IOS Annual Conference: "Continuity and Change in the Economic Trajectories of Central, East and South-East Europe in the Long 20th Century"

12th IOS Annual Conference 2025

The IOS Annual Conference 2025 will explore differences and similarities in economic development between the interwar period and the post-1989 period, i.e., between the beginning and the end of Europe’s “Long Twentieth Century”. We use this notion deliberately. In line with recent research, we reassess the interwar period in a more positive light, shifting from older narratives of fragmentation and autarky to economic growth, structural change and social attainment. Moreover, the post-1989 period has allowed countries in the region to build on the opportunities first awarded to them in the interwar period. Both issues are vital but largely neglected by proponents of a “Short Twentieth Century” and by those who stress the detrimental effects of the fragmentation of Empire and the end of socialist modernity.