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• Field Research (10^th-30^th of July, 2007)
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• 63^th anniv. of the end of the Second World War (8^th of May, 2008)
• Workshop (10^th and 11^th of May, 2008)
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• The conference Beyond Imagined Uniqueness (21^st of May, 2008)
• Report!!!

The Image of the Second World War in St. Petersburg, Warsaw, Dresden

The project is a part of the History Workshop Europe program sponsored by the "Remembrance, Responsibility and Future" Foundation and Robert - Bosch - Foundation. It lasts for one year and is carried out by the Graduate School for Social Science and Historisches Seminar der Universitat Hamburg. An international and interdisciplinary team from Germany, Poland and Russia participates in the project.

The anniversary of the Second World War celebrated in 2005 showed that the war has still considerable influence on the contemporary relationships, identities of particular nations and the European integration. Our project refers to one of the crucial points of the debate on the European identity by comparing the ways in which the war history is visualized and described in the selected museums of three European cities: Dresden, Warsaw, and St. Petersburg.

The choice of the cities is not accidental. They were all subjects to unimaginable suffering, all bombed and brought to ruin during the Second World War. At the same time, there are important differences in the cities' past. One of them is related to the figure of enemy: for St. Petersburg (Leningrad) it was the Nazis, for Dresden - the Allies, for Warsaw both the Nazis and the Soviets. Therefore, in the light of European integration our main research question concerns contemporary perception of the war enemy in each of the cities.

The project's goals and methodology derive from applied social science. In our field research we will use different types of qualitative analysis (content, narrative, comparative, and hermeneutics). An important part of the project's methodology is team discussion, which should eliminate one-sidedness. We have especially decided to report cases of inability to reach consensus on a given issue, because we are aware that we are not beyond the cultural contexts which formed the objects of our analysis.

The main result of our project will be a report on selected museums in Dresden, Warsaw, and St. Petersburg. In 2008, the report will be disseminated among educators, museologists, and scholars. We also plan to reach wider public by presenting our results in local media on the occasion of the anniversary of WWII. We hope that the project will contribute to a better mutual understanding of national and European history and identity.

Project step by step:

June, 15^th - 30^th 2007
Project begins. Each national sub-team works on a full list of exhibitions in one of the cities, prepares short summaries of their content, and suggests museums for further critical analysis.

July, 10^th - 30^th 2007 [click here]
Field research carried by all six members of the team in Dresden, Warsaw and St. Petersburg.
We collect visual materials (photos, films) and other documentation that will be used for the content analysis of particular exhibitions & report writing.

August - November 2007
Archiving of the collected material and individual analysis. Sub-teams proposals of a detailed outline of a final report's content. Group discussions via e-mails

Middle of December 2007 [click here]
Two days workshop at GSSR in Warsaw. Discussion and confirmation of the outline of the main part of the report, division of the work on report writing among the six team's members.

November 2007 - January 2008
Individual work on report writing

Begining of March 2008 [click here]
Two days workshop at GSSR in Warsaw. Discussions of the individual work.

February - April 2008
Further individual work on report writing, including recommendation for museums and educational program). Experts' consultations. Finalization of the report.

May 2008
Editing, language correction, proofreading of the final report, translating of its parts into national languages. Presentation of the project in the local media.

Until June 14th, 2008
The report is put on the website of GSSR. It is disseminated among museum staff and other interested parties (e.g. educators, journalists). Grant account.

Project Participants:

Zuzanna Bogumił:
(coordinator)
mitregaz(AT)wp.pl; zuzanna.bogumil(AT)sns.waw.pl



PhD student at GSSR. Works on the memory and representation of the Gulag. Carries out field research in Russia thanks to grant from the State Committee for Scientific Research - KBN.

Joanna Wawrzyniak:
(Polish representative)
wawrzyniakjoanna(AT)wp.pl



Finishes her PhD dissertation on Veterans & Second World War Memory in Polish People's Republic at the Institute of Sociology, Warsaw University.

Christian Ganzer:
(German representative)
christianganzer(AT)gmx.de

PhD student at Hamburg University. Works on museums of "Great Patriotic war" in Belarus. Studied history, European Anthropology, and East European Studies.

Tim Buchen:
(German representative)
timbuchen(AT)gmx.de



PhD student at Technische Universität Berlin. Works on Antisemitism in Austrian Galicia. M.A in History, German literature and East European studies at Humboldt University Berlin.

Anna Igorevna Lubivaya:
(Russian representative)
ann_ilspb(AT)mail.ru



PhD student at GSSR. Works on problems of representing Soviet history in Russian historical museums and reconstructing cultural memory in Post-Soviet Russia.

Maria Aleiksandrowna Senina:
(Russian representative)
Kirill.univer(AT)rambler.ru



Graduated in history, now making a post graduate course at the St. Petersburg University. Works at the Museum of the Political History of Russia in St. Petersburg.