ANNA NAKAI – HISTORY ON THE EDGE

On 28 January 2026, we hosted a new lecture at the Institute of Contemporary History as part of the History on the Edge series.

In her talk, Anna Nakai presented “Sporadic Trajectory of Eastern European Thought: Postwar Japanese Intellectuals and Their Source of Alternative Ideas,” arguing that the reception of Eastern European intellectual production in postwar Japan did not unfold as a coherent development, but rather through a series of irregular and discontinuous encounters shaped by major moments of global upheaval.

She explored how these fragmented connections influenced Japanese debates on socialism, humanism, and nationalism, and why ideas from Eastern Europe intermittently offered alternatives both to Soviet orthodoxy and to Japanese political imaginaries throughout the Cold War. She also addressed how, by the early 1990s, the symbolic power of Eastern Europe in this context gradually faded.

The event was held in English, at the INZ premises and via Zoom.

You can watch the full lecture here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4UvH5MUXMk

You are warmly invited to watch the video.