The IV Annual CRCEES Research Forum took place at the Gilmorehill Centre, University of Glasgow, from 12-13 May 2011. With 23 panels and over 80 participants it was the biggest so far. As usual the topics discussed reflected the wide range of multi-disciplinary research being undertaken within the CRCEES network. A literature panel considered the work of Polish writer Czesław Milosz; a history panel considered how alternative ideas were articulated under communism; and a politics panel addressed the nature of Putin’s power. A different Russian politics, that of language, was explored through a panel on linguistics, while the dilemmas of contemporary Russian youth were the concerns of a sociology panel. In his keynote address Chris Hann of the Max-Planck-Institut für ethnologische Forschung in Halle spoke about "Repositioning Eastern European Area Studies" in the years since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Existing CRCEES partners - the universities of Newcastle, Nottingham, Strathclyde, St Andrews and the West of Scotland in this country and Ulyanovsk (Russia) and Corvinus (Hungary) abroad - provided the majority of papers, but this year the Research Forum also included a number of panels from universities linked to Glasgow in other ways. Significant delegations attended from the Herder Institute (Marburg) and the Justus Liebig University (Giessen), with which Glasgow has an informal exchange; Ilia State University (Tbilisi) and the Mohyla Academy (Kyiv), with which Glasgow has a Tempus agreement, both took a very active part; while the biggest foreign delegation came from even further afield, from KIMEP (Alma Aty), a partner in the Glasgow International Masters. It was also good to welcome delegates from Lithuania and Slovenia.

 

First published: 1 August 2011

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