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First, this article focuses on the question of how the historiography on Eastern European in German-speaking countries reflected on questions of space and territoriality before the appearance of the spatial turn. Second, it gives an... more
First, this article focuses on the question of how the historiography on Eastern European in German-speaking countries reflected on questions of space and territoriality before the appearance of the spatial turn. Second, it gives an insight into recent trends in this field of research and summarizes the most important works on the modern history of East Central Europe that can be placed in this context. It comes to the conclusion that it would be too much to say that the debates that emerged since the late 1990s on Eastern Europe in Germany had anticipated already the main elements of the recent spatial turn. From today's perspective, however, significant transfer potential can still be identified, also because discussions within German East European history did not find their way into more general historical debate (with only some exceptions like studies related to the question of boundaries). The complex historical development of East-Central Europe in particular offers enough...
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The aim of this chapter is threefold. First, it will shed some light on the constitutional framework and the status of the various administrative units which made up the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. Second, it will take a closer look at the... more
The aim of this chapter is threefold. First, it will shed some light on the constitutional framework and the status of the various administrative units which made up the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. Second, it will take a closer look at the policies of the Austrian state in relation to language and other nationalising tendencies in the various regions. Although region-building activities were based on deep-rooted local identities and comparatively autonomous political institutions, it is hard to speak of ‘regionalisms’ confronting the Austrian state. Instead, it seems to be more appropriate to focus on the different settings and political dynamics for each part of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. Accordingly, the third aim of this chapter is to show how regionalist reasoning, representation or political strategies functioned within the very specific constitutional and political setting and what factors played a role when a shift in the relation between state, empire, nation and region t...
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Es liegt gleichsam auf der Hand, dass Sicherheit immer auch eine räumliche Dimension aufweist – „Territorialisierungsdynamiken“, so stellte der Historiker Eckart Conze fest, „sind über weite Strecken Sicherheitsdynamiken.“1 Schon der... more
Es liegt gleichsam auf der Hand, dass Sicherheit immer auch eine räumliche Dimension aufweist – „Territorialisierungsdynamiken“, so stellte der Historiker Eckart Conze fest, „sind über weite Strecken Sicherheitsdynamiken.“1 Schon der Geograph Robert Sack fasste Territorialität als ein Bestreben von Individuen oder Gruppen, im Raum auf Personen, Phänomene und Beziehungen ordnend einzuwirken. Durch die Begrenzung eines geographischen Gebiets werde versucht, eine regulative Kontrolle durchzusetzen.2 Umso mehr erstaunt daher, wie wenig dieser offensichtliche Wechselbezug zwischen Räumlichkeit und Sicherheit in der Theoriediskussion bislang reflektiert worden ist. Dieser Beitrag möchte aus historischer Perspektive einzelne Ansätze systematisch aufeinander beziehen.3 Er wird zunächst einen kurzenÜberblick über die fragmentierte Theorielandschaft geben, um dann am Beispiel zentraler interdisziplinärer Forschungsfelder neue Perspektiven für einen integrierten Gesamtansatz zu erschließen.
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Im Rahmen des Forschungsverbunds haben sich sowohl die Arbeitsgruppe „Zivilgesellschaft“ wie auch diejenige, die uber Nationale Identitat(en) arbeitet, naturgemas immer auch mit der Rolle von Sprache befasst. Einzelne Projekte dieser... more
Im Rahmen des Forschungsverbunds haben sich sowohl die Arbeitsgruppe „Zivilgesellschaft“ wie auch diejenige, die uber Nationale Identitat(en) arbeitet, naturgemas immer auch mit der Rolle von Sprache befasst. Einzelne Projekte dieser Untergruppen des Gesamtverbunds und auch die gemeinsamen Fragestellungen haben die Relevanz von Sprache gleichermasen als Brucke und Grenze diskutiert und herausgearbeitet. Dies gilt sowohl innerhalb wie auch zwischen Nationen. Dem Thema kommt deshalb eine sehr vielschichtige und komplexe Bedeutung zu. Gleichzeitig fand es in der Interdisziplinaritat der Verbundarbeit, die ja ebenfalls terminologische Grenzen zu uberwinden hat, auf spannende Weise eine interne Entsprechung. Sprache verdeutlicht die kulturelle Vielfalt Europas. Sprachen schaffen Kommunikationsraume, bedingen aber auch Kommunikationsgrenzen. Europaische Einigung ist untrennbar mit einem wechselseitigen und Nations ubergreifenden Verstandigungsprozess verbunden. In einem solchen treten Spr...
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In a memorandum presented to the Hungarian-Czechoslovak Boundary Commission on 23 February 1922 by the inhabitants of the southern Slovak town of Viškovce (Hungarian: Ipolyvisk), the twenty-five signatories requested “humbly for... more
In a memorandum presented to the Hungarian-Czechoslovak Boundary Commission on 23 February 1922 by the inhabitants of the southern Slovak town of Viškovce (Hungarian: Ipolyvisk), the twenty-five signatories requested “humbly for consideration and well-meaning settlement of the following concern.” The municipality was bordered on three sides by the Ipeľ (Hungarian: Ipoly) River, but had been cut off from the only usable road by the border, making communication extremely difficult. In winter and at high water in the spring and autumn, the place was “completely cut off from the outside world.” For three years, they had observed how provisional boundaries were continuously redrawn, and bore the brunt of these changes. The inhabitants said that all alternative routes had become inaccessible during that time and the center of Šahy (Hungarian: Ipolyság), which was just ten kilometers away, had become extremely difficult to reach even in urgent cases. Thus, they requested that the only exis...
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This article provides an introduction to the special thematic section on political mobilization in East Central Europe. Based on a brief presentation of the main arguments of the individual articles, the authors discuss the recent... more
This article provides an introduction to the special thematic section on political mobilization in East Central Europe. Based on a brief presentation of the main arguments of the individual articles, the authors discuss the recent political volatility in East Central Europe. They highlight the tension between fierce political rhetoric and populist policies on the one hand, and low levels of voter turnout and overall political participation in the region on the other. The authors argue that recent cases of successful as well as unsuccessful political mobilization in East Central Europe point to structural re-alignments in the region's political landscape. In particular, the parties that are successful are those that manage to communicate their visions in new ways and whose messages resonate with nested attitudes and preferences of the electorate. These parties typically rally against the so-called establishment and claim for themselves an anti-hegemonic agenda. The introductory e...
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The history of scientific concepts has firmly settled among the instruments of historical inquiry. In our section we approach concepts from the perspective of nomadic concepts (Isabelle Stengers). Instead of following the evolution of... more
The history of scientific concepts has firmly settled among the instruments of historical inquiry. In our section we approach concepts from the perspective of nomadic concepts (Isabelle Stengers). Instead of following the evolution of concepts within one disciplinary network, we see them as subject to constant reification and change while crossing and turning across disciplines and non-scientific domains. This introduction argues that understanding modern biology is not possible without taking into account the constant transfers and translations that affected concepts. We argue that this approach does not only engage with nomadism between disciplines and non-scientific domains, but reflects on and involves the metaphoric value of concepts as well.
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En primer lugar, el autor resume los estudios y teorías existentes en la historiografía alemana acerca del giro espacial, y describe las tendencias y enfoques más recientes a este respecto. A continuación, analiza la identidad imperial... more
En primer lugar, el autor resume los estudios y teorías existentes en la historiografía alemana acerca del giro espacial, y describe las tendencias y enfoques más recientes a este respecto. A continuación, analiza la identidad imperial del Imperio habsbúrgico, el papel de las regiones en su evolución y la ambivalente relación de las autoridades imperiales hacia el nacionalismo y los
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This article introduces a collection of studies of biological concepts crossing over to other disciplines and nonscholarly discourses. The introduction discusses the notion of nomadic concepts as introduced by Isabelle Stengers and... more
This article introduces a collection of studies of biological concepts crossing over to other disciplines and nonscholarly discourses. The introduction discusses the notion of nomadic concepts as introduced by Isabelle Stengers and explores its usability for conceptual history. Compared to traveling (Mieke Bal) and interdisciplinary (Ernst Müller) concepts, the idea of nomadism shifts the attention from concepts themselves toward the mobility of a concept and its effects. The metaphor of nomadism, as outlined in the introduction, helps also to question the relation between concepts' movement and the production of boundaries. In this way conceptual history can profit from interaction with translation studies, where similar processes were recently discussed under the notion of cultural translation.
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Although the literature on nation building is truly vast, scholars have paid relatively little attention to the formation of regional identities. This is in large part because those who specialize in regionalism have argued that state and... more
Although the literature on nation building is truly vast, scholars have paid relatively little attention to the formation of regional identities. This is in large part because those who specialize in regionalism have argued that state and region form an essentially contradictory relationship. This article analyzes one example of how a hitherto indistinct geographical entity was fashioned into a federal province and how its political elite complied with a constant need to popularize and entrench the concept of the region. The new regional identity was thus designed to counteract two challenges to its very existence as a federal province: one from the former mother state, Hungary, and the other from Austria, where consideration was given to dividing the newly created entity between two neighboring federal provinces. The outcome of this attempt was the creation of a regional identity, albeit one mostly defined in negative terms.