The international colloquium dedicated to the Fragmented memories, and cultural-political representations of the European integration in the Western Balkans, organised by the team of the research grant Literature, memory, and intercultural dialogue in Southeastern and Eastern Europe in the context of the EU enlargement (no. GI 7962/2025) aims at reuniting specialists in various disciplinary areas of the humanities, who are invited to reflect especially on the cultural-mnemonic dynamics specific to the present phase of the enlargement process.

Argument

In the context of the present stage of the EU enlargement – grasped as a “strategic imperative” – in the Eastern Neighbourhood and the Western Balkans (which include, according to the political discourses expressed after 1999 within the communitarian space, the former Yugoslav republics, except for Slovenia, plus Albania), the topic of contested histories, and of fragmented, often conflicting, collective memories (political, cultural, and social) remains highly relevant for both the debates and analyses dedicated to the regional cultural-political dynamics as well as to their impact on the European integration process. As shown by the research in the field of memory studies, but also by those conducted in other disciplinary domains, such as European studies, area studies, historiography, cultural history, historical, political, and cultural sociology, sociology of memory, peace and conflict studies, ethnic studies, (inter)cultural studies etc., the Balkan mesoregion, and especially the Western Balkans – as a part of this “archipelago” of “disputed memories” that is Central and Eastern Europe – gain a particular prominence against the background of the seismic (geo)political shifts which marked the end of the Cold War. This is principally the case of the former Yugoslavia, whose violent collapse was preceded and followed by “cultural wars”, that is “memory wars”: the latter have provided the extreme illustration of a mnemopolitical dynamics which manifested all over the former Eastern Bloc engaged in the Euro-Atlantic integration process, and reached a new climax in the late 2000s, throughout the mnemonic battles waged by the Russian Federation against its neighbours, and particularly against Ukraine and the Baltic states. Just like the memory conflicts which have been an important trigger of the Yugoslav tragedy, those initiated in 2000 by the former hegemon of the Eastern Bloc have ended up turning into a real war, whose amplitude is without precedent in the eight decades that have passed since the catastrophe of World War II.

Interconnected in (post-)Yugoslavia with both the political tensions in the late 1980s and the subsequent wars waged during the following decade, the transformations which occurred after 1989/1991 at the level of national memory cultures within the entire Central and East-European space have played a significant role in the reconstruction not only of national identities, but also of Europe’s representations. Encompassing the reconfiguration of the official memory regimes through the revision of the “painful pasts”, with a particular emphasis on the traumatic histories defining for “the age of extremes”, these transformations were amplified during the cultural Europeanisation – seen as a third wave of the European integration, after the economic and the political ones –, which barely began in the 1990s, against the backdrop of Eastern communist regimes’ collapse, and has developed alongside the (re)nationalisation of history. While in the case of most societies engaged in the democratisation process within the former Eastern Bloc the critical re-examination of the past has focused on the traumatic experiences of the WWII (the Holocaust, the collaborationism etc.), and of the communist era – which became the object of revisions also in Albania in the early ‘90s and after 2005 –, in the post-Yugoslav space, where the historical revisionism has gain prominence in the late ‘80s, there is a an extra layer which adds to these two major veins of the traumatic memory, that is, the one attached to the wars following the political disintegration of the former multinational state. As against the confrontation of the painful legacies of interwar and postwar period, dealing with the competitive memories of the Yugoslav wars proved to be even more problematic, given the persistence of mnemonic fractures which incorporates the interethnic tensions, being conserved at the level of the official memory regimes against the backdrop of the above-mentioned renationalisation of history, prolonged until these days. These dynamics are increasing the complexity of the post-Yugoslav memoryscapes also from the outlook of the fractures created between the institutionalised formats of the collective memory and the multidirectional social memories which are mirroring the conflicting coexistence of trauma and (Yugo)nostalgia. Being reinforced, within the territory of the “country that no longer exists”, by the massive social traumas prompted by the wars, this polarisation has been widespread in the East during the codetermined transitional crises at the end of the first postcommunist decade, whose climax in Albania led to the collapse of the state (1996–1997). Aside from the important differences between their historical legacies, and especially between their (post)communist experiences, in both post-Yugoslav countries (including the former autonomous province Kosovo) – which are sharing the political, social, and cultural experience of the coexistence inside the borders of the federation formed after the Second World War and disintegrated in 1991 –, and Albania, the dynamics of the fragmented collective memories remains deeply entangled with the Europeanisation process. While incorporating, on the ground of political memory games and the related politics of history, the “dissonances” between the two mnemopolitical paradigms which are hegemonic in the European space – the national(ist)-antagonist and the cosmopolitan-universalist ones –, the memory cultures of the Western Balkans are illustrating at the same time the diversity of the cultural and social memories, both divided and interconnected, of “Europe’s Europes”, together with the aspirations (or the disillusions) attached to the integration, shaped by the different national environments.

