International online conference, 27 – 28 May 2021

Antifascism as one of the core values on which the political identity of post-war Europe was built on was a frequent topic of academic research, while after 1989 this paradigm conspicuously withdrew into the background, prompting some historians to declare a “crisis of antifascism”. However, over the past decade, we have witnessed a renewed and growing interest in research into antifascism, particularly its political, social and cultural characteristics in different, though interconnected, European environments, highlighted with approaches of transnational history. The conference follows contemporary academic debates, as well as delves deeper into antifascism and examining the selected cases more in detail.

The conference examines the antifascist network of relationships from its very beginning after the First World War until the present. It is focused on transnational entanglements of antifascist movements, as well as on the formation of collective memories and the political uses of antifascism after the Second World War. One of the focuses is the role of

antifascism in border regions, such as the former Julian March (Venezia Giulia/Julijska krajina), a multiethnic northern Adriatic region, where debates on fascism and antifascism still play a crucial role in present-day discussions on the history and memory of the region and its population.

Considering new sources and research perspectives, the goal of the conference is to launch a broad academic debate that provides novel insights into the following issues:

  • ideological, political, social and national premises of antifascism in different European environments;
  • different practices of antifascist engagement from theoretical, political, intelligence and artistic activities to organized armed resistance in a comparative perspective;
  • transnational interactions, cross-fertilizations, and cooperation of antifascist groups, organizations, parties, and individuals;
  • women’s emancipation within the antifascist movement;
  • formation of collective memories of antifascism after the Second World War.

The conference is organised within the framework of the research project J6-9356 Antifascism in the Julian March in a Transnational Perspective, 1919–1954 and the research programme P6-0272 Mediterranean and Slovenia, co-financed by the Slovenian Research Agency.

 

Programme Committee

Jože PIRJEVEC

Egon PELIKAN

Borut KLABJAN

Mateja REŽEK

SCIENCE AND RESEARCH CENTRE KOPER

Institute for Historical Studies

ZNANSTVENO-RAZISKOVALNO SREDIŠČE KOPER

Inštitut za zgodovinske študije

THURSDAY, 27th May

 

9:10–9:15 (CEST)

Online meet-and-greet

9:15–9:30 (CEST)

Opening remarks

Rado Pišot, Director of the Science and Research Centre

Egon Pelikan, Head of the Institute for Historical Studies 

9:30–11:00 (CEST)

Chair: Mateja Režek (Science and Research Centre Koper)

Jože Pirjevec (Science and Research Centre Koper): Hate Speech in the Eastern Adriatic Area from Irredentism to Fascism

Vesna Mikolič (Science and Research Centre Koper & University of Trieste): The Discourse of the Slovenian Community in Italy in Response to Fascist Measures

Kasper Braskén (Åbo Akademi University, Turku): A Dire Warning to All Ethnic Minorities of Europe? Transnational Responses against Italian Fascism in the Swedish-Speaking Minority in Finland

Discussion

11:30–13:30 (CEST)

Chair: Ana Cergol Paradiž (University of Ljubljana)

Egon Pelikan (Science and Research Centre Koper): Anti-fascism of Slovenian and Croatian Clergy in the Julian March during the Interwar Period – a View from the Vatican

Jesper Jørgensen (The Workers’ Museum & The Labor Movement’s Library and Archive, Copenhagen): Against Fascism and in Defense of the USSR: Transnational Antifascism in a Danish perspective 1933–1938

Marta Verginella (University of Ljubljana): Persevering on the Ramparts of the Nation. Anti-fascism of Educated Women, Feminists and Activists in the Littoral in the 1920s

Gorazd Bajc (University of Maribor): Were Women only a Support to Men, Who Acted against Italian Fascism? Women Engagement within the Anti-fascist Organization TIGR

Discussion

15:00–16:30 (CEST)

Chair: Nancy Wingfield (Northern Illinois University)

Sabrina P. Ramet (Norwegian University of Science and Technology & Science and Research Centre Koper): The Anti-Fascism of Hans & Sophie Scholl: Intellectual Sources of the White Rose

Klaus Tragbar (University of Innsbruck): From the Bauhaus to Buchenwald and to Berlin. Anti-fascism and Career in the Life of Franz Ehrlich

Thomas Porena (Humboldt University of Berlin): Oskar Juranić. A Biography of an Anti-fascist “Traitor”

Discussion


 

FRIDAY, 28th May

 

10:00–12:00 (CEST)

Chair: Milan Radošević (Institute for Historical and Social Sciences HAZU, Rijeka/Pula)

Borut Klabjan (Science and Research Centre Koper): Antifascism in Stone. Memory Activism and Slovene Antifascist Resistance in the 1930s

Bojan Godeša (Institute of Contemporary History, Ljubljana): The Bazovica Partisan Brigade – a Symbolic Continuity between Pre-war Antifascist Tradition and Liberation Struggle in Slovenian Littoral

Stéfanie Prezioso (University of Lausanne): Antifascism in a Transnational Perspective: History, Memory and Public Use of Giustizia e Libertà and Partito d’Azione in post-World War II Italy

Pontus Järvstad (University of Iceland): Post-war Nordic Anti-fascist Organizing and International Solidarity

Discussion

13:00–15:00 (CEST)

Chair: Vanni D’Alessio (University of Naples Federico II)

Manuel Loff (University of Porto & Institute of Contemporary History): Antifascism vs. Anti-antifascism: the Portuguese and Spanish Debate

Božo Repe (University of Ljubljana): Shaping Collective Memory of Anti-Fascism after World War II in Slovenia and Its Revision

Vida Rožac Darovec (Science and Research Centre Koper): Memory Practices in Slovenia through the Lens of Public Opinion

Hugo García (Autonomous University of Madrid): The Promises and Perils of New Antifascist Studies

Discussion

15:45–16:30 (CEST)

Chair: Maura Hametz (James Madison University)

Roger Griffin (Oxford Brookes University): The Instrumentalization of Antifascism by the Populist Right and the Far Left

Keynote discussion

 

Roger Griffin (Oxford Brookes University) – The Instrumentalization of Antifascism by the Populist Right and the Far Left

Dear conference participants/attendees,

we posted full 45-minutes version of the pre-recorded keynote by Prof. Roger Griffin, which is ideally to be watched before the conference. The presentation consists of the slides and Griffin’s commentary. At the conference he will only briefly summarize his speech, followed by a discussion.

Download:

 

 

Roger Griffin, Emeritus Professor at Oxford Brookes University, is best known for The Nature of Fascism (1991), Modernism and Fascism (2007); Terrorist’s Creed Fanatical violence and the Human Need for Meaning (2012); Fascism: An Introduction to Comparative Fascist Studies (2018), and for co-founding the journal Fascism and COMFAS, the Association for the Comparative Fascism Studies. His main research interests are fascism, populism, terrorism, and more generally the way modern society generates minority movements of extremism and fanaticism.