Alexander Formozov
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Alexander Formozov is a Berlin-based author and coordinator of non-profit civic projects with/in Central and Eastern Europe. He studied European Ethnology, History and Political Science in Berlin and Moscow. Alexander has created and carried out international projects for various NGOs, such as MitOst, Center for Independent Social Research, German-Russian Exchange and Dekabristen, which he co-founded in 2012, and worked at the Heinrich-Boell-Foundation. His main focus is on international exchange in the fields of education, urbanism, culture and society in Central and Eastern Europe. He has initiated projects aimed at better understanding and supporting urban agents of change, social innovators, and engaged artists.
Research Interests
Activism, remembrance, textbooks, postsocialist transitions, non-formal education
Reconstituting Publics through Remembering Transitions: Facilitating Critical Engagement with the 1980-90s on Local and Transnational Scales
(collaborative project, awarded a NetIAS Constructive Advanced Thinking grant, 2021-2024)
Three decades after the radical transformations of the USSR and its satellites began in the 1980s––1990s, the topic of ‘transitioning’ from socialist states to liberal democracies remains highly contentious in Central and Eastern Europe. Over the last decade, the transitional past has been increasingly instrumentalized, by national-populist actors and in the counter-memories of their opponents. In the context of heated contestations of memory, with high political stakes, spaces for dialogue are rapidly shrinking and public spheres are becoming increasingly ‘disconnected.’
The project addresses this societal issue by engaging with memory practices of the ‘transitional period’ beyond the polarized versions. Drawing on approaches of cultural analysis of discourse and affect, critical memory studies, public history, ethnography, and intersectional study of gender and generations, we aim to develop strategies for facilitating more cohesive and at the same time more critical practices of remembering that have the potential to lead to dialogue and form reflective communities. The comparative approach will allow for developing strategies that can be used by museums and cultural organizations on a transnational (European) level based on trans-local resonances rather than top-down scripts.
The participation of the NGO Transition Dialogue, Berlin, and collaboration with museums in Poland and Germany will facilitate the execution of empirical research and its translation into concrete recommendations.
Key publications
Formozov, Alexander "The Third Space of Urban Pioneers on Russia's Arctic Periphery" in : "Urban Activism in Eastern Europe and Eurasia. Strategies and Practices" édité par Darieva & Neugebauer. DOM Publishers, 2020
"Reclaim, Recode, Reinvent. Urban Art and Activism in Eastern Europe", édité par Igor Ponosov, Alexandra Goloborodko, Alexandra Yurieva-Civjane et Alexander Formozov. Berlin : MitOst-Edition, 2017
Latest publication
Formozov, Alexander et Sichtermann, Leonie (eds.) Teaching History of Transition in Europe - a Handbook for History and Civic Education. Berlin : Austausch, 2023 (à paraître)
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