European History Research Articles

Georgian Literature before the Weltliteratur

The history of Georgian writing starts much earlier than when Goethe introduced the term “Weltliteratur.” It starts from the era of Christianity from the 4th century. Due to the fast spread of Christianity in the Early Medieval period, Georgia was already included in the European net of Christian writing. All branches of Christian spiritual literature were presented. Georgian culture and literature naturally were developing in the frame of the Western European tradition. The period of the 11th-12th centuries was a Golden Era for Georgia, and the heyday of fame for Georgian culture and literature as well. Precisely during this period, “The Knight in the Panther’s Skin” was created by Shota Rustaveli. Apart from its aesthetic, philosophical, and worldview depth, it is a first text in Georgian literature as well as in European literature which reflects the clashing of two huge universes in Georgian culture—the West and the East. The Western principles are revealed in the Christian worldview of the text, in the way of thinking of the author and in its genre; however, the 12th century is already a period of strengthening of the influence of Eastern culture and literature in the European part of the Caucasus, and Rustaveli regards with obvious favor the Oriental poetic motifs. Unfortunately, at this stage of European literary history, Georgian literature was separated from the Western European literary process due to tragic political events. As for literature, it was a period of almost three centuries of silence. After the fall of Constantinople, Georgian literature had to move closer to the Eastern area as an historically offered alternative. From the 17th century, the process of the returning of Georgian political and cultural life back within the European frame had been started. Genuine Georgian writers were able to tie Georgian literature to the cultural models of European Classicism and the Enlightenment.

Book review: Mathieu, Jon: Mount Sacred. A short global history of holy mountains since 1500

Mathieu, Jon: Mount Sacred. A short global history of holy mountains since 1500. 155 pp. 11 figs. The White Horse Press. Winwick 2023. ISBN 978-1-912186-716, 30 £. eISBN 978-1-912186-72-3, OA ebook.Mathieu, Jon: Mount Sacred. Eine kurze Globalgeschichte der heiligen Berge seit 1500. 192 pp. 11 figs. Böhlau. Wien 2023. ISBN: 978-3-205-21702-2, eISBN: 978-3-205-21703-9, 35 €.
 The topic of sacred mountains has been fascinating for mountain researchers that had access to varied peaks on different continents and opened up comparative perspectives. Edwin Bernbaum’s (1990) famous book on Sacred mountains of the world was published a generation ago at the same time when Karl Gratzl (1990) edited his book on Die heiligsten Berge der Welt. It was a time when the human sphere of mountain regions attracted more attention by anthropologists, archaeologists and geographers. Embedded in a less prophane approach their descriptive books hinted towards more rigorous studies on indigenous practices and rituals, emphasized the historical rootedness of mountain communities and led to changing appreciations over time on the path to highlighting mountain exceptionalism and its exalted representation of pristine environments.The recent publication of Jon Mathieu’s Mount Sacred is a welcome reflection about how mountains became sacred objects and sanctified entities covering a period of half a millennium. The author, himself an authority on European Alpine history, has been fascinated by global mountain studies earlier on in his seminal work on the ‘third dimension’ (Mathieu 2011). This as well as the present book were simultaneously published in German and English.It is fascinating to read how sacred mountains have been created and imagined, how belief systems and scientific approaches shaped the perception of mountain peaks. The opening two chapters are devoted to an enquiry that is inspired by seminal works on Eurasian studies with a focus on place and position of mountains in structuring human environments, environmental control and scientific approaches. Eight chapters are devoted to selected mountains, among which we find at the beginning Mount Kailash and at the end Uluru. The former has probably gained the highest attention among Western readers and has been further promoted since being popularised as the ‘holiest mountain’ (Tichy 1937) suggesting a hierarchy of sacredness. In contrast, Uluru, formerly known as Ayers Rock in Australia, has been rather neglected in the above-mentioned books, probably because the mountain towers only 350 metres above the surrounding plains. Uluru has gained in popular appreciation and became a symbol in the recently debated treaty for Indigenous Australians.The two cases from China and Korea – Tai Shan and Paektusan/Changbaishan – have been canonized in their respective political contexts. Beginning with ritual importance and a deep historical rootedness they have been instrumentalized for less religious purposes and fixed on the political maps of China and North Korea. Presenting cases from the Christian realm in the European Alps seemed to be more challenging as there were pilgrimage places in villages and valleys, rather than a tradition of attributed sacredness and mountain worship on Alpine peaks and passes. Jon Mathieu entertains the reader with a number of anecdotes and historical turns in placing crosses there and in a subsequent chapter on erecting crosses in Italy and neighbouring countries on places in order to celebrate Catholic Christians’ persistence at the beginning of the 20th century. Here a comparison with the wider Himalayan arc and its manifold iconography and materiality on passes, springs and rivers would have been interesting because of its pilgrimage practices, plentiful stocks and great variety of expression and ritual veneration. The chapter devoted to North America puts the Black Hills where Black Elk and Lakota Sioux used to pray to their ‘six grandfathers’ (Tunkasila Sakpe Paha) into the centre of attention; it is the same place where the conflict about Mount Rushmore with the rock sculptures of four American presidents emerged. Competition about sacred places occurs as well where adventure sports and rock climbing take place in spiritually laden or only respected places and peaks. This applies for North American national parks obviously more than for the East African volcanoes; the latter having become attractive tourism destinations with the Kilimanjaro and victims of myth creation. Marketing of mountains has often contributed to generating legends and stories about alleged sacredness and spiritual capacities of mountains. In this context many more prominent case studies and mountain regions would come to our mind that are not covered or mentioned in this book. Jon Mathieu made his selection in order to investigate the underlying processes of creating Mount Sacred.Jon Mathieu’s approach to unearth the roots of the sacredness of some mountains and telling us revealing stories about influential actors and changing factors over time has resulted in an entertaining and enlightening text that broadens the horizon of mountain veneration. His book is highly recommended to interested members, promotors and curious visitors of mountain communities.

