At the end of June and beginning of July 2021, the Nanovic Institute for European Studies, University of Notre Dame organized a three-day long online conference “The Trauma of Communism”.

In collaboration with several Catholic universities from the Catholic Universities Partnership, the institute prepared an attractive event with three prominent keynote speakers: Myroslav Marynovych (Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv), Tomas Halik (Charles University in Prague) and A. James McAdams (University of Notre Dame). Moreover, during the conference speakers from the Catholic universities from Lublin, Lviv, Zagreb, Budapest, Tbilisi and Ruzomberok presented their papers and participated in panel discussions focusing on lives and experience of Catholic dissidents during the communist regime.

Speakers from our university included the dean of the Faculty of Arts and Letters and historian Marek Babic as well as members of the Faith and Freedom: Research Initiative project Jan Banas, Terezia Roncakova (both faculty members) and Matus Jan Capko (a student of journalism). Members of this research project map the destiny of Christians who were persecuted during the totalitarian regime in the former Czechoslovakia before 1989. The online conference provided an excellent opportunity for all the participating universities from Central and Eastern Europe to share results of their research and exchange views on the era that traumatized their countries.

More information about the conference with recording of the keynote talks is available at the Nanovic Institute website. https://nanovic.nd.edu/events/2021/06/29/conference-the-trauma-of-communism/