Social Science Research Council

On June 29-July 1, 2002, The Eurasia Program held a planning meeting for the RAP project on “Remembering Communism” in Sofia, Bulgaria. The meeting was organized in collaboration with, and held at, the Center for Advanced Study, a newly established research institution in Sofia. The proposed RAP project will involve several components including a case-study on Bulgaria (as an example of “eventless communism”) but also comparative initiatives, both within the Eurasia region as well as cross-regionally. The interdisciplinary meeting brought together 23 social scientists from different Bulgarian institutions who would undertake the Bulgarian case-study and seven scholars from the US, UK, Germany and Greece who work on histories of communism or on the ethnography of post-communist countries. Participants included historians, sociologists, anthropologists, literary critics, and a specialist on humor.

The discussion focused on the parameters of the project, including objectives and relevant research questions as well as on methods ranging from how to read archives to fieldwork methods in oral history, narrative and life-stories. The meeting also included two public lectures, one from Dr. Hanna Schissler (History and the Self: Autobiography, Biography and Oral History) and Dr. Fred Corney (History and Memory: “Remembering October” and “Remembering Communism).