The House of European History: Pöttering’s Elite-Level Impact in shaping European Identity

The House of European History in Brussels, Belgium, is a pan-European identity-making institution, created by the European Union. It has sparked an array of scholarship that speaks to the power of the museum, its ability to create a master narrative for the European people, and the varying omissions and choices made in telling Europe’s history. While European Parliament President Hans-Gert Pöttering receives credit for originating the museum, little scholarship speaks to his ideas regarding European Union integration, community, and its identity – even though, elite leader ideas are recognized in nationalism studies as instrumental in the making of an identity. This article fills this gap and shows how Pöttering’s ideas influenced the broad and generalized narrative the House of European History espouses today.

Paul Ginsborg (1945–2022)

ABSTRACT Paul Ginsborg was an academic historian, public intellectual and grass-roots political activist. He began his academic career at Queens College, Cambridge, as an undergraduate in 1963 and as a Research Fellow from 1968 to 1971, where he completed a doctoral thesis on Daniele Manin and the Venetian revolution of 1848–1849. He became a lecturer at the University of York in 1972 but relinquished this position to teach temporarily in Milan and Turin before returning to Cambridge in 1980 as a fellow of Churchill College and Lecturer in Politics as part of the Cambridge Social and Political Sciences Committee, later promoted to Reader. In 1991 Ginsborg was appointed Professor of Contemporary European History at the University of Florence where he remained until (official) retirement in 2015. He was an editor of Passato e Presente from 1993 to 2002 and was a founder member of the Association for the Study of Modern Italy; at the time of his death in May 2022 he was its honorary president.

