MWNO - Max Weber Netzwerk Osteuropa

03/10/2026

MWNO FEE WAIVERS / BASEES CONVENTION 2027 - On 5 October 2026, submissions for panel and paper contributions to next year’s BASEES conference are due. The MWNO is pleased to provide a limited number of fee waivers for the conference.

🏁 Thursday, 30 November 2026
👩‍🎓👨‍🎓👩‍🎓👨‍🎓 scholars and postgraduate research students who permanently reside in Ukraine, Georgia, or Armenia. Ukrainian scholars who have been displaced as a result of Russia’s war against Ukraine are also eligible to apply.

📌 Applicants must be scheduled to deliver a paper in a standard panel session. Please note that individuals participating solely as panel chairs, discussants, or roundtable participants are not eligible for these grants.

❗ Please, note that the selection will be made by BASEES, NOT the MWNO. Applications will be assessed based on the intellectual quality of the paper proposal, with additional consideration given to maintaining a balance across academic disciplines and regional representation.

🔗 To apply go to https://baseesconference.org/max-weber-network-eastern-europe-mwno-fee-waiver-scheme/

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Max Weber Network Eastern Europe (MWNO) Fee Waiver Scheme for Ukraine, Georgia, for Armenia scholars and postgraduate research students The BASEES Organising Committee is pleased to announce t…

02/10/2026

📢 CEECON26 / MWNO – this year’s ‘DGO Congress of Central and East European Studies’ is approaching and we would like to invite you to join us in Berlin.

🔵 The MWNO will host a roundtable discussing how historical research has adapted to the catastrophic consequences of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. We want to bring practical experiences and epistemic challenges that different researchers – from doctoral student to professor, researchers from ‘the West’ and our colleagues from the region at large – have encountered in the last four years into dialogue. Moritz Florin, our deputy director and head of the MWNO’s Tbilisi office (Max Weber Stiftung - Georgia Branch Office) and Maike Lehmann, our academic manager and editor of the DECENTERED ARCHIVE-blog, will be joined by Ruslana Bovgiria (FU Berlin), Qeburia (IOS Regensburg), Julia Lajus (Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies (HCAS)) and Masha Cerovic (Cercec).

📅 Thursday - October 8, 2026
🕰️ Time: 15:00 - 16:30
📍Location: FU Berlin, HFB Conference Room II
🔗 https://ceecon.de/en/program/the-big-shift-doing-historical-research-in-eastern-europe-since-2022/

👩‍🎓👨‍🎓👩‍🎓👨‍🎓As one of four co-sponsors of CEECON26, the MWNO was also happy to provide travel funding for postgraduate researchers presenting their work on historical topics and members of the Junge DGO.

📌 The MWNO will also have an info stall at CEECON26 – come and visit us, learn more about funding opportunities and workshops at the MWNO’s three offices in Helsinki, Vilnius and Tbilisi and tell us about your research and experiences in the archives.

01/10/2026

📢📢📢 CfA: MWNO Research Scholarship 2027.1 (1-3 months)

Twice a year, the Max Weber Network Eastern Europe (MWNO) awards research scholarships of one to three months for research on historical topics in archives and libraries in the ‚post-Soviet‘ states (except Russia and Belarus) and in Finland. The scholarship program is aimed at postgraduate researchers (PhD candidates and PostDocs) in the humanities and social sciences affiliated with universities and research institutions in Europe (except Russia and Belarus) or the South Caucasus. The objective of the program is to support qualification projects that address the multiple dimensions of the history of the Soviet Union, its predecessor and successor states as well as the transnational and transregional contact zones with other neighboring (imperial) states and their relationship with Germany.

🏛️ Archives and libraries in the ‚post-Soviet‘ states (except Russia and Belarus) and in Finland
👩‍🎓🧑‍🎓👨‍🎓 PhD candidates and PostDocs from Europe (except Russia and Belarus) and the South Caucasus
📅 January 1st – July 31st, 2027
⌛ 1-3 months
🏁 November 15th, 2026 (CET)

📍 Applications from early career researchers with a connection to German research institutions or universities are particularly welcome. Applications materials should be submitted in either English or German.

🚩 Please, note that the scholarship cannot be awarded for research stays in a country where the applicant has their place of residence. Also, due to the war-related security situation, no scholarships can currently be awarded for research stays in Ukraine.

🔗 For all the details go to https://mwseasteurope.hypotheses.org/14569

29/09/2026

🥂 CONGRATULATIONS to our MWNO colleague Mazanik who has been awarded the Lynn Hollen Lees Book Prize for Best Book in European Urban History 2026.

📗 She received the prize for her book ‘Sanitizing Moscow: Waste, Animals, and Urban Health in Late Imperial Russia‘, published by of Pittsburgh Press.

