East Central European Participation in UNESCO’s Histories of Mankind (SCHM)

• In Event: Slavic Studies in International Scientific Organizations during the Global Cold War and after

Abstract

In 1951, the 5th General UNESCO Conference authorized the edition of a “Scientific and Cultural History of Mankind” (SCHM). It hereby confirmed a resolution in 1947 that had also called for an internationally authored and new interpretation of the history of the world. The last of the six volumes was published in 1975. A second, revised version with new authors began five years later and appeared between 1999 and 2009 as the ‘General History of Hu-manity’. This paper will focus on the first edition and outline the participation of scholars from Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Hungary. It will describe what expertise they contributed and in which debates they engaged. Overall the aim of the paper is to reveal who produced the ‘Slavic’ content of this historical narrative.

Author

• Katja Naumann, Leibniz Inst for the History and Culture of Eastern Europe (Germany)