The following speech by Prof. Dr. Juliane Fürst (head of the ZZF team) was delivered on 10 October 2025, during the "Final remarks" session of The International Conference: The Past and Future of Public History.

"This panel not only marks the end of our conference on the past and future of Public History but also marks the end of our project Europast, which bound four places of learning together for the last few years: Vilnius, Lund, Luxemburg and Potsdam.

When we conceptualized the grant proposal, the world was a different place. There was no full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia yet. There was no war in Gaza. We lived in a barely post-pandemic world, hoping for the better but already fearing worse. There was a sense of erosion of the things painfully gained in the entire post-WWII period and especially those gained in the post-socialist years.

And yet, we were optimists. We had a sense that despite all differences between European nations, we are united by the fact that it is not easy to tell the history of the recent past anywhere in the world and in particular in Europe. Not easy because it was a history of rifts and differences and changing alliances and feuds going back centuries. And not easy because the lure of simplistic histories seemed to be stronger than ever in our ever more globalized word, power-charged by technologies that thrive on polarization.

The result was that we started a joint public history project unashamed of its celebration of commonality – a project that was to bring together Europe just in the moment so many forces were pulling it apart: Brexit, pandemics, wars, different narratives, different memories.

The Russian full-scale invasion confirmed our worst fears that being the ‘manipulator’ of the historical narrative – to use Jan Kubik’s provocative term for us - or maybe more kindly, the transmission belt – was not a matter of intellectual fancy but a matter of urgency – potentially survival.

This impression has been heightened by the first year of the second Trump presidency. The rapid dismantling of democratic pillars and public morality in the USA is a strong reminder that we all are only ever a few steps away from a society of repression, apathy and helplessness. And, indeed, a society without public history, since ‘good’ public history is a hallmark of democracy. Only propaganda survives in authoritarian states.

One could continue handwringing and misery ad infinitum. Even the few pieces of good news, such as the cease fire in Gaza, are happening against a backdrop of unspeakable division not only between nations but within nations. Not only between neighbours but within families.

So what is to be done?

There is a huge gap between what we discussed theoretically about knowledge and power and what we feel on the ground. Theoretically, we as historians are knowledgeable and powerful. De facto, I guess, none of us feels great power in the face of politicians having taken on the role of historical arbiters and narrators. Not everyone can be a Timothy Snyder or a Jürgen Habermas or a Michel Foucault.

Many of us who specialize in the study of authoritarian regimes, turn to our scholarly knowledge to make sense of our current moment. I find myself frequently returning to what I learned during my many years of studying many forms of dissidence. This is what I know ensures intellectual and mental survival in times of trouble:

1. If you despair of the macro, concentrate on the micro.
2. Make sure you have a community of the like-minded.
3. Be creative.
4. Nurture the next generation.

I think in Europast we did all of the above.

Conceptualized on the somehow archaic notion of the European Union that Eastern Europe needs Western assistance, Europast has shown that sometimes the outcome can be better than the goal. Europast did not turn out to be a quasi-colonial aid project but a meeting of minds. It changed all of our mental geographies.

To a certain extent we are all peripheries, either standing – like Potsdam – in the shadow of a bigger city. Or not being quite as big anymore as was once the case, like Vilnius. Or being the capital of a tiny country, like Luxemburg. Or not being Stockholm, like Lund.

To work together meant engaging with regions we did not have on our mental map. Being close to historical problems that felt familiar but which we had not engaged in closely before. Understanding how other academias work. Understanding where people come from. And where they want to go.

But it was not all lost. Europast also meant a lot of shared meals, much laughter and a common bond of purpose.

It meant introducing a new generation of scholars to international collaboration from the very beginning of their career.

It meant putting on events that tried to live up to the ideal of shared values without falling into simple platitudes.

It meant having public history on our mind in everything we researched.

So did Europast achieve its goals?

We seem to tick the boxes in terms of metrics, but what we really did was hold up a small flame of European collaboration in times of wars – not only the one raging in Ukraine but the ones raging in all of our countries between forces believing in a shared future and those championing nationalist superiority.  We formed a community. We showed the young generation that it is possible to undertake history together and not only apart. We put Eastern European history on the map – again and again and again. In small venues and small gatherings but persistently. We forced ourselves to commit to working together now and in the future. We spun a network.

Did we convince people outside our circle? We will never know, except for the rare moments when someone comes up to say something very positive or very negative. It is the fate of public history that we concede arbitration to the public.

But while this question is important, we cannot let it define us as historians. History is produced because we, as authors, transmitters, ‘manipulators’ want to do honest history. Only history for history’s sake is proper history, even if this means striving to a utopia that is out of our reach. History cannot be defined by reception. We, as historians, cannot be defined by reception. We are defined by writing the best and most honest history we can. We are defined by the belief that a dialogue of our efforts will produce something better than a single voice proclaiming a determined truth.

Maybe culture will indeed fall off the cliff tomorrow – as is the fear in Lithuania with the appointment of a far-right minister. Maybe we will look back on these years and think that they were the good years because worse is to come.

Of course, we all fear. Not only here but in many – too many places. But fear – the most easily manipulable of all emotions – should not dictate what we do. Not as historians and not as humans.

What should dictate our lives is to do good history, be honest transmitters of our narrative and good listeners to the narratives of others. We should be fearless in the face of disbelief, ridicule or aggression. And we should be respectful in the face of different memories and different narratives that can add to the plurality of voices. And skeptical of those narratives that claim monopolies. In short, we should not be afraid of the past or the future.

In this sense Europast might be over. But Eurofuture is still ahead of us.

Thank you, Violeta, for initiating this project. Thank you, Barbara and Thomas, for making us a foursome. Thank you to all the young scholars who did the footwork for this project. Thank you to us for being brave enough to do a project that focused on the positive in our countries and our political union in a time when it is so cool to be negative."