European Heritage Label-based Education as an Essential Part of Memory Education – The Polish Case

The purpose of this article is to show how the EHL is used for the interpretation, awareness, and transmission of heritage and memory. As part of the EU European Heritage Label (EHL) program, Polish institutions received six distinctions in the years 2014-2019, which places Poland high in the ranking of the awarded Brands in Europe. Polish institutions are obligated to spreading knowledge about the cultural heritage of Europe. On the one hand, EHL’s task is to raise awareness and transmit common values, elements of European history, and heritage, which can be interpreted as promoting “uni memory.” On the other hand, EHL aims to deepen intercultural dialogue and synergy, recognizing the values of diversity, which can be understood as promoting the idea of plural memory. The EHL organizers in Poland are obliged (by the provisions of the EU Program) to conduct a European narrative, but in practice, they sometimes remain at the stage of restoring and refreshing the memory of the site, organizing local memory, and revising the regional policy due to “dormant memory” during the communist period.

Postperipheral: Enacting a Horizontal History of Architecture and Empire

A review of Instruments of Occupation, an exhibition at the National Archives of Finland, curated by Dan Dubowitz, Tuomas Toivonen, and Markus Lähteenmäki, 7, 15, 21, and 28 June 2023. This multimedia exhibit in the crypt underneath the Finnish National Archives, staged in concert with the European Architectural History Network “States in Between: Empire and Architecture in East Europe and North Eurasia” conference, made possible an immersive encounter with the “accidental monuments” of Russian imperial occupation and control on the archipelago off Helsinki.

Eccentric Circles: Rudolf Goldscheid and the Unrealized Goal of Menschenökonomie during the Era of Socialization

Abstract This article explores the sudden rise in popularity and limited long-term impact of Rudolf Goldscheid's work around the time of the Great War. Goldscheid is remembered as a founder of central European sociology, a creator of fiscal sociology, and a fin-de-siècle feminist and pacifist. His reputation ranks behind many of his peers in the social sciences, however. A reevaluation of Goldscheid's position within the fin-de-siècle intellectual landscape of Vienna and central Europe reveals why his sudden success—which was really decades in the making—did not endure in the same way as that of Joseph Schumpeter or Otto Neurath, among others. Goldscheid's ideas seemed innovative in the revolutionary years 1918–1920, yet they were frequently misunderstood. His eccentric position in the socio-liberal sphere of fin-de-siècle Vienna seemed to mute his political impact after the war. A better appreciation of Goldscheid's work not only enriches our understanding of his innovative proposals but also illuminates a frenetic, experimental era in central European history.

United in Diversity? Transnational Heritage in Europe and Southern Africa Between Memory and Anticolonialism

ABSTRACT In 2017, UNESCO started developing a programme aimed at promoting tolerance and social cohesion in Southern Africa, as well as countering xenophobia and other forms of discrimination, through historicizing the heritage and memory of the diverse experiences of the region’s liberation struggle. In the same year the House of European History, a cultural institution aimed at preserving the memories of European history, opened its doors in Brussels. While the two projects are different in scope, reach and tools, they both have the stated objective of employing memory and transnational heritage to foster a collective history and sense of belonging across a wide region, in ways that go beyond ethnicity/ nationality and broaden inclusivity. By comparing how the concepts of memory and of heritage are employed in these two cases, this article explores the potential and limitations of embracing a transnational cultural heritage framework to promote inclusion. What emerges is that adopting a transnational heritage approach plays out differently in Europe and Southern Africa especially in relation to colonial history.

Charles de Gaulle and Ancient History

General de Gaulle is known for his passion for French and European history. French historical figures from the Middle Ages, the Modern era and the 19th century are sometimes associated with him. However, Charles de Gaulle was a man with a very broad cultural background and a passion for ancient history. This greatly influenced his thinking, his writing style and his perception of certain countries and peoples. Greco-Roman history and literature had a profound influence on him, and this article analyses this in greater detail.

