Panel discussion
24 Jan 2026 · 12.45 pm

Imagined Pasts, Invented Traditions

Venue: Yerevan State University, 1 Alek Manukyan St, 0025 Yerevan, Armenia
Research project(s): Adjustment and Radicalisation

Panel discussion as part of the conference 3rd PoSoCoMeS – MSA Working Group conference at the Yerevan State University, 22–24 Jan 2026

  • Nina Weller (ZfL Berlin): ‘Like the Cossacks…’ Reactivation and Rewriting of a Myth in Ukrainian Popular Culture (1970s–2000s)
  • Matthias Schwartz (ZfL Berlin): Reimagining the Communist Past: Resentment and Escapism in Recent Eastern European Popular Culture
  • Indira Hajnács (GWZO Leipzig): Strengthening the Eastern Roots”: Reinventing Ancient Musical Traditions in Hungary
  • Aleksandra Szczepan (U Potsdam): Imagining the People, Remembering the Injustice: Peasants in Polish Popular Culture

Slavist Nina Weller is a research team member in the project Adjustment and Radicalisation. Dynamics in Popular Culture(s) in Pre-War Eastern Europe.

Slavist and historian Matthias Schwartz is deputy director of the ZfL and co-coordinator of the program area World Literature. He is head of the projects World Fiction, Post/Socialist. Eastern European Literatures and Cultures and Adjustment and Radicalisation. Dynamics in Popular Culture(s) in Pre-War Eastern Europe.