EAST – WEST BORDERSCAPES.
IMPRINTS OF THE FIRST WORLD WAR ON THE EUROPEAN BORDER LANDSCAPES
Trieste, Italy / Koper-Capodistria, Slovenia
October 2 – 4, 2014
From October 2 – 4, 2014, the Association of Slovenian Geographers (ZGS), in co-operation with the Association of Italian Geographers (AGEI), the University of Trieste (UNITS), Italy and the University of Primorska (UP) will host the meeting of the IGU’s Commission on Political Geography (IGU CPG). The conference will elaborate on spatial imprints of WW 1 on the European border areas. The meeting will consist of sessions and one-day excursion (including field-work related sessions). The conference locations are Trieste, Italy and Koper-Capodistria, Slovenia; the excursion will take participants to the WW 1 Isonzo battle fields, the EU award winning WW 1 museum in Kobarid, Slovenia and to places where post-WW 1 imprints of the have left substantial marks in the natural, cultural and political landscape of Europe. After the closing of the IGU CPG conference a round table discussion on Dark Tourism is envisioned at the location of the Faculty of Tourism Studies TURISTICA in Portorož-Portorose, Slovenia.
Subject: The centennial of the beginning of WW 1 is the occasion to discuss the war tragedies and multiple effects of the post-WW1 political decisions. The spatial arrangements after WW1 have strengthened new political players in Europe and have produced new spaces of confrontation. For example, in the Alps-Adriatic Europe the fragmentation of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the geographical enlargement of the Italian Kingdom, and the evolution of Central European nation-states, induced by the US democratic ideals, have produced new borders and a variety of states on Europe’s political map. The post-WW 1 peace settlements in Europe are by some academicians and politicians still considered as unjust. Ethnic, economic and political boundaries do not coincide; the quest for territory was for a substantial amount of time the urge of irredentist fascist, national-socialist and communist regimes in the post-WW1 and WW2 era.
Building on a tradition of previous borderscape conferences, we are looking forward to examine the relationship between spaces of governance in places where substantial change has taken place (as the result of the winning powers). This conference will explore how the post-WW 1 order has impacted the European geographical space and their cultural substance. Political and cultural geography will be the mainframe of the conference. The conference should particular identify major arrangements which have been and still are experienced in the European border areas:
- Spatial and political imprints of past empires;
- Spatial and political imprints of post-WW1 nationalism;
- Imprints of WW1 and post-WW1 arrangements in contemporary politics, culture and economy.
Case studies from all European borderscapes are welcome. The discussion, and in particular the excursion, will take into consideration the reality of the Alps-Adriatic region where the “Battle of Caporetto” (Kobarid) became synonymous for a total defeat of a nation (for a short while). Other similar European topics and, in particular cross-cultural comparisons of imprints left in border spaces by war and post-WW 1 arrangements are welcome. We would also like to place the attention to the general political, ethnic and economic spheres resulting out of brutal facts as closed borders have for decades separated nations. Illegal migration turned, with the loosening of the regimes, into shopping tourism and finally into tourism with motives related to the WW 1 confrontation areas and arrangements resulting out of it. Key-note speakers will be invited.
Additional information about logistics and registration is available here.
Please show interest to attend the conference EAST-WEST BORDERSCAPES. IMPRINTS OF THE FIRST WORLD WAR ON THE EUROPEAN BORDER LANDSCAPES (Trieste, Italy / Koper-Capodistria, Slovenia October 2 – 4, 2014) by filling out and returning the form linked above (title of your paper and abstract) and by writing/E-mailing it to: anton.gosar@guest.arnes.si and/or zillis@units.it.