Report from the 2nd National Scientific Conference on ‘Work Culture’, December 1, 2022

On December 1, 2022, the 2nd National Scientific Conference on ‘Work Culture’ was held at the Faculty of History, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, entitled “Little Workers: Child Labor in Social-Cultural and Economic Perspectives Throughout History”. The organizers of the meeting were the Department of Economic History, the Department of Eastern European History, and the Workshop of Cultural History of the Faculty of History at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań. Due to the participation of speakers from abroad, the conference had an international character this time around.

Das europäische Ich. Paul Celans Subjektkonstruktion

The construction of a European subject is a major dimension of Paul Celan’s poetry: According to Celan, poems are ‘laden with world’; contexts, metaphors, and the relations of the lyrical I and You support the hypothesis that this means foremost a consciousness of a ‘historical world’. His poetry refers to a European history of suffering, injustice, and persecution. The poems support an individual, subjective perspective rather than a global perspective. The following article argues that this perspective of a lyrical subject is not only prevalent in Celan’s poetry, but in addition it’s a European perspective that his poems suggest, offer, and claim.

Übergänge. Europäische Identitätsaushandlungen in Paul Celans Gedicht Pau, später

Paul Celans poem Pau, später (1965) deals with negotiations of identity and plays – textual and formal – with connections and separations. In this way the text thematises the coherence be-tween different eras, locations, and people. The context of different religious persecutions demonstrates the cruelty of European history and connects those with each other who have been excluded because of their divergence from dominant denominations. The poem criticises rigid defining of identity and offers a diasporan view which includes tolerance for cultural hybridity. Pau, später reflects on the heterogeneity and the similarities in Europe, which is why the text can be classified as transcultural European poem.

Forced Labour of Polish and Soviet Children Under Nazi Occupation Discussion by Prof. Johannes-Dieter Steinert and Prof. Beata Halicka, 1 December 2022

The following conversation is an abridged transcript of a discussion that Prof. Dr. Beata Halicka (UAM) held with Prof. Dr. Johannes-Dieter Steinert of the University of Wolverhampton in the UK. It took place on December 1, 2022 and was the opening event of a conference entitled Little Workers: Child Labor in socio-cultural and economic perspectives throughout history. The conference was organized by the Department of Economic History, the Department of Eastern European History and the Research Unit of Cultural History and was held at the Faculty of History of Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan. Johannes-Dieter Steinert is a prominent specialist in the field of child forced laborers in National Socialist Germany and German occupied Eastern Europe. His books on the subject have been published in English, German and Polish.

Climatic signatures in early modern European grain harvest yields

Abstract. The association between climate variability and grain harvest yields has been an important component of food security and economy in European history. Yet, inter-regional comparisons of climate–yield relationships have been hampered by locally varying data types and the use of different statistical methods. Using a coherent statistical framework, considering the effects of diverse serial correlations on statistical significance, we assess the temperature and hydroclimate (precipitation and drought) signatures in grain harvest yields across varying environmental settings of early modern (ca. 1500–1800) Europe. An unprecedentedly large network of yield records from northern (Sweden), central (Switzerland), and southern (Spain) Europe are compared with a diverse set of seasonally and annually resolved palaeoclimate reconstructions. Considering the effects of different crop types and time series frequencies, we find within regions consistent climate–harvest yield associations characterized by a significant summer soil moisture signal in Sweden, winter temperature and precipitation signals in Switzerland, and spring and annual mean temperature signals in Spain. The regional-scale climate–harvest associations are weaker than the recently revealed climate signals in early modern grain prices but similar in strength to modern climate–harvest relationships at comparable spatial scales. This is a noteworthy finding considering the uncertainties inherent in both historical harvest and palaeoclimate data.

