The Central European History Convention (CEH-C) was organised for the first time, with a focus on various aspects of Central European history at the University of Vienne in Vienne, Austria between 17th and 19th of July, 2025.
It was an honour for the EU-PoTaRCh project to be presented in a separate 'Research Lab’ panel organised and led by Anna Varga. The panel was titled Environmental History of PoTaRCh (potash, tar, resin and charcoal) in Central Europe.
In addition to Anna Varga’s introduction to the project, individual research projects on the environmental history of charcoal production were presented from Austria, Poland and Hungary:
Elisabeth Johann (Austrian Forest Association, Austria)
Behind the activity of charcoal production lies a complex system of forest management, landscape transformation and social change.
Joachim Popek and Grzegorz Wrona (University of Rzeszów, Poland)
’The evolution of traditional charcoal and tar production practices in a sustainable forest management model in Central and Eastern Europe (1772–1848)’; The case of Austrian Galicia.
Anna Varga (Czech Academy of Sciences, Czech Republic):
’Continuity of smoke trails of the forest: charcoal production in ethnographical sources in 20th-century Hungary’.
Anna Varga participated at this conference with the support of the ITC Grant of the COST Action.