Conference

Thursday, 2 November 2023

17.00.-17.30 Opening remarks

17.30-18.00 Sorin Radu (Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu), Presentation of the project Subjects or Citizens? Between Census and Universal Suffrage: the Political Integration of Peasants in Romania (1859-1940)

18.00-19.00 Keynote: Maria Bucur (Indiana University Bloomington), Disability in the Interwar Romanian Village: Peasants, Teachers, Priests, and Miracles

19.00 Dinner

Friday, 3 November 2023

9.00-10.00 Keynote: Eric Vanhaute (Ghent University), Reforming the Land and the Peasant after 1800: How to Make National Peasantries

10.10-11.50 Panel 1 – Studying the Peasantry, 1900-1945

Chair: Constantin Iordachi (Central European University)

Roland Clark (University of Liverpool), Iuliana Cindrea-Nagy (Romanian Academy – Cluj Napoca Branch, George Barițiu History Institute), Listening to Rural Voices: Why Bother?

Nigel Swain (University of Liverpool), Ferenc Erdei’s Differentiated Peasant Society

Daniel Brett (University College London – School of Slavonic and East European Studies), A Problem of the Countryside? Agrarian Politics in Romania, Ireland and France between the Two World Wars

Corina Doboș (University of Bucharest/ Romanian Academy – National Institue for the Study of Totalitarianism), From the Interwar Eastern Europe to the Postwar Global South: The Office of Population Research (Princeton University) and the Construction of Rural Overpopulation

11.50-12.10 Coffee break

12.10-13.30 Panel 2 – Perceptions about the Peasantry

Chair: Ramona Besoiu (Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu)

Ivan Smiljanić (Institute of Contemporary History in Ljubljana), Žarko Lazarević (Institute of Contemporary History in Ljubljana), Narratives and Perceptions of Peasantry in Slovene Lands Between the 1860s and 1930s

Lilija Wedel (University of Bielefeld), The Print Media of German Settlers in the Russian Empire: Between Traditions, Adaption and Integration, 1870s–1914

Valer Cosma (Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu), Peasantry and the Building of the Romanian Nation in the Inter-imperial Context

13.30.-15.00 Lunch break

15.00-17.00 Panel 3 – Peasantry and Political Integration

Chair: Andrei Florin Sora (University of Bucharest)

Ovidiu Iudean (Masaryk Institute and Archive of the Czech Academy of Science, Prague), Nation-building during the Electoral Campaign: Elites Mobilising Rural Voters in Dualist Hungary (late 19th century- early 20th century)

Vlad Popovici (Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca), Voters in Transylvanian Villages during the Dual Monarchy (1867–1918)

Branko Ostajmer (Croatian Institute of History, Zagreb), The National Party and the Role of the Peasantry in Croatian Political Life (1883-1906)

Milan Řepa (Institute of History of the Czech Academy of Sciences – Brno Branch), Czech, Germans, or Simply Peasants? Politicisation of Peasants in Bohemian Lands and their Collective Awareness at the Turn of the 20th Century

Ovidiu Buruiană (Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iași), Constantin Iordachi (Central European University), The Romanian Peasants and Universal Voting. The Parliamentary Elections in the Rural Space of Old Kingdom in the First Decade after the War

17.00-17.20 Coffee break

17.20-19.00 Panel 4 – Agrarian Reforms and State Policies

Chair: Anca Mândru (University of Birmingham)

Dietmar Müller (University of Leipzig), Peasants into Farmers and Citizens. Economic and Political Tensions after the Interwar Agrarian Reforms in East Central and South Eastern Europe

George Gassias (FORTH-Institute for Mediterranean Studies, Rethymno), Agrarian Reform, Agronomic Innovation, and State Intervention in Interwar Greece

Lucian George (Oxford University), “The Peasant Class” and “the Agricultural Estate”: Agrarian Populism and its Social Subjects in Interwar Galicia and Bohemia

