AXE 1 - Heritage and legacies

Responsible: Catherine Servant (CREE)

The "Patrimoines et héritages" axis proposes crossed and complementary approaches to cultural heritages and pursues a reflection on their patrimonial dimension. It combines popular and learned cultures in both their tangible and intangible dimensions. History, cultural history, architecture and literature form its disciplinary pillars.
This axis was built in part on the achievements of two projects from the previous five-year period - Theme A. Nation, nationalities, national issues -, whose approaches and objects it also renews.

  • Project 1.1 takes up several research achievements from the years 2014-2018, the fruit of a well-engaged reflection on the press-nation(s) articulation in the 19th and 20th centuries, by proposing a theme specifically devoted to the press text in Medieval Europe.
  • Similarly, project 1.2 extends a research around heritage in post-Soviet spaces amply marked out during the previous research contract, enriching it with new research directions.
  • Project 1.3 introduces a more specifically literary and contemporary treatment of twentieth-century - and earlier - legacies, proposing to study the "non-nostalgic treatment" of the past in the contemporary European novel.
  • Project 1.4 focuses on a less-studied cultural heritage for medieval Europe, that of board games, whose history, evolution and symbolism will be explored over time, and which will be studied in conjunction with literary creation.
  • Project 1.5 concerns publishers and the international circulation of publications since 1990. It may be considered in collaboration with projects 6.1 and 6.2 of axis 6.

The researchers involved in this axis, who are usually themselves associated with other research projects in the present program, will naturally act as junction points between these projects and certain themes integrated into other axes. For example, the project on "Non-nostalgic treatment of the past in the contemporary European novel" and project 6.2 "Thinking differently about literary history" are likely to be closely related, or even combine. 

Projects:

  • Project 1.1. L'Europe médiane dans l'espace francophone à travers le texte de presse: corpus, circulations, représentations (Nicolas Pitsos, Catherine Servant)
  • Projet 1.2. Heritage in post-Soviet spaces (Julie Deschepper, Taline Ter Minassian, Sophie Hohmann)
  • Project 1.3. The "non-nostalgic" treatment of the past in the contemporary European novel (Piotr Bilos)
  • Project 1.4. Literature and board games in medieval Europe (András Kanyadi, Piotr Bilos)
  • Project 1.5. Publishers and the international circulation of publications since 1990 (Anne Madelain)

Project 1.1. L'Europe médiane dans l'espace francophone à travers le texte de presse : corpus, circulations, représentations (du XIXe au milieu du XXe siècle)

Responsables : Catherine Servant (CREE) and Nicolas Pitsos (CREE)

As a constituent element in the construction of knowledge about the here and elsewhere, a relay for the dissemination of knowledge or a vehicle for the promotion of political, economic and cultural interests, the press is likely to help us better reconstruct the social and cultural diversity of the societies concerned, while informing us about processes of import/export of images and perceptions of self and other. A special place is occupied within this corpus by the allophone press, in other words, newspapers and periodicals published in languages other than those established/recognized as official and/or minority in the space where they see the light of day.

By taking as its chronological horizon a "very long nineteenth century" deployed up to the interwar period, this project aims first and foremost to establish a corpus, with a double objective significant of the circulatory dynamics at work in the press:
- On the one hand, the aim is to identify and list newspapers and periodicals written in a Middle European language and published in French-speaking European countries;
- On the other, to identify and list the presence of Middle Europe in the French-speaking press at different scales (articles, news, reviews, simple echoes).
In addition, it should be noted that this inventory also pursues a conservation objective, as many of the media concerned are today in a more or less advanced state of deterioration.

