The politics of contested narratives: biographical approaches to modern European history. Introduction

Abstract

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1. Judt and Snyder Judt, Tony and Snyder, with Timothy. 2012. Thinking the Twentieth Century, New York: The Penguin Press. [Google Scholar], Thinking the Twentieth Century, xiii. 2. GRACEH (Graduate Conference in European History) 2010, ‘Biography and Identity: Dilemmas and Opportunities’, Central European University, Budapest, Hungary, 6–9 May 2010. The conference was organised by Ilona Dénes, Emily Gioielli, Uku Lember, Luka Lisjak Gabrijelčič, Zsófia Lóránd, Caroline Marburger, Divna Manolova, Oana Sînziana Păltineanu and Piotr Wciślik and sponsors for the event included the CEU Departments of History and Medieval Studies, the Gerda Henkl Stiftung, the European University Institute (EUI) and the CEU Student Activity Fund. This conference was the fourth of an on-going conference series sponsored by the CEU, EUI and, most recently, the University of Vienna. 3. The interest in the concept and methodology of biography was inspired in part by issues of Ab Imperio which focused on the role of ‘imperial biography’ as a way to ‘bring together the rapidly disintegrating fabrics of imperial society’, as well as the American Historical Review, which published a round table on the historiographical potential of biography as it has been redefined by interdisciplinarity and increasingly popular non-national approaches to the past. See special issue of Ab Imperio, I. Gerasimov et al. Gerasimov, I., Glebov, S., Kaplunovski, A., Mogilner, M. and Semyonov, A., eds. 2009. “Narrating the Multiple Self: New Biographies for the Empire”. In Ab Imperio Vol. 1, [Google Scholar], eds., ‘Narrating the Multiple Self: New Biographies for the Empire’ (2009) and The American Historical Review, ‘AHR Roundtable’ (2009). 4. Banner Banner, Lois. June 2009. Biography as History. The American Historical Review, 114(3): 573–661. “AHR Roundtable”[Crossref] , [Google Scholar], ‘Biography as History,’ 580. 5. Banner Banner, Lois. June 2009. Biography as History. The American Historical Review, 114(3): 573–661. “AHR Roundtable”[Crossref] , [Google Scholar], ‘Biography as History,’ 580 6. Banner, ‘Biography as History,’ 581. 7. Judt Judt, Tony. 2005. Postwar: A History of Europe since 1945, New York: Penguin Books. [Google Scholar], Postwar: A History of Europe since 1945, 5. See also Wolff Wolff, Larry. 1994. Inventing Eastern Europe: the Map of Civilization on the Mind of the Enlightenment, Stanford: Stanford University Press. [Google Scholar], Inventing Eastern Europe, and Todorova Todorova, Maria. 1997. Imagining the Balkans, New York: Oxford University Press. [Google Scholar], Imagining the Balkans. 8. Judt and Snyder, Thinking the Twentieth Century, xiv.