Academia and the People

For the societies of Central and Eastern Europe, the century since the Balkan Wars has been a time of profound ruptures. The contributors to this volume examine how academic communities lived through different transitions, such as the collapse of empires, the two World Wars, the Yugoslav and the post-Soviet wars. How did academic institutions relate to informal or underground social movements? What is the place of refugee scholars in the current moment of Russian expansionism? As they rethink the history of Europe's universities, the authors offer a new understanding of how knowledge communities have shaped, and been shaped by, upheaval, bridging the gap between histories of knowledge and new political histories of the region.