Among the research directions made possible by the establishment of this corpus, we should first mention an informative and prosopographical survey of the presence of Medieval Europe in the French-speaking world through press texts, aimed at building a database: types of publications, the people who initiated them or acted as mediators, the networks that carried them, inter-review relations, information on readership. Then, analysis of the content of these publications will lead to a series of questions: the role of these organs in the general movement of people and ideas, the cultural transfers to which they gave rise, the mixed identities that emerged from them, the strategies of their actors in promoting ideological and aesthetic prerogatives, the construction of knowledge, "cultural diplomacy", the re-production of stereotyped images both of the nations and then states of medieval Europe and of European French-speaking countries.

Researchers associated with the project: Étienne Boisserie (CREE), Joëlle Dalègre (CREE), Iryna Dmytrychyn (CREE), Bénédicte Deschamps (Université Paris-Diderot / Transfopress), Diane Cooper-Richet (CHCSC, Université de Versailles St-Quentin-en-Yvelines / Transfopress), Cécile Folschweiller (CREE), Bernard Lory (CREE), Alisa Menshykova (PhD student, UMR CERCEC-EHESS), Stéphanie Prévost (Université Paris-Diderot), Isabelle Richet (Université Paris-Diderot / Transfopress), Pierre Sintès (TELEMMe, Université d'Aix-Marseille), Ilona Sinzelle-Poňavičová (PhD student CREE).

Main collaborations: Transfopress network (Transnational network for the study of the press in foreign languages), Centre d'histoire culturelle des sociétés contemporaines (CHCSC) of the Université Versailles St-Quentin, GDR "Connaissance de l'Europe médiane" (CNRS no. 3607), UMR Eur'Orbem, Czech Academy of Sciences (Literary Institute).

Planned research operations:

  • a doctoral and research seminar;
  • an international colloquium sanctioned by a publication;
  • organization of round tables in collaboration with French cultural centers in Medieval European countries and cultural centers of Medieval European countries in France, with the aim of disseminating the results of the research work carried out as part of the project;
  • initiation of a database accessible via a website.

Key words:interdisciplinary and transnational theme; literature and history; cultural history; mediations and cultural transfers; import and export of knowledge between France (la francophonie) and medieval Europe; 19th century and interwar period; cultural diplomacy.

Project 1.2. Heritage in post-Soviet spaces

Responsibles: Julie Deschepper (CREE), Taline Ter Minassian (CREE), Sophie Hohmann (CREE)

1.2.1. Patrimoines et politiques mémorielles

Adjacent to the Inalco M2 seminar, this line of research is proposed in partnership with Université Paris-Diderot, master Ville, Architecture, Patrimoine. A partnership path has been mapped out (Sophie Coeuré, Paris-Diderot) along the lines already tested over several years. This sub-area integrates all research relating to the history, politics, sociology, economics and anthropology of heritage in different geographical areas, including its natural and environmental component.

1.2.2. Soviet, Russian and neo-Russian heritage in Paris

We intend to explore several avenues of research in this (already marked out) field, focusing on the history and current status of Russian heritage in Paris. These include neo-Russian heritage (the Paris Orthodox Spiritual Center) in its architectural and political dimensions (Russian soft power). We also have in mind Russian heritage in the Paris metro (artistic exchange policy between the Paris metro and the Moscow metro). This study project will be extended in sub-area III, as the Soviet heritage of the Moscow metro is a Soviet heritage object in its own right. We will attempt an analysis of the restorations carried out in certain Moscow stations by mobilizing, in addition to the history of art and architecture, other disciplines, in particular the anthropology of heritage.

1.2.3. Architecture and heritage in post-Soviet states: from patrimonialization to "depatrimonialization"

In addition to the history, sociology and economics of heritage, we will experiment with new approaches to the Soviet terrain, including archaeology in extreme environments (glacial archaeology, permafrost etc.). [example of the Ostachkov monastery on Lake Seliger: place of confinement for some of the Polish officers murdered in 1940 as part of the "Katyn massacres"]

Researchers associated with the project: Sophie Coeuré (Université Paris-Diderot), Delphine Betchel (Sorbonne Université), François Gentili (INRAP), William Van Andringa (Université Lille-III), Claire Thouvenot (HAR), Louisa Martin Chevalier (MUSIDANSE), Emeric Tellier (IHS).

