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Annual program of the Europe-Eurasia Axis Seminar
The question of relations between Russia and Europe is a long-standing one, and since the 18th century has challenged European elites about the eastern limits of the European continent and Europe's very identity and its relationship to ideas of power, progress and civilization. Nevertheless, the 20th century ushered in new divisions and redefined the continent's spaces in the wake of the October Revolution and the two world wars, transforming national borders into regime borders, opposing capitalist and communist models and worlds.
In a context in which the Russian invasion of Ukraine since 2014 violently raises the question of the redefinition of borders within the European continent, in a similar temporality, the multiplication of civilizational narratives and their instrumentalization appears to be a major fact of the post-Soviet period. The notions of transition to democracy, Europeanization, the "near abroad" and the "civilization of civilizations" are particularly relevant to the question of how new narratives have been ordering societies and the world, integrating and excluding in Europe and Eurasia in a variety of contexts (the Baltic States, Medieval Europe, the Caucasus, Western Europe, Ukraine and Russia) since the collapse of the USSR in 1991.
Within the Europe-Eurasia axis of the DÉCRIPT program (WP-7) dedicated to the study of Crises and cIvilizational Narratives through Pluridisciplinarity and Terrains, this seminar cycle aims to interrogate the singularity of productions, circulations and receptions of these civilizational concepts and narratives in a region marked by a shared past of multinational empires, socialist experimentation and sometimes difficult integration into the liberal international order.
Without limiting itself to a geopolitical or international relations approach, this cycle of research seminars aims to reflect the multiplicity of possible approaches, theories and terrains for the study of civilizational narratives and their instrumentalizations in Europe and Eurasia. It is freely accessible and can be taken face-to-face or by distance learning.
Seminar organization: Étienne Boisserie (Inalco), Frédéric Gloriant (ENS-PSL), Jérôme Heurtaux (Dauphine-PSL), Emilia Koustova (Université de Strasbourg), Pierre-Louis Six (Inalco), Julien Vercueil (Inalco)
Contact: View e-mail
Session 1: Civilizationism reconsidered: Exploring the Civilizational Turn in Politics in Europe-Eurasia
Speaker: Marlène Laruelle (Research Professor of International Affairs and Political Science, Director of the Illiberalism Studies Program, The Georges Washington University, Washington, DC)
Date: Friday, October 10, 2025
Location: Inalco (65 rue des Grands-Moulins, 75013 Paris)
Past event.
Session 2: Round table: Questioning civilizational narratives in times of war in Ukraine
Speakers: Anna Colin Lebedev (Université Paris Nanterre) and Alexandra Goujon (Université de Bourgogne)
Date: November 7, 2025 - 10:30am-12:30pm
Location: Maison de la recherche de l'Inalco
Past event.
Session 3: The pluralism of social frameworks of memory in Ukraine in the face of war
Speakers:Mischa Gabowitsch (University of Mainz) and Mykola Homanyuk (Kherson State University)
Date: February 12, 2026 - 4:00-6:00 pm
Location: Université de Strasbourg, Salle Ourisson, Institut Le Bel, Campus de l'Esplanade.
Session 4: Languages, Literatures and Civilizations
Speakers: Victoire Feuillebois (Université de Strasbourg) and Ilya Guerassimov (Ab Imperio)
Date: April 10, 2026 - 10:30am-12:30pm
Location: Inalco - room 3.11 (65 rue des Grands-Moulins, 75013 Paris)
Session 5: Modernizations, transitions and civilizations
Speakers: Vladimir Guelman (University of Helsinki) / Anne Madelain (Inalco) / Jana Vargovcikova (Inalco)
Dates: June 4-5, 2026
Locations: Université de Strasbourg (June 4) and Inalco (Maison de la recherche - Amphithéâtre Dumézil) (June 5) - 4:00pm-6:30pm.