• Start date:  23.11.2020
• End date:  23.11.2020
• RU:  Круглый стол «Россия – Австрия. Вехи совместной истории»
• DE:  Round Table „Österreich – Russland. Stationen der gemeinsamen Geschichte“
• Status: Completed

On Monday, November 23, 2020, took place the historical round table "Russia – Austria. Milestones in the shared history". It was attended by the Head of the Federal Archival Agency Andrey Artizov, Co-Chairs of the Russian-Austrian Commission of Historians Stefan Karner and Alexander Chubaryan, as well as representatives of the Institute of General History of the Russian Academy of Sciences and researchers of the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for the Research on the Consequences of Wars.

Initially, the round table was planned to be held in person in the city of Fuschl in March 2019, but Covid-19 made its own adjustments to the plan. However, this did not nearly prevent an unfolding of interesting discussion about the shared history of the two countries.

The event began with a warm welcome from Christoph Leitl, Co-Chair of the Sochi Dialogue Forum. Maria Matveeva, Director of the Sochi Dialogue, read out the welcome speech of Andrey Fursenko, Assistant to the President of the Russian Federation and Co-Chair of the Forum.

"This meeting was planned to be held in Austria in a much more comfortable format of personal communication for us. However, the new technologies have preserved for us the possibility of communication, which both sides took full advantage of. This applies to all spheres supported by the Sochi Dialogue: economy (webinars with representatives of Austrian business and public circles), sports (the Dialog eCup 2020 cyber tournament on the FIFA2020 discipline), culture (an online course on Austrian culture "The multifaceted art of Austria - from its origins to the present day"). But still, science and education today occupy a special place in our dialogue, " said Andrey Alexandrovich.

The Ambassador of the Russian Federation to Austria, Dmitry Lubinsky, also made a welcoming speech. During the debate, various aspects of the interaction between the two countries were discussed, starting with the first contacts between the Russian and German Empires and ending with the interaction of the USSR and Austria in 1989-1990.