The “European Spa as a Transnational Public Space and Social Metaphor” project focuses on how European spas, seaside resorts, and sanatoria have developed and spread culturally, socially and artifactually, from the 19th century to today. The project researchers have also been working with Associated Partners (APs) from spas peppered across Europe to explore ways in which a pan-European perspective and collaboration could imbue revitalization and revalorization efforts of spa towns and their heritage, given the precarious state many find themselves in today. This conference aimed to build on these focal points, and bring to light aspects of European spas that are less prominent in academic and public discourses. The conference contributors spanned a wide breadth of disciplines, ranging from economics, history, literature, tourism, art, and architecture.

In opening salutations, VALTER BOLJUNČIĆ (Pula) welcomed attendants to Brijuni, located on “the biggest spa: the sea,” and highlighted the international and co-operational aspects that the project embodied and that the conference represented. AP MARIO CRECENTE (EHTTA) underscored the importance of the conference, since “thousands of spas are under threat of losing their tangible and intangible heritage.”

Opening keynote speaker OLIVER SUKROW (Vienna) traced the travels of an American doctor, Walter S. McClellan, who visited various European spas in the 1930s to draw inspiration for a modernization effort back home in Saratoga Springs, NY – the “Carlsbad of America”. The interwar period, as Oliver described, was a seminal time when European resorts were thriving, and a period of robust, enlightened exchange of knowledge (related to health, science, conservation and modernization) both throughout Europe and across the Atlantic.

Panel One, “Spas as Social, Cultural or Political Laboratory”, remained in the interwar period. However, unlike Sukrow who elucidated the transatlantic networks of spas during this time, the following panelists revealed how European spas and spa tourism had also become more “nationalist”. COSIM-STEFAN DOGARU (Bucharest) looked at the evolution of two of the most popular and important spa towns in Romania – Băile Herculane and Băile Govora – after WWI. While the two resorts had different origin stories in disparate parts of the country, both benefited from the Romanian government’s initiatives to support national spa tourism within its newly drawn borders, and make it competitive with the heretofore more popular resorts in the rest of Europe. Improved infrastructure and transportation, a burgeoning private-public partnership, and increasing access to affordable, year-round resort tickets and reservations transformed these towns into not just places that successfully attracted the elusive, wealthy Romanian elites, but also the local populations and middle class.

MILAN BALABAN (Zlin) looked at an oft-neglected topic: Yugoslav tourists in Czechoslovak spas, and he, too, noted the important role that the state played in interbellum Europe. Despite, or perhaps because of, hardships resulting from the Great Depression, restrictions foreigners faced trying to access local currency, and the cleaving off of the German tourists (who had made up a clear majority) from the newly “Czech” spas, a “little entente” of pan-Slavic tourism emerged as trans-governmental cooperation that led to an easing of travel arrangements and easier access to travel vouchers, which enabled Yugoslavian interwar elites to fulfill their “social obligation” to visit Czech spas.

JONATHAN VOGES (Hannover) began Panel Two, “The Ugly Spa”, by showcasing how the political and antisemitic climate of Germany in the early 1900s permeated Bad Pyrmont’s identity and rewrote its history. Once the epitome of a “European” spa, the resort became unequivocally “German” after Adolf Hitler decreed it a resort worthy for National Socialist (NS) party members. While it is unknown how many NS members went following Hitler’s endorsement, this proclamation marked a symbolic shift in Bad Pyrmont, despite resistance from the local (Quaker) population. Bad Pyrmont became emblematic of the complicated entanglements of tourism, NS politics and policies, and small-town history and economy: once considered a cosmopolitan resort where the rich and famous took luxurious cures, the town became known as a “classless, proletariat place,” that had buried its past reputation as a fashionable spa.

KELLY HIGNETT (Leeds) traced the turbulent history of the spa town Jáchymov, located on the German/Czech border. Jáchymov’s short history as a resort town internationally renowned for its radium baths stands in stark contrast with its long history of suffering due to the myriad environmental and health problems associated with the mining of radium, and its shorter yet more notorious history of forced labor uranium mining camps under Communism. Hignett showed how this conflicting identity is still reflected in the town's tourism industry today: On the one hand, there are “health tourists” seeking respite and relaxation at the spa; on the other hand, there are “dark tourists” interested in the Communist horrors of Jáchymov.

KATRIN SIPPEL (Vienna) explored how two spa towns in Portugal, Caldas da Rainha and Curia, became sites of refuge and transit during WWII. By utilizing contemporaneous and current accounts written by both refugees and the local Portuguese population, Sippel showed how these spa resorts became somewhat segregated from general society and were transformed into liminal “waiting rooms” for those traveling onward to the Americas. While the refugees and the locals viewed this period as transitory and temporary, their respective experiences and interactions with each other were mostly positive (if not mundane and regimented). Some impacts were rather profound, particularly for Portuguese women who were influenced by the more emancipated female refugees.

