University of East London
Docklands Campus
University Way
London E16 2RD
Second Slavonic Symposium
28 April 2008
East Building, ground floor, Atrium room no 8.
9.30am-10.00am registration
teas and coffees
10.00am – 1.00pm presentations
1.00-2.00 pm lunch
2.00pm -6.00pm presentations
6.00pm-6.30 summary and discussion
6.30pm – 8.00pm – screening
8.00pm-9.00pm wince and refreshments
Detailed programme tbc.
Myths and Mythologies of Slavonic Nations:
how to deal with them today?
The aim of this symposium is to explore the construction of myths and mythologies
across Slavic nations, as well as Slavic minority groups and their host cultures. We are
particularly interested in discussing the role of myths in forging stereotypes which lead to the
creation of different forms of ethnic and national identity. We invite papers which analyse the
proliferation of such myths in private and public rituals, political discourses, media
representations, literature, historical sources, private narratives, institutional structures and
other areas of societal and political life.
In the common perception the term “Slavic” or “Slavonic” does not evoke any unified
meaning. Used as a linguistic cliché, it implies uncivilised and slothful behaviour, which was
allegedly typical of Slavic peoples (called also Slavs). In the past, the Slavic peoples, all
speaking the same language derived from the common Indo-European origin, gained
significant recognition in Europe and Asia. Slavs grew in strength in the 6th century AD, and
then further as part of a large Slavic empire under the leadership of Moravia in the 9th
century. The Pan-Slavic Romantic movement, fuelled by an anti-German sentiment,
developed between the 17th and the 19th centuries. It aroused nationalistic ambitions among
those who saw the Slavic ethnicity as a potential weapon against the West. The movement
was considerably weakened around the time of the First World War. Its aspirations were
ultimately abandoned after the fall of communism in 1989.
The obvious failure of the unification projects in the former Czechoslovakia and
Yugoslavia demonstrated the limitations of such an overarching Slavic mythology which
tried to impose homogeneity at the cost of ignoring deeply rooted differences among various
ethnic groups. Also, it is important to remember that the Slavs are not ‘ethnically pure’:
through centuries the Slavic nations assimilated other groups, such as the Greeks and the
Illyrians in the Western Balkans. They have also provided to the populations of Hungary,
Romania, Austria and Eastern parts of Germany, and have themselves become integrated into
others. The contemporary Slavic people are associated with a wide variety of ethnic
backgrounds, reflecting the complexity of geopolitical and ethnographic processes taking
place in Europe. The traditional identification of Slavs on the basis of their shared linguistic
heritage encompasses West Slavic peoples (the Czechs, the Poles and the Slovaks), East
Slavic peoples (the Belarusians, the Great Russians and the Ukrainians) and South Slavic
peoples (the Serbs, the Bulgarians, the Croats, the Macedonians, the Montenegrins and the
Bosniaks).
Within those groups, there are four main religious formations - Eastern Orthodox,
Greek and Roman Catholic, Protestant, and Muslim - which link the Slavs with many nonSlavic groups in Europe and Asia. For example, Slavic Muslims constitute a significant part
of the demographic majority in Bulgaria and Macedonia, but also live as minorities in nonSlavic countries, such as Greece and Turkey. Consequently, political mapping does not neatly
correspond to ethnic mapping, despite recent efforts from Brussels to create a multinational
European unity, a project which is in many ways reminiscent of the pan-Slavic mythology of
unification.
Even though ethnicity cannot be identified as a homogenous entity, it often adopts
such a unifying guise and feeds into the idea of nation-building with numerous myths, rituals,
beliefs, histories and cultures. The Slavic ethnicity, with its deep internal differentiation and
quasi-mythological origins, has underpinned the formation of Eastern, Central and Southern
European countries which have been struggling with their own internal problems, their
inferiority complex and their anxiety over their lack of representation in the eyes of the West.
The current perception of the Slavic nations in the West continues to be framed by the
political and media discourse of “developing Europe” – a discourse that is in itself not that
different from the image of the mythical “Slav”. As a result, the political and symbolic gap
between the civilised and the savage, the global and the local, the rich and the poor is firmly
maintained. At the same time, the way the Slavic nations frequently approach their own
myths and their confrontation with notions such as liberalism, racism, anti-Catholicism,
Jewishness, xenophobia and on the one hand, and hospitality, generosity, patriotism and
paternalism on the other, reveal that their own self-identity and their international relations
are characterised by conflict.
The aim of the symposium is to interrogate the constitution and perpetuation of
various Slavic myths, both within the Slavic countries themselves and internationally. It is
also to consider the emergence of a more hospitable and dialogic relation between ‘the Slavs’
and ‘the West’.
To submit an abstract or book a place,
m.rabikowska@uel.ac.uk mobile: 07759612066
please
contact
Marta
Rabikowska: