Call for Papers: submissions closed

16-18 October 2026, University of Lodz, Poland

The Eastern Bloc Censorship Research Group (EBCRG) at the University of Lodz invites proposals for the 1st Eastern Bloc Censorship Research Group Conference, an international academic meeting dedicated to the study of censorship. The conference focuses on the postwar period in the countries of the Eastern Bloc, Albania, and the former Yugoslavia (1944–1991), but we welcome contributions that extend beyond this timeframe and examine the broader cultural, political, and social implications of censorship. The conference welcomes contributions from scholars, witnesses of historical events, and others interested in the study of censorship and related issues.

We are pleased to announce that our keynote speakers will be

Prof. Nicole Moore, University of New South Wales, Canberra
and
Prof. Robert Darnton, Harvard University

The conference aims to initiate a comparative and interdisciplinary discussion on censorship in communist states, addressing a significant gap in existing scholarship. While censorship in individual countries has been widely studied, comparative research across the region remains limited. The conference therefore seeks to bring together researchers working in different national and disciplinary contexts in order to develop a broader, transnational perspective on
censorship and its legacy.

At the same time, the conference intends to encourage reflection on the connections between historical and contemporary forms of censorship, particularly in the context of ongoing debates about freedom of expression, political polarization, and the changing mechanisms of information control in modern societies.

The 1st EBCRG Conference will inaugurate a biennial series of international meetings organized by the EBCRG and will serve as a platform for long-term academic cooperation and knowledge exchange.

Thematic Scope
The Organizing Committee invites proposals addressing topics related to censorship in the Eastern Bloc, Albania, and former Yugoslavia and beyond, including but not limited to:
• systemic mechanisms of censorship 
• self-censorship and intermediary actors (editors, translators, publishers, critics) in the circulation of texts and cultural production
• collective memory and the cultural legacy of censorship
• institutional vs. informal censorship – definitional and methodological perspectives
• censorship and contemporary academic and media freedom
• non-institutional mechanisms of censorship past and present
• censorship in literature, film, theatre, and other cultural media
• communist censorship and contemporary forms of limiting freedom of expression

The above topics outline the general thematic framework of the conference. Participants are also welcome to submit proposals that go beyond these areas, provided they remain connected to the central theme of censorship and freedom of expression in historical or contemporary contexts.

Interdisciplinary Approach
The conference is designed as an interdisciplinary forum bringing together scholars from fields such as:
• literary studies
• history
• media and communication studies
• cultural studies
• law
• anthropology
• memory studies

In addition to academic researchers, the conference also welcomes contributions from witnesses of history, cultural practitioners, and independent scholars whose work engages with the topic of censorship.

Conference Format
The conference will be held in person and the program will include:
• keynote lectures by invited scholars
• thematic panels
• a round-table discussion titled “The Eastern Bloc Censorship – 35 Years Later”
• presentations selected through this Call for Papers
• a guided tour of Lodz
• a film screening

Language
The official language of the conference will be English. Simultaneous interpretation will be available. The range of languages offered will depend on the organizers’ logistical capacity.

Submission Guidelines
Please submit the completed submission form to anna.wisniewska-grabarczyk@uni.lodz.pl

The submission form should be provided as an attachment and must include the following information:
• your name
• your affiliation (if applicable)
• title of the paper
• abstract (150–200 words)
• a list of five most important articles, books, or other relevant works
• a short note about yourself and your work (optional), including any information relevant to the conference topic

Deadline for submissions: 31 May 2026
Acceptance Notification Date: 5 June 2026

Conference Fees
• Regular registration fee: 750 PLN
• Reduced registration fee: 550 PLN

The reduced fee is available for students, doctoral candidates, and independent scholars and may also be granted in other cases (limited number of places available). The fee includes lectures by invited guest speakers, a film screening, a guided tour of Lodz, simultaneous translations, conference materials, coffee breaks, lunches, and conference dinner.

Organizer
The Eastern Bloc Censorship Research Group (EBCRG) – an international research group
https://www.uni.lodz.pl/censorship-research-group
 

Organizing Committee
• Anna Wiśniewska-Grabarczyk, University of Lodz (lead convenor)
• Alina Popescu, University of Bucharest
• Mateusz Świetlicki, University of Wrocław
• Stefanie Lemke, Rule of Law Initiative
• John Bates, University of Glasgow
• Gergely Gosztonyi, Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest
• Jiřina Šmejkalová, Charles University in Prague
• Tomasz Bocheński, University of Lodz
• Karolina Kołodziej, University of Lodz (conference secretary)

Co-organizers
Institute of Polish Philology and Logopedics, Faculty of Philology, University of Lodz
Department of 20th-and 21st-Century Polish Literature

Patrons of the Conference
Polish Studies, School of Modern Languages and Cultures, University of Glasgow
Muzeum PRL (PRL Museum), Poznań, Poland
Muzeum życia w PRL (Museum of Life under Communism), Warsaw, Poland
Institute of English Studies, Faculty of Languages, Literatures and Cultures, University of
Wrocław, Poland

 

We are a group of enthusiasts dedicated to the topic of censorship. If our interests align with yours, feel free to contact us.

The Eastern Bloc Censorship Research Group (hereinafter: EBCRG) is an international research group focused on the study of censorship in the Eastern Bloc^*. EBCRG includes members from Poland and abroad: researchers affiliated with academic, teaching, and educational institutions (such as universities, higher education schools, research institutes, academies, and schools), enthusiasts engaged in the topic, as well as witnesses of the era (including artists, journalists, and others).

The initiator of EBCRG is Anna Wiśniewska-Grabarczyk from the Faculty of Philology at the University of Łódź.

*We define this term broadly, including in our research not only Soviet-aligned countries but also others from the socialist sphere, such as the former Yugoslavia.

 

Core Group

Scientific Council

• Mateusz Świetlicki

  • the Institute of English Studies, University of Wrocław, Poland
  • He is an Associate Professor at the University of Wrocław’s Institute of English Studies, Director of the Center for Young People’s Literature and Culture, as well as Vice-Dean for Student Affairs and Extramural Studies at the Faculty of Languages, Literatures and Cultures. His most recent book, Next-Generation Memory and Ukrainian Canadian Children’s Historical Fiction: The Seeds of Memory (Routledge, 2023), examines the transnational entanglements of Canada and Ukraine. He has recently co-edited Fieldwork in Ukrainian Children’s Literature (with Anastasia Ulanowicz – Routledge 2025) and Navigating Children’s Literature through Controversy: Global and Transnational Perspectives (with Elżbieta Jamróz-Stolarska and Agata Zarzycka – Brill, 2023), a special issue of Bookbird: A Journal of International Children’s Literature titled War and Displacement in Children's Literature (2023 - with Chrysogonus Siddha Malilang) and a special issue of the European Journal of American Studies (Memory, Identity, Belonging: Narratives of Eastern and Central European Presence in North America 2023 – with Izabella Kimak). Świetlicki was a Research Scholar at the University of Florida’s Department of English (Kosciuszko Foundation Fellowship), a Fulbright scholar at the University of Illinois at Chicago (2018), a visiting scholar at the University of Toronto (2022), and has held multiple other fellowships (Munich, Kyiv, Harvard). He is the deputy editor-in-chief of Filoteknos, a member of the editorial team of John Benjamins Publishing’s “Children’s Literature, Culture, and Cognition” series, and a co-officer of the Childhood in Eastern Europe, Eurasia, and Russia Working Group of the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies.

• Stefanie Lemke

  • Dr. Stefanie Lemke is a socio-legal scholar and a lawyer by training, focussing on access to justice, victims rights and civic space. She has worked globally and across sectors  with governments, leading research groups, prominent NGOs, commercial law firms and international organisations such as the University of Oxford and the United Nations Development Programme in Europe and Central Asia. She trained as a civil judge, a public prosecutor and a human rights lawyer in Germany, and completed a PhD on legal empowerment at Oxford, London and Cologne Universities. Currently, she is Director of the Rule of Initiative, Senior Scientific Officer with the International Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, Secondary Proposer for a EU funded project on cultural rights at the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, and Associate Fellow with Leeds University Legal Profession Research Group.

• Jiřina Šmejkalová

  • the Institute of Information Studies and Librarianship, Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic
  • Her teaching and research interests focus on cultural production and reception under totalitarian regimes, as well as related gender issues. She has held academic positions in the USA and the UK (Durham, Lincoln) and was promoted to Reader in Media and Cultural Studies in 2007. Her key works include Cold War Books in the ‘Other’ Europe and What Came After (Leiden, Brill, 2010).

Academic Board

• Michał Rogoż

• Alina Popescu

  • She studied Sociology in Romania and France and holds a PhD in Political Science from the Paris Ouest Nanterre University. Her areas of interest include censorship in cinema, cultural exchanges during the Cold War, and she is currently working on fashion in communist Romania.

Secretary

• Agata Becherka

  • University of Lodz, Poland
    A second-year master's student of Polish philology, specializing in Polish literature at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries and contemporary literature. Her scholarly interests include gender and feminist studies, as well as the impact of new technologies and the Internet on literary forms. She is currently engaged in early-stage research exploring the intersections of literature, digital media, and cultural theory.

Head of the EBCRG

• Anna Wiśniewska-Grabarczyk

  • She was born in Trzcianka, in the Recovered Territories, where she graduated from Mikołaj Kopernik Elementary School No. 3 and Stanisław Staszic High School. She holds a PhD in literary studies with honors from the University of Lodz. She is a writer - in her literary work, she looks for what is, what could be and what never happened; see her book of poem Garnitur wybrany przez grubego stylistę z zakładu pogrzebowego przy szpitalu (Wydawnictwo Literackie 2025), her novel Porzeczkowy Josef (Anagram 2018) and more... She is a researcher - in her academic work she tries to understand the mechanism of censorship in communist Poland (and beyond), see her Censorship of Literature in Post-War Poland: In Light of the Confidential Bulletins for Censors from 1945 to 1956 and more... She is a recipient of several academic and literary grants and awards, see the Witold Gombrowicz Literary Award Nomination and more... She shuttles between Trzcianka, Lodz, Copenhagen and the rest of the world.

Members

• Berislav Majhut

  University of Zagreb, Croatia

  He is a Full Professor at the Faculty of Teacher Education at the University of Zagreb, now retired. His research is focused on the history of Croatian literature and narratology. Berislav Majhut was the head of the scientific project Croatian bibliography of children’s books until 1945 (2007–2014). In 2010, he edited the critical edition of Brave Lapitch’s Adventure, the most famous Croatian children’s book by Ivana Brlić Mažuranić, so it is the first critical edition of a children’s book in Croatia. In addition to other published works, he is the author of the book Adventurer, orphan and children’s band (2005), Emperor’s Mission (2016), with Štefko Batinic, co-author of the monography Croatian picturebooks until 1945 (2017), and with Sanja Lovrić, co-author of the monographs About Croatian Children’s Literature (2020) and Our Children’s Literature (2022) and the author of Croatian children’s literature turns the page (2022) and On Titonic (2022). Berislav Majhut was the first president of the Croatian Association of Children’s Literature Researchers (2010–2018).

• Tatyana Blyznuk
  Precarpathian National University, Ukraine
  
  Candidate of Pedagogical Sciences (Ph.D.), Associate Professor of Precarpathian National University (Ukraine), expert in educational innovations at the Centre PNU EcoSystem, author of the books Journey to the World of Books: Some Glimpses of English Literature for Children (2018), Formation of digital competence of junior schoolchildren (2019), Digital tools for online and offline learning  (2021) and others. Subjects of scientific research are issues of methodology of teaching English, innovative approaches to teaching language and literature courses, digitization and modernization of the educational process. Developer and teacher of the courses English Children’s Literature, Methods of Teaching English and Geocultural Scientific Literacy and others.

• Tetiana Kachak

  Precarpathian National University, Ukraine

  Doctor of Philology, member of International Research Society for Children’s Literature, author of the books Trends in the Development of the Ukrainian Fiction for Children and Youth at the beginning of the 21st Century (2018), The Ukrainian Literature for Children and Youth (2016, 2018), Foreign Literature for Children (2014) and others. Subjects of scientific research are children’s literature and Literary education and children’s reading. Developer and teacher of the courses Children’s Literature, Children's Literature and Methods of Teaching Literary Reading and Digital technologies in the educational process.

• Peter Svetina
• Magdalena Rzepka

• Michail Suslov

  University of Copenhagen, Denmark

  Mikhail Suslov, associate professor of Russian history and politics, Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies, University of Copenhagen. I am trained as a historian and developed a research profile in East European intellectual history and political philosophy with a focus on right-wing and church-related ideas and geopolitical imagination. My recent publication is Putinism – Post-Soviet Russian Regime Ideology (Routledge, 2024).

