Course detail

Historical Public Policy in CEE Cities

FA-HPP-ZEAcad. year: 2025/2026

This course examines notions, arguments and agendas, inherent in the main paradigms of historical public policy. Course’s central conceptual theme is how the urban cultural landscape is modified under the influence of the national historical narrative and discursive strategies of various communities. The Central-Eastern Europe region will be taken as the basis, where frequent changes of political regimes and historical paradigms took place, which created a complex landscape with many conflict lines.

Language of instruction

English

Number of ECTS credits

3

Mode of study

Not applicable.

Guarantor

Dr. Aliaksei Lastouski

Department

European Humanities University ()

Aims

  • Acquaintance with the main contemporary conceptions and principles of historical public policy in city landscapes.
  • Skills to identify and analyse complex problems and their expression in symbolical landscapes across diverse urban contexts.
  • Course seminars incentivize students to identify stakeholders and collaborators relevant to landscape policymaking as well as develop strategies for collaborative landscape governing, to design and appraise historical public policy utilizing qualitative and quantitative methods and principles of historical dialogue.

Rules for evaluation and completion of the course

  • Oral examination (25%, at the examination session)
  • Individual semester paper (50%, at the end of the course)
  • Individual oral presentation (25%, right after the presentation)

Study aids

Not applicable.

Prerequisites and corequisites

Not applicable.

Basic literature

Azaryahu, Maoz. 1996. “The Power of Commemorative Street Names”. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 14(3), pp. 311–330. (EN)
Bernhard, Michael and Kubik, Jan (eds.). 2014. Twenty Years after Communism: The Politics of Memory and Commemoration. Oxford: Oxford University Press. (EN)
Burneika, Donatas. 2008. “Post-soviet transformations of urban space in Vilnius”. Geografijos metraštis [Annales Geographicae. Geographical Yearbook]. 2008, 41(1-2), pp. 14-2. (EN)
Czaplicka, John; Gelazis, Nida and Ruble, Blair A., eds. 2009. Cities After the Fall of Communism: Reshaping Cultural Landscapes and European Identity. Washington, DC, Baltimore: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, Johns Hopkins University Press. (EN)
Czepczynski, Mariusz. 2008. Cultural Landscapes of Post-Socialist Cities: Representation of Powers and Needs. Aldershot: Ashgate. (EN)
Dujisin, Zoltan. 2021. “A history of post-communist remembrance: from memory politics to the emergence of a field of anticommunism”. Theory and Society, 50, 65–96. (EN)
Forest, Benjamin and Johnson, Juliet. “Monumental Politics: Regime Type and Public Memory in Post-Communist States”, Post-Soviet Affairs, 2011, 27, 3, pp. 269–288. (EN)
Gillis, John R., ed. 1994. Commemorations, The Politics of National Identity. Princeton: Princeton University Press. (EN)
Halecki, Oskar. 1944. “The Historical Role of Central-Eastern Europe”. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 232(1), 9–18. (EN)
Hayden, Dolores. 1995. The Power of Place: Urban Landscapes as Public History. MIT Press. (EN)
Hoelscher Steven and Alderman, Derek. 2004. “Memory and place: geographies of a critical relationship”. Social & Cultural Geography. Pp. 347-355. (EN)
Hurley, Andrew. 2010. Beyond Preservation: Using Public History to Revitalize Inner Cities. Temple University Press. (EN)
Kohlrausch, Martin. 2019. Brokers of Modernity: East Central Europe and the Rise of Modernist Architects, 1910–1950. Leuven: Leuven University Press. (EN)
Levinson, Sanford. 2018. Written in Stone. Public Monuments in Changing Societies. Durham and London: Duke University Press. (EN)
Mikailienė, Živilė. 2010. “Soviet Vilnius: ideology and the formation of identity”. Lithuanian historical studies. Vol. 15, pp. 171-189. (EN)
Miller, Alexei and Lippman, Maria. 2012. The Convolutions of Historical Politics. Budapest: Cental European University Press. (EN)
Mink, Georges and Meumayer, Laure. 2013. History, Memory and Politics in East Central Europe. Memory Games. Palgrave Macmillan. (EN)
Moskalewicz, Marcin and Przybylski, Wojciech. 2019. Understanding Central Europe. Routledge. (Part III “Nationalism”) (EN)
Mrozik, Agnieszka and Holubec, Stanislav (eds.). 2018. Historical Memory of Central and Eastern European Communism. London: Taylor and Francis. (EN)
Pakier, Małgorzata and Wawrzyniak, Joanna (eds.). 2015. Memory and Change in Europe. Eastern Perspectives. New York and Oxford: Beghahn. (EN)
Palonen, Emilia. 2008. “The city-text in post-communist Budapest: street names, memorials, and the politics of commemoration”. GeoJournal 73, pp. 219–230. (EN)
Short J. R. 1996. The Urban Order. An Introduction to Cities, Culture and Power. Cambridge and Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. (EN)
Schöpflin, George. 2000. Nations, Identity, Power; The New Politics of Europe, London: Hurst. (EN)
Stanilov, Kiril (ed.). 2007. The Post-Socialist City: Urban Form and Space Transformations in Central and Eastern Europe after Socialism. Dordrecht: Springer. (EN)
Wandycz, Piotr S. The Price of Freedom. A History of East Central Europe from the Middle Ages to the Present. London and New York: Routledge, 2001. (EN)

Recommended reading

Gardner, James B. and Hamilton, Paula. 2017. The Oxford Handbook of Public History. Oxford University Press. (EN)
Hatherley, Owen. Landscapes of Communism. London:Penguin. (EN)
Sayer, Faye. 2015. Public History: A Practical Guide. Bloomsbury. (EN)

Classification of course in study plans

  • Programme NE_INUS Master's 1 year of study, summer semester, compulsory

Type of course unit

 

Seminar

12 hod., compulsory

Teacher / Lecturer

Dr. Aliaksei Lastouski

Syllabus

1) Cultural Landscapes [1 hour]
3) Historical Narratives, Politics and Modernization [1 hour]
4) Stakeholders and Communities in Public History [1 hour]
5) Monuments in City Landscape [1 hour]
6) Street Names as a Tool of Landscape Change [1 hour]
7) City Landscape as a Battlefield of Old and New Architecture [1 hour]
8) Communist Heritage in Post-Communist Countries [2 hours]
9) Dilemmas of Europeization and Nation-Building [2 hours]
10) Vilnius Landscape Challenges  in Early 21st Century [2 hours]

Lecture

4 hod., optionally

Teacher / Lecturer

Dr. Aliaksei Lastouski

Syllabus

2) Central Eastern Europe as Region [2 hours]
3) Historical Narratives, Politics and Modernization [1 hour]
4) Stakeholders and Communities in Public History [1 hour]