Humans and Environment: "Environmental History as Eastern European Regional History from Industrialisation to Post-Socialism"

Conveners: Horst Förster (University of Tübingen), Martin Zückert (Collegium Carolinium), Julia Herzberg (RCC)

Conference Report – English (pdf, 428 KB)

Annual Conference of the Collegium Carolinum in cooperation with the Rachel Carson Center and the European Society for Environmental History:

A number of recent publications covering the history of Czechoslovakia and adjacent regions of Eastern Central Europe have included new perspectives on environmental history. There is however still a need for basic studies and research offering overviews and syntheses rooted in environmental history which address questions specific to Eastern Central Europe.

In view of the large spatial dimensions exhibited by natural forces when wielding influence and the fact that the repercussions of human behaviour on the environment know no borders, contemporary environmental historiography rightly points to the necessity of supra-regional and transnational perspectives. Yet in doing so, it is easy to lose sight of individual regions with their specific political, structural, and bio-geographical conditions. These factors remain important in order to fully understand the development of the relationship between humanity, nature and the environment in a particular region. We need to investigate the extent to which political developments, such as the establishment of the nation state model and—after 1945—imprinting through Socialist rule, affected the relationship between humans and nature. Conversely, there is the question as to whether this relationship is constitutive for historical regions such as Eastern Central Europe.

The Annual Conference of the Collegium Carolinum will pursue the question of how the consequences of high industrialization and accelerated social change during the 20th century were perceived, and which conclusions were drawn from these developments. This will involve integrating the analysis of long term developments, beginning with early industrialisation from approx. 1800. The year 1989 and its immediate consequences mark the limits of the period of inquiry in relation to the present. Structural influences, such as forms of land use, are to be considered. However, as with any investigation involving environmental phenomena, it is essential not to lose sight of long term developments unconnected to the selected political caesuras.

The goal of this conference is to investigate the causal interrelations between “humans and the environment/nature,” using the example of the Czech lands/Czechoslovakia, as well as studies of other regions of Eastern Central Europe.

Five key topics will guide this investigation into questions of environmental history. Examinations of land use and its consequences as well as spatial changes and their perception were central. There will be contributions from the fields of historiography, cultural studies, geography as well as art and literary history on the following questions:

1. Land use, changes and perceptions of the landscape

   Agricultural land use, housing developments and migrations, the excavation of resources and the alteration of river courses changed the human environment. In what way was this change negotiated, how was it evaluated? To what extent did it influence regional and national narratives or the actions of social groups?

2. Infrastructural development and its consequences

   Railway and road developments as well as other infrastructural changes altered their environment. Which actors succeeded in influencing the extension of the road and railway networks? Which desires were connected with these projects, and which consequences resulted? What course did negotiations with the population take under the prevailing political system? To what extent did political changes affect the development and use of land?

3. The nature conservation and environmental movement

   When and in which contexts does thinking about the “protection” of “nature” arise? What role do the individual actors, social groups and the state take? Which conservation models de-velop? In what way does cross-border cooperation occur? What role did the environmental movement play in the struggle against the regime during Socialism?

4. Nature and tourism

   In the wake of mass tourism, interest in “nature” comes up against questions of the preservation, alteration and destruction of “nature”. Which concepts of “nature” developed under the conditions of the respective political systems? To what extent did conflicts of interest occur in relation to land use? Do these conflicts reveal differing views of future or society?

5. Environmental history using examples from cartography, art and literature

   Spatial representations, such as those supplied by cartography, shape conceptions of space. To what extent and with which aims was the change and destruction of the landscape or newly emerging spatial borders appear represented in cartographical media? Art and literature can also enable experiences and transport perceptions. Do they reflect the destruction of or alterations in the environment?

For further information please contact:

Collegium Carolinum
z. Hd. Dr. Martin Zückert
Hochstr. 8
81669 München

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