EDITORIAL
With this newsletter we would like to provide a first review of the ICHS congress in Poznán in August, which we want to continue in the following issue. This congress took place under very special conditions. It was originally planned for 2020 and, accordingly, much of the programme had already been set at the general assembly in Moscow in 2017, even though panels and round tables were added later. However, as is generally known, the congress could not take place in 2020 or 2021. This made it extraordinarily diffi cult for the organizers. Each and every participant was all the more grateful for the enormous hospitality and professional competence with which the colleagues around Krzysztof Makowski, Ewa Domanská, and Tomasz Schramm made the congress an intellectual pleasure and a highlight of the sociability of our profession. Over 900 participants were registered, of whom 573 (65%) took part in the discussions in person. As the evaluation of the registrations by the organizers shows, 151 (26%) of the participants present in Poznan came from Poland, another 41 from Germany, 39 from France, 27 from Italy, and 20 from the Czech Republic. As many as 182 participants (23%) came from countries outside Europe – 77 (16%) were present on site, the others online –, with fewer participants from the USA and Japan than at previous congresses.
In total, almost 100 panels were held (93), during which near 550 papers were presented (exactly 535). More than 200 presentations (216) took place in the sessions of the affi liated committees and commissions, attended by about 150 people.
The digital presence of the congress was quite impressive, with 1,500 views for the opening session, 1,600 for the closing session, and almost 500 for the award session, during which Sanjay Subrahmanyam was honoured for his impressive work.
In the following contributions, we begin to review the congress in Poznán by presenting some short reports on sections and round tables. In this way, we return to a tradition established within the ICHS bulletin, which in the past endeavoured to give a (as much as possible) complete report on the course of the most recent congress. This reporting has undoubtedly been an important piece of information for all those not present at the congress itself, which has naturally become a historical source par excellence for the history of the ICHS and which is becoming particularly signifi cant with regard to the forthcoming centenary of our organization. However, this tradition has also had a very obvious disadvantage: the ICHS
bulletin could only appear after the last report had been received. Anyone who has ever been involved in collecting notes on more than 100 individual events can imagine the worry lines on the forehead of the respective general secretary who pressed and waited until fi nally the last internal commission had delivered its report. With the ICHS newsletter, the board has opted for a different approach: we will publish reports in various issues of the newsletter and strive for completeness, but we do not confi ne ourselves (and the information provided) to this criterion. If there are commissions or panel organizers who do not want to report, then we take note of this, encouraging them with some mails to change their mind – but we are accepting if we do not get any news.
In any case, those who have taken the trouble to write a more or less long note about their meeting immediately after the congress will not be kept waiting long. With this step-by-step approach, we also acknowledge that one may have to leaf through several issues of the newsletter to be informed about the majority of the panels at the Poznán congress. However, this will also be simplifi ed as we are happy to take up a suggestion from several member organizations that future newsletters should not only be sent out via the member organizations themselves but also be provided in a complete form on the website so that they can be easily accessed. We would like the associations and commissions to communicate this information channel to all their members, if possible, so that every historian can easily follow what is happening in his or her professional association.
We would like to ask all those who organized and led sections in Poznán or critically observed them to send us their reports. If possible, they should not exceed 2 pages. We look forward to your contributions! At the same time, this newsletter contains a first preview of the next congress in Jerusalem by documenting the invitation extended by Shmuel Feiner on behalf of the Israeli organizing committee in Poznán. We can all look forward with anticipation to a congress that will take place exactly 100 years after the founding of the ICHS and will address all historians of the world to present their fi ndings and to seek common conversation for the benefi t of peaceful academic understanding.
Yours,
Matthias Middell
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