THE ORWELL REDEMPTION

International interdisciplinary conference

THE ORWELL REDEMPTION:

ESCAPE FROM TOTALITARIAN TRAP AND CHALLENGES FOR THE NEW EUROPE (BELARUS, UKRAINE, POLAND, BALTIC STATES)

Warsaw, 15 November 2024

Organisers: Pavel Barkouski; Andrzej Gniazdowski (Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, Polish Academy of Sciences)

The conference focuses on the issue of the heritage of totalitarian past of the countries of “New Europe” – newly added to the EU in 2004 countries of the Central Europe and Baltic region, as well as countries of the Eastern Partnership such as Belarus and Ukraine – and their efforts for democratic transit and challenges on that way. The Shadow of Orwell’s Totalitarian State is the common past and somewhere nowadays of the countries of this region. Why after 33 years of the Soviet Union’s decline the totalitarian and authoritarian policy is actually here and the total region preserves to be a powder keg of Europe? Which social, mental and political transformations should provide the transit to a sustainable democratic future? Could we use earlier solutions of democratic transit of the 90s to expand them in a new configuration of power?

Program 

10.00 Invitation speech of the Organizing Committee and Director of the IFiS PAN

10.20-11.50 The first panel “Solidarity as a Way to the Common Future of Europe?”

Przemysław Bursztyka (Faculty of Philosophy of the Warsaw University): Standing Together Is Not Enough… A Phenomenological Outline of Solidarity

Andrzej Gniazdowski (Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, Polish Academy of Sciences): The Polish Raison d’Etat and the Belarusian State’s Raison d’Etre. The Contemporary Realism of Giedroyć-Mieroszewski Doctrine

Joanna Fomina (Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, Polish Academy of Sciences): Diaspora, Democratization and the War in the New Europe

12.00-13.30 The second panel “Belarusian Escape to Freedom: The Chances and Threats”

Justyna Straczuk (Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, Polish Academy of Sciences): Through the Belarusian Lens. On ‘hybrid war’, European values and the racialisation of the EU’s external borders

Pavel Barkouski (Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, Polish Academy of Sciences): The long Return Way to Europe: European Values and Patterns through the Belarusian Public Opinion Lens (2020-24)

Kamil Kłysiński (Centre for Eastern Studies, Warsaw University): “Contemporary Belarus: Authoritarian or Totalitarian?”

13.30-14.30 Lunch time

14.30-16.00 The third panel “The East-Central Europe and the Challenges to Democracies”

Aliaksei Kazharski (Charles University in Prague): Escaping the past vs. escaping to the past. New spatiotemporalities of Eastern/Central Europe after 2022 

Piotr Rudkouski (independent researcher): ‘The Fastest in History: Democratization in East-Central Europe in Comparative Perspective’

Yevhen Mahda (NTUU) “Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute”): Latecomers in Europe (Belarus, Moldova, Ukraine) and the Russian-Ukrainian War

16.15-17.40 The Round Table: Belarus in the European Union: A Pipe Dream or a Viable Plan?

Participants: Alina Koushyk, Andrei Vardomatski, Yevhen Mahda 

Moderator: Pavel Barkouski

17.40 Closing remarks

Conference venue: Pałac Staszica, ul. Nowy Świat 72, sala 232 (III Floor)

Zoom: https://zoom.us/j/97814097770?pwd=06m0wV60OgMbbEzaVurZ2JDE2Gkp74.1

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