Barış A. Yörümez is a historian of socialist movements in the twentieth century. His post-doctoral research focuses on the “socio-emotions” history of democratic socialist movements that emerged across the countries of East-Central Europe and the Global South between 1956 and 1980.
Host University: Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, Spain
Host research group or department: Department of Contemporary History
Co-host University: Stockholm University, Sweden
Secondment institution: To be defined
Advisor: Professor Fernando Camacho Padilla
Co-advisor: Professor Aryo Makko
Secondment mentor: To be defined
My research
The Politics of Lament and Hope:Transnational History of Democratic Socialism in East-Central Europe and the Global South (1956-1980)
This project studies the emergence and transformation of the democratic socialist movements across the countries of East-Central Europe and the Global South between 1956 and 1980. Existing histories of the 1960s or “reform socialism” offer ample evidence of the transnational flow of political ideas or cultural preferences from “capitalist West” to the “socialist East,” but there is much less work on the exchange of ideas, experiences and emotions between the “East” and the “South” (or the countries that are sometimes referred to as the “Second” and “Third World” respectively) during the Cold War. Despite vast differences in their historical trajectory and culture, the countries like Czechoslovakia, Turkey, and Chile witnessed increased popularity of the non-Soviet, democratic forms of socialist movements in a similar time period. Studying the political and cultural outputs of the leading democratic socialist leaders, political figures, and intellectuals, my research makes a comparative, transnational analysis of the sudden proliferation of the democratic socialist ideas, emotions and movements for merging the egalitarian, anti-imperialist vision of Marxism with quasi-Western democratic values in differing political and geographical contexts.
Date started – Date End
15.10.2022 - 14.10.2024