Main collaborations: Université Paris-Diderot, Sorbonne Université, INRAP, EHESS, Université Lille-III, Université Paris-VIII, Nanterre Université, LabEx H2H, IHS, Musée d'archéologie du Val d'Oise.

Proposed research operations:

  • Post-Soviet States Observatory breakfasts;
  • Research seminars: Taline Ter Minassian "Patrimoines et politiques mémorielles".Julie Deschepper: research seminar specializing in heritage in socialist and post-Soviet states. Taline Ter Minassian and Sophie Hohmmann: seminar and research in the post-Soviet field. Julie Deschepper, Claire Thouvenot, Louisa Martin Chevalier: "Les avant-gardes artistiques soviétiques et contemporaines") ;
  • Publications: Publication of the proceedings of the symposium "Peut-on écrire une histoire française du patrimoine soviétique?" with Presses Universitaires de Rennes. Catalog of the exhibition "La naissance d'un patrimoine soviétique en France" held in the Galerie de l'Inalco.Publication and translation into Russian and Armenian of Taline TER MINASSIAN's L'Architecture au Goulag, Norilsk, Histoire caucasienne d'une ville polaire soviétique (Editions B2). Complete urban monograph on Norilsk: "Norilsk, cité du nickel et du palladium" by Taline TER MINASSIAN and Sophie HOHMANN. Publication of a collection of previously unpublished texts on avant-garde music and architecture. With Louisa Martin Chevalier and Claire Thouvenot.

Key words: post-Soviet spaces; transnational history; Soviet heritage; heritage studies, patrimonialization; Norilsk; Soviet heritage in France; city, urbanism; architecture, archaeology.
 

1.2.4. Patrimonialization of nature and construction of territories: the case of the Volga

Nature protection policies in the Soviet Union underwent a turning point in the 1960s and 1970s with the affirmation of the heritage dimension of landscapes and ecosystems. The aim is to examine this development, which was accompanied by a revival of Russian national sentiment and regional identities at the end of the Soviet period and in the final years of the twentieth century, using both a historical and anthropological approach. 

Main collaborations: EHESS, University of Tver

Project 1.3. The "non-nostalgic" treatment of the past in the arts in Central Europe and elsewhere

Responsible: Piotr Bilos (CREE)

In his autobiographical novels, Karl Ove Knausgaard asserts: "In any case, we cannot go back, what we have done is irreparable, and looking back, it is not life we see but death." On a seemingly opposite level, Søren Kierkegaard had given a philosophical dimension to the notion of "taking back" a past event, once experienced and now taken back, which he distinguishes from hope (turned towards an as yet undecided future) and ressouvenir, which consists of an attempt to restore to life what proves inescapably outdated.
While the rhythms of social and political transformation and those of literary life do not overlap, the fact remains that structural transformations as important as those that occurred in the former Eastern European countries, formerly situated in the orbit of the USSR, but also - by virtue of the structural ripple effect generated - in the whole of Europe, which is seeing its architecture reconfigured, have had a major impact on the literary field, both in Central and Western Europe. With this in mind, our research will examine the development of European literature as influenced by the "shock of 1989" and the process of transformation in Central and Eastern Europe, regardless of the diversity of local and specific situations. 
What does "non-nostalgic treatment" of the past mean? At the time of the division of Europe and the Iron Curtain, the nostalgic approach may have aroused many vocations. But what of the relationship with the past at a time when Europe is freeing itself from the diktat of foreign powers, and socio-political life is subject to free determination? We are interested in highlighting the different modes of non-nostalgic treatment, starting with the critical attitude which, even when it speaks of past defeats, proposes to draw lessons from them. But it can be much more than this, for example the attempt to (re)read the past beyond the schematism of a binary vision distinguishing the positive (past) opposed to the negative (present). We'll be looking at how the "retro" trend towards the Communist period, as seen in the cinema in particular (some call it "retromania"), differs from a merely nostalgic approach. More broadly, we'll be asking what Europe's aims are when it summons the past to the stage of its representations. It will also ask what filters, relays and formal mediators the authors use to give their representations a fictional, aesthetic and philosophical aspect of artistic invention. 