• Piotr Swacha
• Zbigniew Romek
• Anne Etienne

• Lidia Vianu

  The University of Bucharest

  Poet, fiction writer, literary critic, specialist in English studies, and translator. Born on July 7, 1947. Member of the Writers’ Union of Romania. PhD in Comparative Literature [1978]. Professor of Modern and Contemporary English Literature, the University of Bucharest. Founder and Director of Contemporary Literature Press [http://mttlc.ro], the online literature publishing house of the University of Bucharest. Founder and director of the eZine Translation Café. Founder of the MA Programme for the Translation of the Contemporary Literary Text. Fullbright Professor at University of California – Berkeley and State University of New York – Binghamton [1990–91; 1997–98].

• Barbara Tyszkiewicz

  Instytut Badań Literackich PAN, Poland

  Assistant professor at the Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw. Co-author of biobibliographic (realized in the Contemporary Literature Documentation Workshop) – a registry of the achievements of contemporary Polish writers and literature researchers. Author of studies and articles on the history of literature and literary life in PRL period, devoted mainly to the biography and work of Jerzy Zawieyski (book monograph in print) and issues of institutional censorship.

• John Bates
• Gergely Gosztonyi  
  
  Associate Professor, a Hungarian lawyer and media researcher. He is the Head of Digital Authoritarianism Research Lab (DARL) at the Faculty of Law of Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE). His research interests include global regulation of social media, censorship, deepfake, alternative media and the liability of intermediaries. Since 2015, he has been the lead coach of the Hungarian team for the Monroe E. Price Media Law Moot Court Competition. He has been an expert on various occasions for the Council of Europe, the National Media and Infocommunications Authority, and the National Talent Centre. He is editor of several law journals and has published over 190 articles in Hungarian and international law journals. His newest book: Censorship from Plato to Social Media. The Complexity of Social Media’s Content Regulation and Moderation Practices (Springer, Dec 2023).

 

External Members, Friends & Partner's Institutions

• Roar Lishaugen

  Department of Slavic and Baltic Studies, Finnish, Dutch and German, Stockholm University, Sweden

  Lecturer in Czech Studies, Roar Lishaugen's research interests include cultural production and especially reception in Central European totalitarian regimes. He has published on Czech reading culture in the 1950s ("Incompatible Reading Cultures", Scando-Slavica, 2014) and, together with Dr Šmejkalová, on Cold War reading culture ("Reading East of the Berlin Wall", PMLA, 2019) and home libraries ("Sites of Book Memory", Libraries: Culture, History, and Society, 2023).

• Smiljana Narančić Kovač
• Peter Svetina
• Aleksander Pawlicki

Coming soon!

Past Talks

1. Who was afraid of Winnie the Pooh? Censorship of English, American and Canadian Books for Kids Published in Communist Poland (1944–1990)

Speakers: Anna Wiśniewska-Grabarczyk, Paweł Grabarczyk
Date: April 25, 2025
Location: University of Cambridge

This talk explored the mechanisms of censorship applied to children's literature from English-speaking countries in Communist Poland between 1944 and 1990. The speakers analyzed how political and ideological pressures shaped the selection, translation, and modification of books by authors such as A.A. Milne and others. Special attention was given to the subtle strategies used to align foreign children's literature with the values of the regime—or to suppress it altogether.

2. Fashion and Censorship

Speaker: Alina Popescu
Date: May 13, 2025
Location: Institut National d'Histoire de l'Art (INHA), Paris

Throughout history, clothing has been a site of regulation and control. Governments, institutions, and social norms have repeatedly dictated what people can or cannot wear, using fashion as a tool to enforce moral codes, social hierarchies, or political ideologies. From sumptuary laws in early modern Europe to the policing of dress under authoritarian regimes, fashion has always carried symbolic weight beyond its surface appearance. Studying fashion and censorship is important because it reveals the subtle ways in which power operates in society. Clothes are not neutral. They can signal conformity or resistance, privilege, or marginalization. By examining how and why fashion has been censored, we gain insight into broader social, political, and cultural dynamics. Exploring the intersection of fashion and censorship uncovers the hidden rules that shape how we present ourselves, and it challenges us to consider how these rules are enforced, negotiated, or contested.