By extending and complementing the debates held on these topics mostly in the fields of memory studies and European studies, the international colloquium dedicated to the Fragmented memories, and cultural-political representations of the European integration in the Western Balkans, organised by the team of the research grant Literature, memory, and intercultural dialogue in Southeastern and Eastern Europe in the context of the EU enlargement (no. GI 7962/2025) aims at reuniting specialists in various disciplinary areas of the humanities, who are invited to reflect especially on the cultural-mnemonic dynamics specific to the present phase of the enlargement process. The researchers may well consider the following topics (without limiting to them): 

• Historical (cultural-political, ethnic, religious, linguistic) legacies, and mnemonic “dissonances” in the Western Balkans, from the ‘90s to the present days
• The Western Balkans and the “mnemopolitical regionalization” of Europe
• Political memory games and “nesting Orientalisms” in the post-Yugoslav space in the context of Europeanisation: national(ist) and transnational perspectives
• Fragmented memories of communism, and cultural-political representations of Europe and Europeanisation in Albania, from the ‘90s until today
• Yugoslavia in the memory cultures of the Western Balkans: symbolic geographies, cultural texts, art and literary representations
• Fragmented memories of the recent past in the cultural imaginaries of post-Yugoslav diaspora: between trauma and Yugonostalgia
• (Re)imagining Europe in the Western Balkans in the context of both the rise of neo-nationalist populism, and the threat of “competitive authoritarianism”
• Political and cultural imaginaries of Europe and Europeanisation in the memory cultures of the Western Balkans in the context of the EU enlargement: 2004 – 2025.

Organised in parallel sessions, the colloquium will be held on November 21 – 22 at the Faculty of Lettres of “Dunărea de Jos” University of Galați. The participants may present their papers in Romanian, English, or French. The papers selected after peer review will be collected in a Proceedings volume (with ISBN) to be published in 2026, in French and English, at a prestigious publishing house.

Detailed information regarding meal and accommodation expenses will be available soon on the event page (currently under construction).

Submission deadlines

Submission of proposals (max. 200 words, in Romanian, French or English), followed by a short bio (max. 100 words, in Romanian, French or English), including the institutional affiliation and the scientific title of the author,

Before June 25, 2025.

• Acceptance letters for the proposals: July 12, 2025.
• Submission of the papers in extenso (6000–8000 words, including the references cited, the abstract, the keywords, and the footnotes, if it is the case), in French or in English: September 21, 2025.
• Acceptance letters for the papers (after peer review) and communication of the recommendations for revisions (if it is the case): November 20, 2025.
• Submission of the final versions of the papers: January 25, 2026.
• The publication of the Proceedings is planned for 2026. 

Contacts

Alina Iorga (Alina.Iorga@ugal.ro; alina.iorga1977@gmail.com)

Ionel Apostolatu (iapostolatu@gmail.com)

Keynote speakers

• Dr. Tea SINDBÆK ANDERSEN, Associate Professor, University of Copenhagen, Institut for Tværkulturelle og Regionale Studier (Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies)
• Dr. Ana MILOŠEVIĆ, University of Leuven, Faculty of Social Sciences/ LINES Institute – Leuven International and European Studies
• Dr. Tamara TROŠT, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Ljubljana
• Prof. dr. Vjeran PAVLAKOVIĆ, University of Rijeka, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
• Prof. dr. Dino ABAZOVIĆ, University of Sarajevo, Faculty of Political Sciences
• Dr. Ivana PERICA, Leibniz-Zentrum für Literatur und Kulturforschung, Berlin

Scientific committee

• Prof. dr. Dino ABAZOVIĆ, University of Sarajevo, Faculty of Political Sciences
• Prof. dr. Pierre-Yves BOISSAU, Université Toulouse – Jean Jaurès, UFR Lettres, Philosophie, Musique, Arts du spectacle et Communication/ Laboratoire Lettres, Langages et Arts (LLA CREATIS)
• Prof. dr. Daniela KOLEVA, St Kliment Ohridski University of Sofia, Faculty of Philosophy
• Dr. Esmiralda KOLANECI, Associate Professor, University of Tirana, Faculty of History and Philology
• Dr. Vjollca KRASNIQI, Associate Professor, University of Prishtina, Faculty of Philosophy & Faculty of Arts
• Dr. Ana MILOŠEVIĆ, University of Leuven, Faculty of Social Sciences/ LINES Institute – Leuven International and European Studies
• Prof. dr. Zoran MILUTINOVIĆ, University College London, School of Slavonic and East European Studies, Faculty of Arts & Humanities/ Academia Europaea
• Prof. dr. Vjeran PAVLAKOVIĆ, University of Rijeka, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
• Dr. Ivana PERICA, Leibniz-Zentrum für Literatur und Kulturforschung, Berlin
• Dr. Milica POPOVIĆ, Senior Postdoctoral Researcher, Institute of Culture Studies, Austrian Academy of Sciences
• Dr. Tea SINDBÆK ANDERSEN, Associate Professor, University of Copenhagen, Institut for Tværkulturelle og Regionale Studier (Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies)
• Dr. Tamara TROŠT, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Ljubljana
• Prof. dr. Mitja VELIKONJA, University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Social Sciences, Centre for Cultural and Religious Studies/ Center za proučevanje kulture in religije
• Dr. Stijn VERVAET, Associate Professor, University of Oslo, Faculty of Humanities