Researchers associated with the project: Justyna Hanna Budzik (Department of Film and Media Studies, University of Silesia in Katowice), Iryna Dmytrychyn (CREE), Agnieszka Kaczmarek, (Institute of Cultural Studies at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań), András Kanyadi (CREE), Charlotte Krauss (Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, St. Petersburg State University), Hélène Martinelli (Department of Letters and Arts, Institut d'histoire des représentations et des idées dans les modernités, ENS de Lyon), Guillaume Métayer (CELLF, CNRS-Paris-Sorbonne), Marzena Karwowska (Department of Polish Literature of the 20th and 21st Centuries, University of Łódź), Jakub Kornhauser (Center for Studies on the Avant-Garde, University of Krakow) Tomasz Wójcik (Department of Twentieth-Century Literary Studies, University of Warsaw).

Main collaborations: Central European cultural institutes in Paris (Czech, Polish, Hungarian, Austrian), Maison de l'Europe (Paris), Centre d'Études sur les cultures de la mémoire de Cracovie, Conseil régional d'Île-de-France, Mairie du XIIIe arrondissement de Paris, BNF, CNL, Actes Sud, Polish Academy of Sciences (PAN).
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Research operations planned:

  • An international colloquium;
  • Organization of round tables in collaboration with cultural institutes of Central European countries and others in Paris with the aim of disseminating work and setting up an active network of reflection in France around these issues;
  • Creation of a website.

Key words:Interdisciplinary and transnational theme; Literature and history; contemporaneity; constitution of the subject; paradigm shift; "long time"; "republic of letters".
 

Project 1.4. Literature and board games in medieval Europe

Responsible for: András Kanyadi (CREE), Piotr Bilos (CREE) 

Between agôn and aléa, board games have always fascinated the imagination, and continue to fuel literary and artistic creation. If artistic representations of tarot and chess are world-famous today, it's mainly thanks to authors from the Western canon. However, medieval Europe has also greatly enriched this universal heritage. 
Open to specialists in literature and civilization, our project seeks to study the various forms of articulation of board games in this vast cultural space stretching from the Baltic to the Balkans. From the modern era to the present day, we'll be exploring the history, evolution and symbolism of chess, cards and board games in the various "median" cultures taught at Inalco. The protean representational power of these games - cosmological, political, military, erotic - is an inexhaustible source for literature, so we'll need to look at the many narratological, stylistic, rhetorical, mythocritical and intertextual aspects developed over time through a wide range of generics. Cultural studies, in particular their cross-disciplinary and transmedia approach, and the history of ideas will play a key role in the research. It could also be interesting to study how literary works are extended in the form of board games, particularly in a world where the dissemination of forms has taken on an industrial dimension. Can the artistic and philosophical stakes be safeguarded in relation to the more directly playful ones? In addition to thematic colloquia and the consolidation of a network of international researchers, the project's main objective is to publish two anthologies of short stories translated into French, enabling the circulation of these texts throughout the French-speaking world.

Researchers associated with the project: Jacques Berchtold (Bodmer Foundation), Matteo Colombi (GWZO), Emese Egyed (Babeș-Bolyai University of Cluj), Sándor Kálai (University of Debrecen), Stephan Krause (GWZO), Aleksandra Mochocka (Casimir the Great University of Bydgoszcz), Guillaume Métayer (CNRS), Andrea Seidler (University of Vienna), Zoltán Z. Varga (Hungarian Academy of Sciences).

