Under the Auspices of the Royal Family of Romania
Royal Estate of Sinaia, Romania, June 21-24, 2018
Conveners: Sorin Antohi and Gregory Claeys
Organizer: Asociația Orbis Tertius / A Treia Lume
In 1968, after several years of debates and actions across Europe and around the world, a new global generation was asserting its ideas, its passions, its interests, its fantasies, its utopias. To discuss all the above and more, an interdisciplinary colloquium is convened on the Royal Estate of Sinaia, under the auspices of the Royal Family of Romania.
Related international conferences at the same location include Humanism and Utopianism. Historical and Critical Perspectives (June 13-15, 2014) and, in the same series of Royal Colloquia, Utopia and Revolution (June 22-25, 2017; the videos of the colloquium are posted on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tt6NQ33WxP0&list=PLhpuENTaWXvugT9ukIHBM9byuTZp1Oymo). This year’s colloquium continues in Bucharest on June 24, at 18:00, with a debate on the same topic in the series of public debates, Ideas in the Agora, coordinated by Sorin Antohi since June 21, 2017 at the Bucharest City Museum (livestreamed and archived on YouTube: https://www.societateamuzicala.ro/sorinantohi/category/idei-in-agora/).
The Cantemir Annual Award continues the Cantemir Prize, established in 2010 as part of the activities leading to and becoming the Cantemir Institute at the University of Oxford (2011-2013). The Cantemir Prize was handed during annual conferences at the University of Oxford by HRH Prince Radu of Romania, the High Patron of the Cantemir Institute, to Ștefan Lemny (2010), Alison Ashford and Philippa Levine (2011), Martin Dodge, Chris Perkins, and Rob Kitchin (2012). In 2017, the recipient of the Cantemir Annual Award was Moshe Idel.
The Cantemir Annual Award celebrates the legacy of two enlightened princes of Romanian background: Demetrius Cantemir (1673-1723) and his son Antiochus (1709-1744). Their writings, actions, and visions encompass vast spaces, different periods, and various cultures, both Eastern and Western. Demetrius was a ruling prince of Moldavia educated in Constantinople, a member of the Berlin Academy, a prince of the Russian Empire and an adviser to Peter the Great, while Antiochus was a translator, Russia’s first modern poet and first ambassador to Great Britain and France. They were cosmopolitan humanists who, while rooted in particular societies, traditions, and worldviews, transcended borders of many sorts, aspiring to intercultural knowledge and universal horizons.
Thursday, June 21
Arrivals
Transfers to Sinaia
20:30 Dinner
Friday, June 22
8:00-12:00 Trip
12:45 Conferral of the Cantemir Annual Award, Peleș Castle (Marble Hall)
13:00 Lunch hosted by HRH Prince Radu of Romania at Peleș Castle (Concert Hall). Followed by a tour of Peleș and Pelișor Castles.
16:30-17:30 First Session: The Utopias of 1968
Opening Remarks, Moderator: Sorin Antohi
Gregory Claeys, „Liberation” and the Utopias of 1968: Some Reflections
17:30-18:00 Break
18:00-20:00 Second Session: (Failed) Revolution, Messianism, Hope
Moderator: Ștefan Borbély
Isy Morgensztern, The Impossible Revolution: Benny Levy’s Intellectual Journey
Corin Braga, Récupération du « principe espérance » dans les utopies de la fin du XXe siècle
Ludmila Gruszewska-Blaim, Watching 1968: Cinematic Representations of Failed Revolutions
20:00 Dinner
Saturday, June 23
9:00-11:00 Third Session: Counterculture
Moderator: Artur Blaim
Gábor Klaniczay, 1968 and Youth Counterculture in the West and in the East
Ștefan Borbély and Constantina Raveca Buleu, A Joint Tribute to Theodore Roszak
11:00-11:30 Coffee Break
11:30-13:30 Fourth Session: 1968 in East Central Europe
Moderator: Ludmila Gruszewska-Blaim
Jan Mervart, Envisioning Socialist Utopia: 1968 and the Czechoslovak Radical Leftist Intelligentsia
Artur Blaim, March 1968 in Poland. A Tragicomedy of Errors
Michael Shafir, The Other ‘68
13:30-15:00 Lunch
15:00-16:30 Visit of Sinaia Monastery
16:30-18:00 Fifth Session: Ideas and Legacies
Moderator: Gábor Klaniczay
Balázs Trencsényi, The Many Faces of ’68 in East Central Europe. Towards a Comparative Analysis of Political Ideas
Sorin Antohi, 1968: What Was Right and What Is Left?
18:00-18:15 Break
18:15-19:00 Concluding Discussion
Moderator: Gregory Claeys
19:00 Dinner
Sunday, June 24
Departures
Program complet Sinaia 21-24 iunie 2018
