Dancefloors of Democracy: Underground Culture as Resistance in Europe’s Frontline Cities

In this lecture, Thomas Seifert will explore the role of underground cultural spaces as engines of democratic resilience and identity-building in societies under pressure. After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the techno underground played a pivotal role in shaping Berlin’s new, edgy identity—a fusion of the anything-goes spirit of East Berlin with the anarchic, contrarian energy of Kreuzberg and West Berlin. These clubs, squats, and raves became laboratories of a new urban identity. Today, we can observe a strikingly similar dynamic in the “frontline states” of Eastern Europe—Ukraine, Serbia, Moldova, and Georgia. In Kyiv, clubs like Closer or K41 have transformed into centers of wartime resilience, sustaining cultural life under bombardment and providing spaces for processing collective trauma. In Tbilisi, the techno scene around venues like Bassiani and Khidi has become a focal point for pro-EU protests and resistance against growing Russian influence. In Belgrade, the underground scene has maintained its historical role as a site of political resistance since the Milošević era, with close ties to the current student protests against the government of President Aleksandar Vučić. And in Chișinău, collectives like Metanoia and Podval are building cultural bridges amid regional tensions, supporting Ukrainian refugees through initiatives like “Make Borș Not War.” 

Drawing on his ongoing multimedia project “The Remainers: Resilience, Resistance, Revolt,” Seifert will examine what motivates urban creatives to remain in these cities despite brain drain, economic instability, and political crisis—and how their temporary autonomous zones foster democratic values, social cohesion, and a sense of European belonging. What lessons can Berlin’s post-1989 transformation offer for understanding these contemporary cultural movements? And what do these spaces tell us about the power of culture to create pockets of freedom in times of war and authoritarian pressure?

Thomas Seifert is a journalist, filmmaker, and lecturer. He studied biology at the universities of Salzburg and Vienna before turning to journalism. Until June 2023, he was acting editor-in-chief of the Austrian daily Wiener Zeitung, published in Vienna from 1703 until 2023. Seifert is co-editor-in-chief of European Voices, a quarterly English-language magazine on Central, Eastern, and South East European affairs, and also co-hosts the East Side Stories podcast. His reporting spans more than 100 countries, including conflict zones in the Balkans, Afghanistan, Iraq, the Middle East, and Africa. He reported from New York after 9/11, from Belgrade and Kosovo in 1999, from Kabul during the fall of the Taliban in 2001, and from Baghdad during the Iraq War in 2003. Since 2014, Seifert has regularly reported from Ukraine, intensifying his coverage after the Russian full-scale invasion of 2022, reporting from Kyiv, Lviv, Odesa, and the frontlines in the east and south. A pioneer of immersive journalism, he has created 360° video experiences, such as “exodus360,” devoted to the refugee crisis. His book Schwarzbuch Öl (Deuticke Verlag, 2005, co-authored with Klaus Werner) was an international bestseller translated into eight languages. He is the author of several further books, including Schwarzbuch Gold (Deuticke Verlag, 2011) and Die Pazifische Epoche (Deuticke Verlag, 2015). His work has been published in Die Presse, Falter, profil, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Die Zeit, Stern, and Dagens Nyheter, among others, and broadcast on ORF and the BBC. He lectures on investigative journalism and new media at FH Wien and runs the Storyinstitut. In 2025, he received the Hugo-Portisch-Preis, and in 2020, the Ari-Rath-Preis.

Ludger Hagedorn, IWM Permanent Fellow, will offer commentary and moderate the Q&A session.