📌 According to the award committee, “Sanitizing Moscow is a methodologically innovative book that pushes the boundaries of urban history by integrating insights from environmental history and the history of medicine and public health. It elegantly combines different scales of analysis from a microhistory of urban spaces such as the slaughterhouse to a study of interactions between the city and its hinterlands, tracing the journey of cattle for urban consumption, to a comparative and transnational analysis of different sewer systems and their influence on Russian urban planning. Each of the three case studies – waste disposal and sewer projects, the slaughtering of animals, and children’s health – stands alone as a substantive contribution to the literature; at the same time, Mazanik weaves together these case studies as sanitizing projects designed to address perceived Russian “backwardness.” Through rigorous interdisciplinary research, Mazanik deftly demonstrates how Moscow participated directly in global modernization projects while situating its unique place on the frontier of East and West. This is indeed a unique contribution to urban history that paves the way for creative approaches to the history of public health, the environment, and urban and social history. The book mobilizes an impressive array of diverse sources to reconstruct these modernizing projects in late imperial Moscow and to demonstrate their limitations. It also situates these debates within broader transnational discussions on urban sanitizing projects, which makes it a landmark book for a global history of cities.“

We are glad that Anna and her work at the MWNO - Max Weber Netzwerk Osteuropa Helsinki office receives such high praise. And are looking forward to her next monograph on Vectors, Viruses, and Soviet Medicine in the Pacific Borderlands, 1930-1970.

🔗 For more on the book prizes of the Urban History Association go to urbanhistory.org/Awards

26/09/2026

🔎 CITIZEN / SCIENCE - 5,7 Millionen sowjetische Militärangehörige gerieten im Zweiten Weltkrieg in deutsche Kriegsgefangenschaft. Mehr als drei Millionen starben an den unmenschlichen Bedingungen in den Gefangenenlagern oder wurden ermordet.

📌Am Wochenende haben die Arolsen Archives 31.000 Dokumente aus dem Projekt 'Sowjetische Kriegsgefangene' des MWNO online gestellt im Rahmen der Crowdsourcing-Initiative . Die Initiative arbeitet an der Erstellung eines digitalen Denkmals für die Opfer des Nationalsozialismus und sucht nun Freiwillige, die einen Teil dieser Dokumente bearbeitet.

🔗 Wie diese Form der funktioniert erfährt man hier: https://everynamecounts.arolsen-archives.org/

🔗 Über das Projekt 'Sowjetische Kriegsgefangene' das über Jahre vom MWNO - Max Weber Netzwerk Osteuropa mit Partnern wie dem Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge e. V., dem Bundesarchiv und der KZ Gedenkstätte Flossenbürgen und nun den Arolsen Archives durchgeführt wird, spricht die Projektleiterin, unsere MWNO Kollegin Esther Meier, hier: https://arolsen-archives.org/news/schicksale-klaeren-biografien-sichtbar-machen/

Zum 85. Jahrestag des Endes der Schlacht um Kyjiw stellen die Arolsen Archives in Kooperation mit dem Max Weber Netzwerk Osteuropa rund 31.000 Dokumente zu sowjetischen Kriegsgefangenen bei bereit. Auf der Crowdsourcing-Plattform können Freiwillige dabei helfen, die Namen und viele...

26/09/2026

OTD / PoWs - Today, on September 26, 2026, the campaign is commemorating the Battle of , which ended 85 years ago, and the hundreds of thousands of Soviet military personnel who were taken as prisoners of war by the Germans.

🗣 Our MWNO colleague Meier talks with Arolsen Archives on the project 'Soviet Prisoners of War' in the context of the about the importance of archival research, scattered sources, and a long-overlooked group of victims of National Socialism.

🔎 The project is clarifying the fates of Soviet POWs, one of the largest groups of victims of National Socialism. The project findings will be used to respond to inquiries from family members. The indexed data and documents can also be used by researchers and for commemorative activities. Additionally, by digitizing documents, the project is helping to preserve Ukrainian archival material which is in danger of being destroyed by Russian attacks.

🔗 Read the full interview here https://arolsen-archives.org/en/news/clarifying-fates-bringing-biographies-to-light/ ⤵️

🔗 And learn more about the ongoing project which has been realized with archives in Ukraine and several other archive throughout Europe and Central Asia project partners Arolsen Archives, Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge e. V., and - Gedenkstaette Floessenburg here: https://mwseasteurope.hypotheses.org/sovjet-prisoners-of-war-an-international-research-and-documentation-project

The international Soviet Prisoners of War project is reconstructing paths of persecution and answering questions about the fates of individuals. We spoke with Esther Meier about the importance of archival research, scattered sources, and a long-overlooked group of victims of National Socialism. Esth...

25/09/2026

📢 Call for Papers – Maritime (Dis)Connect. Ports in Global Imperial Crisis, 1904-1925

Check out the conference our MWNO Fellow Azat Bilalutdinov is organizing at our MWNO Tbilisi office ⬇️

The conference falls in with our new key theme 'Maritime Contact and Conflict Zones' and our current focus theme 'Violence, War and Occupation' at the MWNO.

