Two decades after the collapse of communism, its significance and consequences remain elusive. The aim of this project is to provide a comprehensive overview of main trends in research into the fate of this region.

The focus here will be on how to theorise the relationships between past and future, modes of insertion into geopolitical power configurations, and the relationship between history and memory as modes of anchorage for personal identity.

Theorising the significance of the world after communism requires both a respect for and use of the many fine case studies and comparative inquiries that have been produced in the last two decades, and a politico-hermeneutic, philosophical anthropological orientation that might integrate them.