The Dutch Hermitage Folly (1760-1850) in a European context: Origins, Architecture, and Meaning of the Hermit’s Hut in the Landscape Garden

The phenomenon of a hermitage in a landscape garden has not yet been studied from a transnational historical perspective. In this article we present a European architectural history of the hermitage, paying special attention to Dutch hermitages mentioned in digitised newspapers and other historical sources. The long European history of the hermitage shows that this 18th-century landscape garden folly does not, as is often believed, have an exclusively English origin. The Dutch examples affirm this, although they depart from the standard hermitage narrative in generally being neither royal nor noble. Indeed, they were primarily an urban phenomenon, built predominantly by burghers near cities. As a result, the architecture of the hermit’s hut and its meaning in the landscape garden are different from those in other countries.

Social representations of European history by the European youth: A cross-country comparison

The present manuscript examines the way young Europeans represent Europe’s history. A study conducted in 11 European countries (N = 1406 students in social sciences) shows that the characters considered most important in the history of Europe are mostly men linked either to WW2, authoritarianism, or conquests and empires. Although these appear later in the rankings and despite some imbalance between countries, Europe’s history is also associated with religious figures, artists, scientists, and philosophers. These results show that the representations of the history of Europe currently shared by young Europeans correspond, in part, to historical narratives based on a specific set of experiences, events, and values supposedly common to the peoples of Europe that were promoted by European elites throughout the integration process. Further, these results suggest that beyond the negative narrative of war and the crimes of totalitarianism, the history of Europe is also embodied by positive characters transcending national boundaries and associated with a set of key elements of the EU identity: democracy, tolerance, solidarity, humanism, and the Enlightenment. Finally, we also highlight the near-total absence of characters unambiguously related to colonization and, especially, decolonization, and a strong overall under-representation of women.

Dostoevsky’s Lost Play “Mary Stuart” (Materials for the Reconstruction of the Idea)

The reconstruction of Dostoevsky’s first literary experience — the lost drama “Mary Stuart” — involves the identification and analysis of the sources of the idea. As a result of the conducted research, a hypothetical chain of events was built. In 1838 (1835, according to other sources), Dostoevsky was impressed by “Mary Stuart” at the Alexandrinsky Theater with A. M. Karatygina in the title role: the image of the suffering queen created by the actress was superimposed on the reading of both Schiller’s tragedy “Mary Stuart” and Walter Scott’s novel “The Abbot.” Russian collection of her biographical documents, published in 1809 and the 1839 French-Russian edition of letters of Mary Stuart, her will and the report on the execution discovered by A. Ya. Lobanov-Rostovsky in the archives, came into the view of the novice writer when he was studying the “historical data” about the “life and execution” of Mary Stuart. In 1839–1840, a fictionalized biography of the “criminal” queen, compiled by Alexandre Dumas, was published. In his version, the image of Mary Stuart is twofold: along with the heroic beginning of the character, the theme of sinful passion emerged. The bifurcation of the image was reinforced in the 1841 essay by Filaret Shal, who also emphasized the religious motives of the unfolding historical drama. Comprehending all these turns of European and Russian historiography in 1839–1842, Dostoevsky could use as the basis of his play the dialogue of the nurse and Mary in the fourth scene of the first act of his tragedy about the correlation between guilt and responsibility, which Schiller did not continue. For Schiller, Mary Stuart is the title character, but not the only main one, moreover, the theme of Elizabeth in many ways attracted dramatic interest. Dostoevsky most likely focused on the internal collisions of the “gigantic character,” whom he placed in a line of Racine’s heroines (first of all, the “Shakespearean essay” by Phaedra): Maria integrated the firmness of spirit in the face of suffering and death itself with the omnipotence of passion, accompanied by torments of conscience. The “historical data” that Riesenkampf hinted at, mastered by the Russian author, allowed to continue Schiller’s creative work. The article identifies and analyzes a range of these data thatrevealed the deep collisions of European history embodied in one of its iconic characters to Dostoevsky.

