Eötvös Loránd University’s Faculty of Social Sciences hosted a two day international workshop titled The Power of Voices and Silences on March 19–20. Organized within the CENTRAL network, the event explored how societies remember and forget across the historical, cultural, and political landscapes of Central and Southeast Europe. 

In their opening remarks, the organizers, Ildikó Barna and Júlia Székely emphasized that understanding the region’s past requires interdisciplinary and cross border academic collaboration, and that it is especially important for students and early-career researchers to take an active part in this dialogue.

Students, doctoral students, postdoctoral researchers, and scholars from universities in Berlin, Budapest, Prague, Vienna, and Warsaw presented their latest findings. The thematic panels addressed topics such as intergenerational memory transmission, narratives of social mobility, post Yugoslav identity and digital memory, the dynamics of localized violence, institutionalized forgetting, archival challenges in researching sexual violence, and queer approaches to regional memory. The second day focused on historical layers, Holocaust narratives, antifascist remembrance, and contested pasts in public spaces, concluding with a Budapest memory walk.

The workshop is of particular importance because it not only strengthens the faculty’s international research ties but also creates opportunities for students and early-career researchers to present their work in an international setting, receive feedback, and build professional connections. Memory studies remain a key field within Hungarian social sciences, and the collaboration within the CENTRAL network enables ELTE to play an active role in shaping international academic discussions. The workshop provided an especially valuable opportunity for researchers at the beginning of their careers to share their methods, findings, and experiences, thereby strengthening international academic connections and the potential for future collaboration.