INHALab Residence & Sartoria 2025 Project

Created in 2019, the Sartoria association aims to approach fashion studies through the  prism of art history. Looking beyond the formalist approaches that the relationship between art and fashion has often favoured, the aim is to consider the methodological turning points that have shaped art history research, as well as the debates and concepts that are emerging today. At the same time, it will provide a platform for interdisciplinary exchange aimed at disseminating the knowledge and questions raised by these new research horizons, which are chronologically and geographically extensive. (See https://calenda.org/1227653). As part of its policy of encouraging and supporting young researchers, each year the Institut National d'Histoire de l'Art invites a group of researchers to propose a creative scientific project in a field related to art history. In 2025, the Sartoria collective’s project, Fashion(s) & Censorship(s), investigated the political dimension of clothing by examining the history of fashion censorship and its contestation. Through seminars, screenings, performances, educational workshops, and an exhibition, the initiative aimed to trace a global history of clothing censorship from the modern era to today. (See Sartoria (27 mars 2025). Résidence INHALab 2025, Mode(s) et Censure(s) – Programme Avril-Juin. Sartoria. Consulté le 28 octobre 2025 à l’adresse https://doi.org/10.58079/13l22. Among the talks given at this seminar:

• April 8 | Lecture with Jallal Mesbah (University of Angers). This session focused on the feminist activist group FEMEN and their use of nudity to protest and examined how legal and institutional frameworks regulate such exposure of the body as a form of censorship.  
• May 6 | Lecture with Anna Mari Almila (Sapienza University of Rome). Almila explored how the female body is seen as disruptive in patriarchal societies, and how women negotiate and resist dual pressures of religious and secular censorship. The talk deepend the thematic inquiry of the INHALab residency into control of the dressed and undressed body.
• May 28 | Lecture with Pernilla Rasmussen (Lund University, Sweden). Her talk “One people – One dress! When King Gustav III introduced a national dress in Sweden, in 1778” investigated how the national dress imposed by the Swedish crown in 1778 functioned as a mechanism of sartorial control and limitation of foreign luxury influence.
• June 11 | Lecture with Carol Tulloch (School of Design, Chelsea, Camberwell and Wimbledon (CCW), University of the Arts London). Her lecture “Censor, censorship, censure: black lives, black rights, black style” explored the interrelations of clothing, identity, and power among Black diasporic communities, analysing how dress and style are shaped by and resist systems of control and censorship. 

For more information on Sartoria;s activities, visit this website. 

Why are the bells ringing, Mitică? and Censorship 

One session of the program, hosted by Paul Șoptirean (member of Sartoria), was dedicated to the screening of Why Are the Bells Ringing, Mitică? (1981) by Lucian Pintilie, one of the most important Romanian and Eastern European film directors. As a researcher working on the censorship of Romanian cinema during the communist period*, I was invited to share insights into this remarkable case. Pintilie’s film was severely censored under Nicolae Ceaușescu’s regime (the film was banned for nearly a decade until the regime’s fall). It was condemned for its subversive tone, bleak vision of society, absence of patriotic optimism, and grotesque, chaotic aesthetic.

Under the communist regime, censorship was pervasive: multiple institutions monitored every stage of film production, from script to screening, enforcing ideological conformity and prohibiting various topics. Costume design was also a site of ideological control. Directors like Pintilie resorted to allegory and irony, using classic literary sources as vehicles for veiled social critique. Pintilie officially adapted the classic playwright I.L. Caragiale but subverted his codes to expose the moral decay of contemporary Romania. Regarding the clothing, in Why Are the Bells Ringing, Mitică?, Pintilie and costume designer Doina Levintza employ costumes as a form of visual satire. Characters are overdressed and theatrical, their attire opulent and exagerate - colorful, outdated, grotesque - recalling the world of a masquerade. The costumes are a layer of discourse that expose the artificiality and superficiality of a (micro)society, whether in Caragiale’s world or in communist Romania, providing a striking example of how visual aesthetics and costume design in cinema could become politically charged.

The discussion following the screening of the film explored how the film’s costumes played a role in its censorship, showing how sartorial choices can serve as subtle yet powerful forms of political commentary.
___________________________________
*For a more detailed analysis of the director’s work through the lens of censorship, see Alina Popescu, “Filmele-Pintilie si cenzura sau despre nasterea unui autor si moartea unei scoli nationale de film” (Pintilie-films and censorship or How an author is born and a national film school died) in Politică și societate în epoca Ceaușescu, Florin Soare (coord.), Polirom, Iasi, 2013.

anna.wisniewska-grabarczyk@uni.lodz.pl