Rapid assessment of surface water quality using statistical multivariate analysis approach: Oder River system case study

Many physicochemical and biological monitored parameters must be taken into consideration to fully evaluate the surface water environmental condition. However, there are situations where a simple and rapid assessment of the poor water quality situations is critically important. This work presents a universal methodology for monitoring of many parameters simultaneously and early detection out-of-control samples in a real-time mode. The approach uses multivariate statistical quality control chart based on Principal Component Analysis (PCA) model with two well-known measures of abnormal behaviour in a process or system: Hoteling's T2 statistics and Q-statistic. The proposed TQ_PCA quality index provides on-line assessment of the water sample quality, with no specific knowledge and assumptions about control limits for monitored parameters required. A water sample is assessed through the simple control chart using the PCA model established for training/reference samples. The power of the proposed index has been tested using water quality data from the Oder River, including the time of the largest ecological disaster in recent European river history. The proposed index showed excellent analysis performance for physicochemical water quality dataset from Polish stations and physicochemical and biological water quality dataset from German/Frankfurt station, confirming earlier reports. There were consecutive number of alarms reported by the statistical index, a month prior to the disaster when there were no evident changes in the individual parameters. The method presented in this study demonstrated capability of assessment of the major water quality parameters, whose changes preempt the uncommon event. The presented TQ_PCA index could be easily extended to any research involving a large dataset of monitoring parameters from any industrial chemical process.

Maternalism and new imperialism in Russia: “good mothers” for a militarizing state—expectations, implications, and resistances

This article explores maternalism in Russia in the context of the contemporary Russian authoritarian state. In particular, I analyze what implications maternalism has for women, mothers, and families on the one hand and how it is connected to the Russian state's new imperial ambitions on the other. I also explore how maternalism is challenged and employed by those resisting state politics, including militarism. Historically, maternalism was used for the analysis of the development of the welfare state in Europe and beyond and for studying women's activism that contributed to significant changes in the state's welfare politics. Maternalism in European history could be seen as “a progressive heterosexual maternal womanhood”; according to Mary Daly, it could be explained as a recognition of the “existence of a uniquely feminine value system based on care and nurturing” and as the assumption that women are performing “a service to the state by raising citizen-workers”. Gender historians of Latin America showed that speaking from the position of a mother was quite important for claiming both the right to be accepted as an equal citizen and the improvement of maternity care, welfare, and living conditions for mothers and children. Furthermore, maternalism was widely used in protests against state militarism, wars, and military dictatorships, not least as a part of the campaign against the Vietnam War or the crimes of the Argentinian military dictatorship. However, maternalism was also widely used by several totalitarian regimes, including fascism and Stalinism. Maternalism was an important political instrument used by the state socialist discourse in order to show the superiority of the “socialist” welfare system over the “capitalist” one and to make this system appear attractive to women from “developing” countries.

Yearning for the Plot Enclosure in Ian McEwan’s Black Dogs

ABSTRACT The British Empire’s disintegration drove its many residents into an enclosure of illusions of sovereignty. As McEwan’s works emerged amid such developments, his characters respond to the rising disintegration either by imposing control patterns on others or by taking the needy into protection. The novel Black Dogs focuses on the protagonist-narrator Jeremy, who is determined to redeem his adoptive parents’ ruined familial intimacy. However, his considerate attitude to them is gradually disclosed by the author as an attempt to solidify his unbelonging self. His generous opening to them by means of a mobile plot that meanders through European history gradually turns into a self-protective consolidation. Indicatively, his plot’s sleepwalking through historical perils recalls the ancient Greek love romances, whose readers were equally frightened by the whims of an unchained history. Yet unlike them, who used to attach themselves to the ups and downs of the imperiled lovers, Jeremy’s addressees are attracted by his wandering plot that occupies the individual and collective territories of others. In a final twist, the author even surpasses this self-consolidating expansion into foreign territories by his clandestine plotting of an intertextual space and thus reveals the appropriative, conspirational character of his pact with the readers. A complicit alliance with them comes into being, which he keeps controlling and steering.