The second day began with Panel Three, “The Transnational Literary Spa Text”. Inspired by Franco Moretti’s literary mappings, OLGA KULISHKINA and LARISA POLUBOYARINOVA (St. Petersburg) used 19th century spa narratives – ranging from Walter Scott’s St. Ronan’s Well (1823) to Scholem Alejchem’s Marienbad (1911) – to create a polycentric network map in order to highlight intertextualities of the novels, visualize the ebbs and flows of the spa topos, and trace what aspects of European spa culture (of both the real and literary worlds) were highly borrowed and transferred across borders throughout the century.

YANA LYAPOVA (Innsbruck) invited us to consider how she employed Ned Luckacher’s adaptation of Freud’s “Primal Scene” as a literary tool of analysis in exploring the “workers’ gaze'' in two swimming pool scenes: the first from Bohumil Hrabal’s I Served the King of England (1971); the second from Milan Kundera’s The Farewell Waltz (1972). Since the spa-personnel were all but invisible to the female bathers, they were able to closely observe the women’s behaviors and bodies both in and out of the water. Through their gaze, we see how women were considered either young and beautiful, or not; fulfilling their patriotic and biological duties, or not. Essentially, the workers were observing the gender politics and national identities in Czechoslovakia at that time.

BARBARA SCHAFF (Göttingen) also reminded us that the ways in which women were portrayed in spa literature often mimicked contemporary gender politics. Up until the late 19th century, spas were considered places of relative independence and emancipation for women, both socially and sexually; however, as the century drew to an end, the spas and their curative regimes became more medicalized and focused on curing “nervous disorder” and other womanly ailments. Schaff claimed spa literature at the turn of the century (Mackay, 1896; Chechov, 1899; Zweig, 1911) reflected this emerging paradigm shift: While spas to some degree were still places that afforded the female protagonists some independence, the women were nonetheless subjected to a male gaze focused on only qualifying their physical attributes. They were also doubly constrained by gender norms, and vacillated (unsuccessfully) between their sexuality and matronliness. As Schaff argued, the spa became a place where women experienced less liberation from – and more subjection to – the patriarchy.

Interested in contemporary, non-academic retellings of Thomas Mann’s Magic Mountain (1924), KAROLINA WATROBA (Oxford) looked at Gore Verbinski’s 2016 cinematic flop A Cure for Wellness. Watroba found that the topoi of the spa and sanatorium had been conflated (e.g. an aqueous immersion tank was central to the movie despite its total absence in Magic Mountain), and Verbinski’s decision to modernize the retelling of Magic Mountain by turning it into a critique of capitalism led Watroba to argue that, instead of embracing the authentic appeal of the novel, Verbinski relied too heavily on worn, a-historical tropes of the “menacing gothic German Nazi” and growingly passé cinematographic stylings.

KRISTINA AFRIĆ RAKITOVAC (Pula) led Panel Four, “Current Concerns in and for Spas”. Coming from an economic perspective with concerns about the European spa industry, Rakitovac argued for the inherent need to implement responsible and, thus, sustainable development models in the wellness industry. A main problem with the current neo-liberal models, she claimed, is the disconnect between the productivity of a nation’s wellness economy and the quality of life of its people. In effect, she suggested that the existing linear model must be replaced with a more holistic four-pillar approach, focusing on economic, environmental, societal and, perhaps most importantly, cultural equitability and sustainability.

Bolstering her colleague’s claim and echoing the concerns surrounding Croatian spa towns, NATAŠA UROŠEVIĆ (Pula) illustrated how essential the pillar of culture has been in successful revitalization efforts of other European spa towns (e.g. Karlovy Vary). Since Croatian cultural heritage is embedded within a larger European cultural heritage, she argued it would be beneficial to analyze how the “European model” could apply to Croatian national spas to integrate them within wider transnational heritage networks like UNESCO and EHTTA. A guiding question for Urošević – to which her fellow panelists would later allude – was “how to use great tradition to maintain a great future?”.

SÉAN WILLIAMS (Sheffield) examined how hotels and resorts have dealt with the culturally contested concept of “luxury”. Swiss alpine resorts have long been synonymous with luxury and all its corrupting influences (capitalism, cosmopolitanism, hedonism), and Williams noticed some of these resorts have laid claims to certain literary heritages to create an imaginary fantasy (e.g. “Heidiland”). Doing so, he argued, enables resorts to tap into tourists’ desires to have a “quintessentially and generically local” experience, which permits tourists to assuage their guilt, since the luxuriousness of these experiences has been downplayed and embedded within a reframing and branding of kitsch and nostalgia.

SUSAN INGRAM (Toronto) took us from “kitsch to schmaltz” as she discussed how Austria has undergone a rebranding and revitalization campaign of its own by mobilizing its “Habsburgian and faux-Habsburgian” cultural and literary heritages. Ingram pointed to how Bad Gastein and Semmering – both once prominent spa resorts, but more recently characterized as declining ski resorts – have revalorized different aspects of imperial nostalgia, be it as a former meeting place of celebrity world figures (Gastein) or as a former Viennese writer’s resort (Semmering). While Ingram claimed the former is perhaps more successful than the latter, both have found ways to beneficially rebrand and market their cultural past.

