The
Bureau held its last meeting in the 1995-2000 quinquennium
at the Grand Hotel, from 4 to 6:45 p.m., the evening
before the opening of the 19th International Congress
on Historical Sciences.
Members in attendance: Ivan T. Berend,
President; Natalie Zemon Davis and Alexander Tchoubarian,
Vice Presidents; François Bédarida,
Secretary General; Pierre Ducrey, Treasurer; Jürgen
Kocka, Hiroyuki Ninomiya, Jean-Claude Robert, Romila
Thapar, and Rosario Villari, Assessor Members.
Other attendees: Even Lange, President of the Norwegian
Organizing Committee and Thomas Evenson, Head of the
Organizing Committee’s Secretariat
Regrets: Eva Österberg, Assessor Member, Theo
C. Barker and Ernesto de la Torre Villar, Counsellors.
***
Agenda:
1. Adoption of the Minutes of the Moscow Bureau meeting
(August 1999) and of the of the Lausanne “Bureau
restreint” (April 2000).
2.
Report on the decisions and proposals of the Nominating
Committee.
3. Summary of the Secretary General’s Activities
Report to be presented to the ICHS General Assembly
on Sunday, 6 August 2000.
4. Treasurer’s Financial Report to be presented
to the ICHS General Assembly on Sunday, 6 August 2000.
– Position as at 31 December 1997/1998/1999
– Update on outstanding membership due –
The Web site
5. Latest information on the schedule for the 19th
ICHS Congress
– Opening session, closing session, theme sessions,
round-table sessions – Relations with the media,
book exhibit, etc. – Workshops on East-Central
Europe and on Black Africa
6.
Consideration of agenda items for the General Assembly
(6-10 August 2000):
– Vote on the composition of the Bureau 2000-2005
– Admission of new members – Venue for
the Congress in 2005
7.
Miscellaneous.
***
The President, Ivan Berend, opened the meeting by
welcoming all the participants and then gave the floor
to François Bédarida.
1. Adoption of the Minutes of the Moscow Bureau
meeting (August 1999) and of the Lausanne “Bureau
restreint” meeting (April 2000)
After brief discussion, the minutes of the Moscow
and the Lausanne meetings were adopted.
2. Nominating Committee
François Bédarida recalled that at its
meeting in Moscow on 30 August 1999, the Nominating
Committee only managed to draw up a partial list of
proposals for the 2000-2005 Bureau. Therefore mail
contacts were needed to complete the list, which explains
the numerous lengthy correspondence with the Nominating
Committee. By March 2000 the list of Bureau members
for the next five years was complete and ready for
the General Assembly to vote on. François Bédarida
read the list. The outgoing Bureau unanimously adopted
the proposals from the Nominating Committee. The curriculum
vitæ of the six new members to be elected to
the Bureau are available to all delegates from ICHS
member organisations who wish to look at them between
the two General Assembly meetings.
3. Secretary General’s Report
Preliminary to the Congress, François Bédarida
wrote a long activities report which has been distributed
to the Bureau members and will be appended to the
minutes of the 6 August General Assembly meeting.
He therefore decided to present a summary that focused
on how ICHS was doing and, more specifically, on the
following points.
— Bulletin d’information.. As usual,
the Secretary General would like to receive the Bureau’s
opinion on the last issue, a double edition (no. 25-26)
for 1999 and 2000 that was published in the spring.
He felt that a paper copy of the publication should
stay on and be available in the future but that the
number to be sent to the national committees and the
affiliated international organisations should be reduced
from 10 to 5 because of the price and because of doubts
concerning onward distribution within these bodies.
— Four applications for membership were
submitted for General Assembly approval. There were
two applying as national committees from South America
(Chile and Peru), one as an Affiliated International
Organisation (the International Society for the History
of Physical Education and Sport) and one as an Internal
Commission, headed by Prof. Alexandre Tchoubarian,
that will be studying “the cold war” (for
a limited period of time).
— Internal Commissions:
. Three of them have completed their dossier for a
change of status, viz. International Commission on
the History of the French Revolution, the International
Standing Conference for the History of Education (ISCHE)
and the Society for the Study of Crusades and the
Latin East.
. In compliance with a decision taken by the Bureau
in Moscow, two Commissions, that have not given any
sign of life for many years, were removed from the
ICHS registers, viz. the International Commission
for the Conservation and Publication of Contemporary
Sources and the International Commission for the Application
of Quantitative Methods in History (INTERQUANT).
. Negotiations are still underway with the International
Association for Media and History (IAMHIST), the International
Commission on Historical Demography, the International
Commission on the History of the Russian Revolution
and the Peace History Society.
. Then there are three Commissions whose membership,
because of the nature of the commissions, is small
which means that they have very limited resources,
viz. the International Commission for Latin Paleography,
the International Commission for Historical Metrology,
and the International Commission on Diplomacy.
— ICHS/UNESCO Cooperation
Two activities should be highlighted:
1. The International Council for Philosophy and Human
Sciences (ICPHS): its activities and authority have
been fully reinstated. ICPHS will be holding it 25th
General Assembly in Buenos Aires from 25 September
to 2 October 2000. The new ICHS Secretary General
will represent ICHS.