Marek Wierzbicki (Institute of National Remembrance/John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin), The Policy of the Polish and Soviet State towards Peasants (1918-1939)

19.00 Dinner

Saturday, 4 November 2023

9.00-10.00 Keynote: Marius Turda (Oxford Brookes University), Rural Biology and the Nation’s Eugenic Welfare in Interwar Romania 

10.10-11.30 Panel 5 – Rural Economy

Chair: Ovidiu Buruiană  (Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iași)

Arina Fedorova (European University Institute, Florence), How Peasants Went to the Bank: An Introduction to the “Educational” Activities of the Peasants’ Land Bank in the Late Russian Empire

Anca Mândru (University of Birmingham), Degrees of Crisis: The Romanian Countryside during the Great Depression

Jelena Rafailović (Institute for Recent History of Serbia, Belgrade), Peasants-workers in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia – the Road to Modernisation and Urbanisation

11.30-11.50 Coffee break

11.50-13.30 Panel 6 – Peasant Mobilization and National Integration

Chair: Nigel Swain (University of Liverpool)

Harald Heppner (University of Graz), Peasants as Helpers in Need. The Engagement of Village Society during the World War I

Dimitris Angelis-Dimakis (University of Crete/ Autonomous University of Madrid), Mobilizing and Politicising the Peasants: Agrarian Associations and their Impact on the Rural Society of Greece during the First Decades of the 20th Century

Anders Blomqvist (The Hugo Valentin Centre – Uppsala University/ Dalarna University), Peasants, Mobilisation and Ethnic Politics in the Hungarian-Romanian Borderlands

Claudiu Crăciun (National University of Political Studies and Public Administration, Bucharest), Peasants and State-building in 19th and 20th Century Romania. Resistance vs. Incorporation

13.30.-15.00 Lunch break

15.00-16.40 Panel 7 – Political Campaigns, Elections, and Peasant MPs

Chair: Dietmar Müller (University of Leipzig)

Andrea Pokludová (University of Ostrava), The Role of Intelligentsia and Provincial Deputies

Wiktor Marzec (University of Warsaw, Poland/ The Robert Zajonc Institute for Social Studies), From Rural Tumult to Parliamentary Questions and Back. Emergent Rural Contention in Poland between Empire and the Nation-State 1907-1921

Daniela Mârza (Romanian Academy – Cluj Napoca Branch/ Masaryk Institute and Archive of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague), Roots and Routes: How Members of Parliament with a Rural Background Attained and Wielded Power in Interwar Transylvania

Sorin Radu (Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu), Andrei Florin Sora (University of Bucharest), Persuading Peasants: Campaign Promises in Countryside Romania under Universal Suffrage (1919-1937)

16.40-17.00 Coffee break

17.00 -18.40 Panel 8 – Nation-building Policies, Populism and Education

Chair:  Sorin Radu (Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu)

Teodoritschka Gotovska-Henze (Bulgarian Academy of Sciences – Institute for Historical Studies, Sofia), Bulgarian National Leaders and Agricultural Know-how Spreading (1850s-1860s)

Andrzej Michalczyk (Ruhr University Bochum), Peasants’ Social Mobility and National Identities in the Making in a Post-Serfdom Society: Upper Silesia 1850-1939

Wilfried Göttlicher (University of Graz – Institut of Education Research and Teacher Education), Having it Both Ways – Preserving an Idyllic Rural Universe and Overcoming Backwardness by the ‛Right’ School-Education

Cătălin Botoșineanu (Romanian National Archives – Iași Branch), Primary Education as an Agent of Transformation of The Rural World: A Case Study of the Regional School Inspectorate of Iași

19.00 Dinner

Sunday, 5 November 2023

9.00-10.00 Round table: Conclusions and Future Projects. Discussions about the collective volume

Conference venue:

Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu, Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities,

Bd. Victoriei, no. 5-7, Sibiu

Organisers:

Executive Unit for Financing Higher Education, Research, Development and Innovation

Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu

Central European University Vienna

Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iași

University of Bucharest