ASTRID KÖHLER (London) led the Round Table, which was comprised of panelist APs MAY CATT (Harrogate), NATAŠA UROŠEVIĆ (Pula) and MICHAEL SCHOLZ (Bad Oeynhausen), who discussed their expectations, experiences and hopes for the future of the project. All agreed their experiences have been fruitful; they appreciated how the project enabled them to branch out from their more local/national perspectives to a more international one, which has benefited their respective communities and networks as a whole. There were mixed feelings, however, as the project winds down; Scholz worried aloud, “We are enthusiastic now, but things can disappear.” Crecente, another AP in the audience, closed the discussion with these thoughts: For long-term achievements in promoting and preserving the legacies of European spa towns, “we must protect the water heritage, improve the cultural heritage, enhance the intangible heritage.”

SARA BÉDARD-GOULET (Tartu), in the closing keynote, presented her collaboration with BRUNO GOOSSE (Brussels) and explored how the sanatorium, once the epitomical and ubiquitous site across Europe for curing tuberculosis, has diverged both in its function and form since penicillin radically changed the curative regime after WWII. East of the Iron Curtain, sanatoria remained sunny, open spaces where people continued to go for rest and relaxation. Conversely, in the west, sanatoria were altered to become closed off from the outside world, and remained associated with disease. By walking us through their exhibition Sanatorium Atmosphere, Goulet invited the conference participants to think how the life cycles and collective memories of such heritage are dependent on the politics, science, and culture that that heritage is situated in.

Bédard-Goulet’s presentation embodied many of the themes that arose again and again during the conference. She reminded the participants about the complicated, multifaceted histories of European spas and their rich, diverse, and distinct tangible and intangible heritages.

Conference Overview:

Welcoming Remarks

Valter Boljunčić (Juraj Dobrila University of Pula) and Mario Crecente (EHTTA)

Opening Keynote Lecture

Oliver Sukrow (Vienna): From Saratoga Springs to Nauheim and back

Panel 1, Spas as Social, Cultural or Political laboratory
Chair: Christian Noack (Amsterdam)

Cosmin-Ştefan Dogaru (Bucharest): Spa-Tourism, Leisure and Sociability in Interwar-Romania: Encounters between Old and New Elites

Milan Balaban, Irena Balaban-Cakirpaloglu (Zlin): Yugoslav Tourists in Czechoslovak Spas during the Interwar Period

Panel Two, The Ugly Spa
Chair: Wiebke Kolbe (Lund)

Jonathan Voges (Hannover): Bad Pyrmont's Ugly History. Writing the History of a Spa Town under National-Socialism

Kelly Hignett (Leeds): Jáchymov: A Small Bohemian Spa Town with a Big History.

Katrin Sippel (Vienna): “Unwanted Holidays”. Portuguese Spas as Places of Abode for Refugees during WW II

Guided tour through poster exhibition
Mirjana Kos Nalis (Croatian Tourism Museum; Juraj Dobrila University of Pula)

Panel 3 (pt.1), The Transnational Literary Spa Text
Chair: Bill Bell (Cardiff)

Olga Kulishkina & Larisa Poluboyarinova (St Petersburg): Literary Spa Narratives of the long 19th Century as Map and Network

Yana Lyapova (Innsbruck): Primal Scenes of the “Sanatorial text”: Decoding the Spa Workers Gaze in the Swimming Pool Scenes of Bohumil Hrabal and Milan Kundera

Panel 3 (pt.2), The Transnational Literary Spa Text

Barbara Schaff (Göttingen): “Bad” behaviour: Emancipation and Female Regulation in Spa Literature around 1900.

Karolina Watroba (Oxford): Gore Verbinski’s “A cure for Wellness”: A modern Magic Mountain?

Panel 4, Current Concerns in and for Spas
Chair: Henrike Schmidt (Berlin)

Kristina Afrić Rakitovac (Pula): Implementation of Sustainability Issues in European Spas

Nataša Urošević (Pula): The Great Spas of Europe. Revitalization Models for Croatian Historic Spas

Séan Williams (Sheffield): Wellness for Locals? The Case of Switzerland

Susan Ingram (Toronto): Reviving the Magic Mountains: Wellness and Kultur in the Austrian Alps

Round Table

The HERA European Spa project, with Associated Partners Bad Oeynhausen (GER), Harrogate (UK), Pula (HR), Astrid Köhler (London, Chair)

Closing Keynote Lecture

Sara Bédard-Goulet (Tartu) / Bruno Goosse (Bruxelles): Sanatorium Atmosphere: An Artistic Approach to Tracing Changes in Spa