2. Only the first two of the three fields of study
selected by the joint ICHS/UNESCO committee, established
in 1996-97, have been carried out. The proceedings
of the Lublin conference on Borders and changes in
‘national territories’ throughout history
in East-central Europe, under the supervision of Jerzy
Kloczowski, were published in the spring of 2000.
Another regional meeting, this time on the history
of Black Africa, with many African historians participating,
was held in Bamako, Mali, in March 1999, on the theme,
History and Perception of Borders in Black Africa
from the Middle Ages to the Present, under the supervision
of Catherine Coquery-Vidrovitch. The Proceedings are
currently being prepared. The third regional study,
which focused on Latin America, has not been carried
out. The East-central Europe and the Black Africa
seminars will be discussed at a half-day workshop
during the Congress.
It will devolve to the new Bureau to define and possibly
further develop this type of cooperation with UNESCO
in the future.
— Last, François Bédarida
asks Pierre Ducrey to speak on the logo and the ICHS
Web site, whose preparation he had in charge.
Pierre Ducrey gave explanations concerning the new
ICHS logo, that had been selected by the “Bureau
restreint” in April 2000. It will be printed
on all the letterheads and on the cover of the next
issue of the ICHS Bulletin d’information. The
Web site has been on line since 5 July 2000 at the
following address:
< http://www.cish.org >
Members with an e-mail address are requested to give
it to the Treasurer who will put it on the Web site
and to establish a link between their site (if they
have one) and the ICHS site.
In ending, François Bédarida spoke highly
of the unwavering, excellent cooperation with the
Norwegian Organizing Committee, in particular the
Committee chairman, Prof. Even Lange, in preparing
for the 19th Congress of the International Committee
for Historical Sciences, and expressed his heartfelt
gratitude.
4. Treasurer’s Report
The Bureau then listened to Prof. Pierre Ducrey’s
presentation of the Financial Report covering 1997,
1998 and 1999, that he intended to submit, for approval
by vote, to the ICHS General Assembly.
He explained certain points. The level of membership
arrears is still one of the Treasurer’s major
problems. Some national committees are liable to be
excluded, e.g. Andorra (which has not given any sign
of life since 1986), also Portugal (no news since
1991) and Lithuania.
The Treasurer pointed out how expensive it was to
produce and, even more so, distribute the Bulletin
d’information. He supported the Secretary General’s
suggestion to send a smaller number of copies to the
National Committees and the Affiliated International
Organisations.
The Bureau unanimously approved the Financial Report
which the Treasurer presented and will submit to the
General Assembly.
Ensuant to the Treasurer’s Financial Report,
the Bureau decided to delete Andorra from the ICHS
registers.
5. Final touches to the organisation of the
19th Congress (Oslo)
Prof. Even Lange presented an update on Congress facts
and figures: 2,000 registered participants, of which
1,800 come from 67 different countries and 72 have
received grants. Further, 48 publishers are participating
in the exhibit that will be held on the University
campus during the Congress. A musical programme will
be available for the participants, on campus, when
work sessions are not in progress.
The opening session, which will be held in the Oslo
Concert Hall, will end with a vin d’honneur.
The welcome speech will be given by Mrs. Kirsti Kolle
Grøndahl, President of the Storting [Norwegian
Parliament]. Then speeches will be given by Mr. Per-Simonsen,
Mayor of Oslo, Mr. Kaare Norum, Chancellor of the
University of Oslo, and Mrs. Ellen Schrumpf, President
of the Norwegian Historical Society. A short opening
speech will be given by the ICHS Secretary General,
followed by a panel discussion headed by Pres. Berend.
The panel will be composed of the following four historians:
Ivan Berend, Roger Chartier, Romila Thapar, and Hans
Ulrich Wehler.
The closing session will be held in the Aula of the
old university. After brief speeches by the outgoing
President (Ivan Berend), the incoming President (Jürgen
Kocka) and the new Secretary General (Jean-Claude
Robert), a round-table discussion will be held on
“Historical Perspectives for the Next Century”.
The panel will be composed of Eric Hobsbawm, Hayden
White, Francis Sejersted, Juan Linz and Kathleen Burk,
with Geir Lundenstad as Moderator.
6. Consideration of items of the Agenda for
the General Assembly meetings (6-10 August)
The vote on the admission of new members is scheduled
to be held during the first General Assembly (6 August)
so that the new members will be eligible to vote at
the 10 August General Assembly.
The Nominating Committee’s proposal for new
Bureau members will be presented to the first General
Assembly on 6 August by Natalie Davis, the outgoing
Vice President.
Further, for the 20th Congress, in 2005, there was
only one firm offer: the Australian National Committee
suggested that the Congress be held in Sydney.
These two highly important questions will be voted
on during the second General Assembly on 10 August
2000.
***
Since there were no miscellaneous items, the president,
Ivan Berend, ended the meeting by expressing the Bureau’s
warmest appreciation to François Bédarida,
the outgoing Secretary General, for his enormous and
so precious contribution.
