1980s and early 1990
• Joanna Wawrzyniak (Center for Research on Social Memory, Faculty of Sociology, University of Warsaw) : Emotional Afterlives of Industry: Remembering Transformation in Post-Socialist Societies
• Cécile Jouhanneau (ART-Dev, Université Paul Valéry Montpellier) : Exploring the Bosnian war and post-war through transnational collective biography
• Lucie Raskin (CREE, Centre de recherche Europes-Eurasie, Inalco): Being heard on the international political stage as one's state and society dissolve: Yugoslav non-state actors' lobby towards French and German foreign policies during the breakup of Yugoslavia

12:45pm-2pm: Lunch break

2pm-3:15pm: New readings of the systemic transformations of the early 1990s - research projects III

• Anne Madelain (CREE, Centre de recherche Europes-Eurasie, Inalco) : The compound fates of post-Yugoslav publishers in the early 1990
• Veronika Pehe (Institute of Contemporary History, Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague) :Small-Scale Entrepreneurship as Social Practice in 1990s Czech Republic/Slovakia

• Ivana Spasić (Department of sociology, University of Belgrade): Computerization under Sanctions: The Case of Belgrade University Computing Center

   

3:15pm-3:30pm: Coffee Break

3:30pm-5:30pm: Roundtable I: Sources for research on the 1990s: archiving conditions, public and private archives, access to actors

Speakers:

• Anne Madelain (CREE, Inalco)
• Goran Musíć (Research platform "Transformations and Eastern Europe", University of Vienna)
• Veronika Pehe (Institute of Contemporary History, Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague)
• Assen Slim (CREE, Inalco)
• Vítězslav Sommer (Institute of Contemporary History, Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague)
• Ewa Tartakowsky (ISP, Institut des sciences sociales du politique, Université Paris Nanterre - CNRS)

Chair: Jana Vargovcikova

Friday June 4, 2025

Maison de la Recherche de l'Inalco, 2 rue de Lille Paris 7^e

Salle de Sacy (2^e floor)

9:30am-11:45am: Roundtable II: Confronting analytical frameworks, conceptual categories and research methods between history, sociology and political science: exchanging experiences and perspectives

Speakers:

• Cécile Jouhanneau (ART-Dev, Université Paul Valéry Montpellier)
• Nadège Ragaru (CERI, Centre de recherches internationales, Science Po Paris)
• Ivana Spasić (Department of sociology, University of Belgrade)
• Joanna Wawrzyniak (Center for Research on Social Memory, Faculty of Sociology, University of Warsaw)

Chair: Anne Madelain

12am-12:30pm: Conclusions

Organization

• Anne Madelain (CREE, Inalco)
• Jana Vargovcikova (CREE, Inalco)

Contacts

jana.vargovcikova@inalco.fr and anne.madelain@inalco.fr