For more on our focus topics and key themes go to 🔗 https://mwseasteurope.hypotheses.org/

If you are interested in the projects of our individual researchers, check out the chronological subsections in the drop-down menu, i.e. for the 20th/21st century: 🔗 https://mwseasteurope.hypotheses.org/20th-21st-century

📢Call for Papers – Maritime (Dis)Connect. Ports in Global Imperial Crisis, 1904-1925

Date: March 4–5, 2027, Tbilisi

Submission Deadline: 6 November 2026

Organizer: Azat Bilalutdinov (Max Weber Foundation – Max Weber Network Eastern Europe (MWNO))

In the nineteenth century, steam globalization drove the rapid growth of port cities as cosmopolitan hubs connecting distant productive “hinterlands” to world markets. At the same time, this connectivity heightened security concerns of imperial states. As circuits of transnational mobility and exchange, ports were particularly susceptible to urban unrest, political radicalization, and mutiny. In wartime, ports emerged as crucial nodes of military logistics and therefore as primary targets of naval attack and blockade.

This workshop examines ports not primarily as cosmopolitan hubs of exchange, but as sites where connectivity could be mobilized, constrained, and weaponized. It asks how the dense concentration of commerce, transport networks, diverse populations, and ideas made port cities especially vulnerable to the pressures of war and revolution.

We are particularly interested in papers addressing the following themes:
▪️Wartime mobilization of commercial infrastructure;
▪️War nationalism: enemy alien regimes, ethnic violence and expropriation;
▪️Economic warfare: blockades and boycotts;
▪️Contraband and smuggling;
▪️Emergency rule: military occupation, policing and surveillance;
▪️Food, fuel and supply crises in port cities;
▪️Public health, epidemics and sanitary control
▪️Displacement and migration: Refugees, POWs and civilian internees;

Submission Deadline: 6 November 2026
Notification of acceptance: 30 November 2026

✉️ Please send your proposal as a single PDF file, including your name, affiliation, presentation title, abstract (300 words max.), and a short CV (2 pages max) to [email protected] with [Maritime (dis)connect] in the subject line.

For further questions contact: Dr. Azat Bilalutdinov [email protected]

🔎 Read the full CfP here: https://mwsgeorgia.hypotheses.org/14869

24/09/2026

🎉 Congratulations to former MWNO fellow Bruisch (Trinity College Dublin) who has been awarded the 2026 Reginald Zelnik Book Prize in History by the for Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES) for her book ‘Burning Swamps: Peat and the Forgotten Margins of Russia’s Fossil Economy‘ (Cambridge University Press).

♦️She also received an honorable mention for ASEEES’s Ed A Hewett Book Prize for outstanding publication on the political economy of Russia, Eurasia, and/or Eastern Europe.

📌 The project that eventually turned into ‘Burning Swamps’ took shape many years ago while Katja worked at the DHIM. At the time, a particularly hot summer led to major fires in the peat fields surrounding the city - which turned Katja's attention towards the largely neglected topic of peat extraction in environmental history.

🏛️ During her stay in Helsinki, she also did a hybrid book presentation on ‘Burning Swamps’ at our office - while spending her days at the Slavonic Library at the Kansalliskirjasto - The National Library of Finland, consulting primary sources for her new project.

🔗 For a list of all recipients of this year’s ASEEES book prizes go to https://aseees.org/news/2026-aseees-prize-winners-announced/

23/09/2026

📢 LECTURE / HELSINKI - join us in two weeks for a lecture by Anika Walke (Carnegie Mellon University) on “Khatyn" as a Memorial Landscape: On the Spatial Legacies of World War II and Holocaust in Belarus.

📅 Tuesday, 6 October 2026
🕑 14.30 - 16.00 EEST
📍Aleksanteri Institute, University of Helsinki, Metsätalo, Unioninkatu 40, Room C216 (2nd floor)

🧑‍🎓Anika Walke holds the Inaugural Askwith Family Chair of Holocaust Studies at the Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh. Prior to that, she served as Associate Professor of History and Jewish, Islamic, and Middle Eastern Studies at Washington University in St. Louis.

🔎 Walke draws on an interdisciplinary framework to study processes of remembering and commemoration, survival and resistance, and the role of space and place for historical experience and sense-making. Her book 'Pioneers and Partisans: An Oral History of N**i Genocide in Belorussia' (Oxford University Press, 2015) drew on oral history interviews, video testimony, archival documentation and various other sources to analyze how young Soviet Jews survived the Holocaust and made sense of it many decades later.

📌 The lecture draws on her current project on the long aftermath of the Holocaust and World War II in Belarus.

🏛️ The lecture is organized by the Aleksanteri-instituutti - Aleksanteri Institute and the Helsinki office MWNO - Max Weber Netzwerk Osteuropa

📷 by Anika Walke, all rights reserved