Presentation of the research team

CERCLE is a research group founded in 1997. It is based at the Campus Lettres et Sciences Humaines in Nancy (France). Initially devoted to comparative research on Central and Eastern European literature, the CERCLE team has broadened its field of study to include cultural history and the phenomena of cultural circulation in and towards Central and Eastern Europe, a perimeter stretching from the Baltic to the Black Sea and the Caspian. 

Approached as an open cultural space, rich in linguistic, political and religious diversity, this vast geographical area is neither a homogeneous reality nor a bounded territory with clear, consensual borders. Depending on the period under consideration, this cultural area may extend as far as Moscow, Kiev, Odessa or Istanbul, or even as far as Jerusalem, Damascus, Cairo or Carthage, encompassing cities that were once at the heart of the Ottoman Empire, or it may close in on the nations of Western Europe. This space bears the imprint of the Germanic and Byzantine worlds, of Ottoman and Arab civilizations - all aspects that are still often overlooked in the history of European culture.

The fact that this space is approached as an open cultural space, marked by interactions between structurally heterogeneous and hybrid cultures, however, also requires us not to deny its singularity.The Shoah, communism, Nazism, totalitarianism and, more broadly, authoritarian regimes are just some of the decisive, structuring experiences of this space. 

Because of the linguistic and cultural plurality of this area, the CERCLE brings together researchers in Slavic studies, Germanists working on Austria, East Germany or the relations of the Germanic area with Central and Eastern Europe, as well as Arabists whose research allows to take into account the relationship of this cultural area to its borders and to its “Others” (Maghreb, Islam, the Orient). Our research group brings together historians of cultural facts, specialists in literature, music, performing arts and civilization, who are interested in the phenomena of cultural transfers from a transnational perspective.