Death - Space - Time - Identity in Centarl Europe Around 1900

08.12.1996 - 10.12.1996

In keeping with its programme, the International Cultural Centre is undertaking a number of projects aimed at preservation of cultural heritage, with special emphasis on the Central European region. Their goal is not only to protect historic buildings in danger of destruction and neglect, but also to single out and highlight the cultural phenomena of this part of Europe. One such phenomenon is death – comprehended not individually, but also as the death of a nation and society, and involving both the fear of death and conceptions of death. The need to discuss these issues with a wider audience led to an international conference organized by the ICC in collaboration with the Council for the Protection of the Memory of Combat and Martyrdom and the Oesterreichische Forschungsgemeinschaft of Vienna.

The organizers wanted the invited guests to represent the widest possible range of Central European countries, and succeeded in bringing together researchers from Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Ukraine, Italy and Poland. The conference room gathered together historians, art historians, sociologists, philosophers, and ethnographers. The problems of the session focused on the cemetery in its widest meaning: both as an architectural phenomenon and as a place, which evokes in social consciousness feelings of sadness, reflection, remembrance, and fear.