The project's initial phase aimed at establishing a theoretical basis on knowledge exchange in the Black Sea Region in historical perspective – an endeavour reflected in the first joint book. The research of the region as a sphere of foreign influence and external representation resulted in a rich diversity of papers, all of them connected by the theme of regional exchange in the fields of the humanities. Several studies underlined the influence and long-lasting implications of the first accounts of Western European scholars conducting research in der wider BSR while others took the influence of traditional knowledge systems and regimes as well as the relationship between (Western) European and Ottoman scientific traditions, the entanglement of non-scientific and scientific knowledge and the manifestation of knowledge within an increasing number of types of publications to analysis.
The second stage looked for continuities and changes to the relationship between (Western) Europe and the Black Sea Region at a time of institution building under foreign domination. A book does justice to the research conducted on the establishment of the first colleges, academies and universities in the BSR under foreign guidance, and analyzes their political and societal contexts of their founding and research on the institutionalization of knowledge. Some papers give a new insight into the biographies of the first generation of domestic scholars and altogether compare the phases and implications of the emerging academic cultures in different parts of the BSR.
The third stage has led to a third book by which the team aims to discuss the main theme of outlining the processes of the emergence of independent and semi-independent academic cultures within the BSR until WWI. The papers reflect the related objectives of conducting research on the backgrounds, discussions and motivation behind the foundation of chairs at BSR universities, on the role of international conferences, congresses and fairs on knowledge transfer and exchange within the BSR and the (self-)representation of BSR countries towards/by Western Europe and on Russian internal colonialism.
In the fourth stage, the consortium put an emphasis on the systematic analysis of dependency and independency of academic cultures in the interwar period. Another book gives credit to the manifold perspectives on the implications of the forceful integration of the South Caucasus into the Soviet Union on the development of local academic cultures but also on Western European political discussions on the BSR and on the transition of an Ottoman to a Turkish academic culture. This stage followed the objectives to analyze the role of Socialism and the Communist International in the transfer of ideas within the BSR and the role of conferences in the framework of the Balkan Entente.
During the fifth stage of the project, the involved researchers followed the overall objective to explore the ideological frontlines that shaped academic cultures in the Black Sea Region after World War II. A fifteen-chapter publication helps to understand the BSR within the Soviet Union’s knowledge exchange system, the relation between ideological concepts and knowledge exchange in the BSR and the shifts in academic cultures caused by the doctrines of Socialist realism.
The sixth stage took the project to the recent past of a transitioning BSR and to the very present and allowed the involved researchers to engage in discussions on the progressive integration of the region into the European Research Area and globalization. A forthcoming publication builds on a systematic analysis of the ongoing developments in academic cultures after 1989/91 and especially on the role of the internet and new media for knowledge exchange. These debates put the reorganization and restructuring of universities and academies into perspective and allowed critical discussions on the establishment of new networks and new concepts within the region’s academic cultures while engaging also with the causes and effects of brain drain and a new quality of communication across diaspora communities.
