On 2 November 2023 the Elite Graduate Program “East European Studies” (LMU Munich/University of Regensburg) celebrated its twentieth anniversary with a festive event in the Great Hall of LMU Munich. After an event for alumni, students and faculty in the afternoon, the public evening program featured a panel discussion, a lecture and a reception with a concert.
After the opening by the speaker of the Elite Graduate Program “East European Studies”, Professor Martin Schulze Wessel, graduates presented their professional experiences in thematic panels – not least to give current and future students an impression of the breadth of career paths that former students took. Theresa Weiß and Niklas Zimmermann from the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung provided insights into the world of media and journalism. Marco Fieber and Sebastian Schäffer then discussed NGOs and East European politics. The event concluded with a session on science and memory culture with Monika Heinemann, Kristina Tolok and Damien Tricoire.
The evening program for the general public was very well attended. The program kicked off with a panel of renowned experts discussing the future of regional studies in light of the Russian attack on Ukraine in the panel discussion "Eastern European Studies: From the End of History to the Turning Point". Jan Matti Dollbaum then gave a lecture on political parties in post-Soviet Eastern Europe. He recently became head of the Junior Research Group "Mobilisation and Representation under adverse conditions: Political parties in post-Soviet Eastern Europe", funded by the Elite Network of Bavaria. The evening concluded in a festive atmosphere with a reception and a concert by the band SchwarzKatz. Against the representative backdrop of LMU’s Great Hall, the event showed the relevance of East European Studies in the labor market and the public discourse – even twenty years after their introduction in Munich and Regensburg.