Main collaborations: Leibniz-Institut für Geschichte und Kultur des östlichen Europa (GWZO, Leipzig), Hungarian Academy of Sciences (Literary Institute), Institut für Europäische und Vergleichende Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaft (EVSL, University of Vienna), Babeș-Bolyai University, University of Debrecen, Polish Academy of Sciences, Polish Institute of Paris.

Proposed research operations:

  • Three international thematic colloquia with publication;
  • A Master 1-2 seminar;
  • Two short story anthologies bringing together a corpus from the seventeen languages taught in our ECO department.

Key words: cultural studies; thematology; Medieval Europe; comparative literature; history of ideas; interdisciplinary and transnational themes.

Project 1.5. Publishers and the international circulation of publications since 1990

Responsible: Anne Madelain (CREE)

Publishing as a process for producing and disseminating works and knowledge has undergone profound change since the early 1990s with the computer and digital revolution, which has affected practices as much as legitimating bodies and the sector's economy. In Central Europe, this change coincided with the collapse of the Communist regimes and the complete reorganization of the publishing sector away from state control. The project will have two strands:

1.5.1. Le monde de l'édition dans les espaces postsocialistes contemporains

Commenced in 2018 as part of the Pavle Savić PHC(Sorbonne Universités/Institut d'études politiques de Belgrade), this first component is organized around a survey of the professional book world in the successor states of Yugoslavia, the aim of which is to analyze developments after the breakup of the federation (1991) and to place them within a sociohistory of the cultural field. This project aims to initiate a comparative and collective work with researchers working on these objects in other post-socialist spaces (in particular the post-Soviet and post-Czechoslovak space) and territories that have gone through comparable mutations at certain points, such as the Arab world.

1.5.2. Éditer des traductions en sciences humaines et sociales

The second part of the project follows on from the research seminar conducted between 2016 and 2019 at EHESS "Penser en plusieurs langues. Publishing translations in the humanities and social sciences today". The aim is to lead a collective and comparative reflection on the publishing of translations in the humanities and social sciences, involving specialist researchers from different cultural areas, scientific publishers and translators. Starting from the idea that translation is a producer of knowledge, we question the influence of translation on the emergence of new knowledge and on the revision of existing knowledge.
In both components, the aim is to feed the more general analysis through the entry of medieval Europe and post-socialist contexts. This part of the project will be in dialogue with axis 6 of CREE's four-year program.

Associated researchers:
Marc Aymes (CETOBaC, EHESS-CNRS), Daniel Baric (Eur'Orbem, Sorbonne université), Ivan Čolović(Biblioteka XX vek), Franziska Humphreys (Centre Georges Simmel, EHESS), Catherine Horel (SIRICE, CNRS), Claire Madl (CEFRES), Bella Ostromooukhova(Eur'Orbem, Sorbonne université), Séverine Sofio (Transiens project, Biens symboliques journal), Nisrine al-Zahre (CeSor, EHESS).
Main institutional partners EHESS (CETOBaC, CERCEC, Centre Georges Simmel et Editions), Sorbonne université and Institut d'études politiques de Belgrade (Partenariat Hubert Curien PHC Pavle Savic), Université de Vincennes (Transiens project), GDR connaissance de l'Europe médiane (CNRS n° 3607), Kulturtreger (Zagreb), CEFRES (Prague), Bureau international de l'édition française, BULAC.

Expected outputs:
- a GDR Europe médiane workshop (February 2020)
- an international colloquium "Penser en plusieurs langues. Éditer des traductions en sciences humaines et sociales" in 2020 leading to a publication
- an international study day with a view to setting up a research network on publishing in post-socialist countries (2021)
- a collective volume on publishing in post-socialist spaces
- several articles in journals and collective volumes 
- several round tables in partnership with BULAC
- invitations to players in the book world as part of research seminars at INALCO and EHESS.

Key words:
Translation, publishing, circulation, cultural transfers, languages and social sciences, professional book world, post-Yugoslavian space, post-socialist space