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Between February 28th and March 1st an Inventing Europe workshop was organised in Plovdiv, Bulgaria. The theme was "Technology and the Making of 20th Century Europe: a Southeast European Perspective". EUROCRIT member Ivaylo Hristov participated and reports on the workshop.

Report on the Inventing Europe workshop

Plovdiv, Bulgaria (28 February – 1 March 2008)

The workshop was opened by dr. Ivan Tchalakov with welcome to the participants. After that was presented the work of ESF and EUROCORES by Ruediger Klein. There also was presentation made by Johan Schot about the Inventing Europe program and Tensions of Europe Network. The end of the first night was marked by the inspirational lecture delivered by professor Paul Josephson: “Proletarian Aesthetics: Stalin and Technology in East Central Europe” The totalitarian style of governing big technological projects was one part of the discussion. Also there was mentioned the Stalinist way of re-ordering the society in socialist manner, and the building of new typical for the regime cities, with heavy industry factories.

The second day of the workshop began with further development of the socialist cities topic. It was the consumption session and one of the participants presented short movies about the Bulgarian socialist city building style, and the propaganda conducted in the period. There were also sessions about ‘the shopping tourism’ between Germany and Poland, the transnational perspective of some people flows in 70s and 80s. Movement provoked by the lack of every day goods in Poland. In the session the role of the Bulgarian import company CORECOM was revealed from social elite perspective. The company specialized only for international trade, was seen as promoter for different social standards.

The second session was based upon the Infrastructures and their development. There were two participants presenting the Bulgarian and Greek perspectives. The Bulgarian case was also connected with the USA Information Infrastructures development or some ‘Internet’ predecessors. There was made suggestion about re-thinking of the term ‘consuming’ and changing it into broader term ‘using’.

In the next panel were presented the youngest PhD projects. The Bulgarian Nuclear Program, Danube - Oder - Elbe Canal, Bulgarian Yogurt - Authenticity, and The International Truck Drivers; were the forth discussed topics. Taking into consideration their early stage the whole group of participants made useful suggestions about their future development.

The last session of the day was for some PhD projects that are in advanced condition. The work of the PhDs’ was connected to the: Interconnections of the Balkan electric power networks; and Global-Local Tensions in the History of Software seen from Greek perspective. There were also two unfamiliar for the public projects, related to the Consumption Culture in Hungary, and the Town Planning in Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia 1945-1965.

The third day of the workshop started with presentation about transnational history and some challenges related to it. The problematic about the terms of international and transnational was discussed. The role of organizations related to transnational processes and to the nation states was seen as possible path for making history transnational. The perspective through which national could became transnational is still problematic. One possible way for solving it was seen in the example of “Networks of Power” Thomas Hughes book, by revealing different examples.

Another interesting panel was the work in small groups where some suggestions about the 2009 SHOT conference were discussed. At the end of the workshop every one of the fifth groups presented their best ideas. Some of the most interesting were: making dance competition, playing transnational soccer or using border towns as symbols of transnationality.

Two more sessions were implemented in that day, and they took into consideration some possible way of making Transnational History in East and South East Europe. The using of particular regions based over Post-Imperial heritage, or ideologically formed ones, was one of the suggestions. Unfortunately some of the participants still were not ready to see the region in transnational perspective. There was also discussion about the usage of archival materials and libraries in the region. The secrecy was one of the main points, but also the lacks of good order in the archives, as well as the problem of the researcher’s position and his recognized legitimacy.