Probing the Boundaries of the (Trans)National: Imperial Legacies, Transnational Literary Networks and Multilingualism in East Central Europe

Link

Probing the Boundaries of the (Trans)National: Imperial Legacies, Transnational Literary Networks and Multilingualism in East Central Europe

 

Partners

Institute for Balkan Studies SASA
Department of Literature, Area Studies and European Languages (ILOS), University of Oslo
Coordinators and investigators
Marija Mandić, Senior Research Associate, Institute for Balkan Studies SASA
Stijn Vervaet, Associate Professor, Department of Literature, Area Studies and European Languages (ILOS), University of Oslo

The project explores the continuities and discontinuities of the legacy of the Habsburg Monarchy in memories, transnational literary networks and multilingual practices in East Central Europe.

 

About the project

Now consisting of different nation-states, East Central Europe was for centuries part of the Habsburg Monarchy. In the multinational and multilingual Habsburg Monarchy there were many examples of supranational identification, rich transnational literary networks, and multilingual practices. The project aims to explore development and transformation of these practices in this part of Europe.

Probing the Boundaries of the (Trans)National explores the continuities and discontinuities of the legacy of the Habsburg Monarchy in order to understand current tensions between the ideology of the nation-state, multilingualism, and forms of belonging beyond the nation in Europe today.

The project brings together an international group of historians, linguists, anthropologists, and literary scholars to explore Habsburg Monarchy from an interdisciplinary perspective.

 

Objectives

We examine

  1. how memories of the Habsburg Monarchy have been transmitted in oral narratives; 

  2. how transnational literary networks of Hungarian minorities transformed in the interwar and post-1989 periods;

  3. how formal and informal multilingual practices in East Central Europe developed after  1918;

  4. how the language situation and language policies look like today in the multiethnic regions of Vojvodina (Serbia) and Transylvania (Romania).

The methodological approach varies in each subproject, from the analysis of literary texts and the study of archives, translation and publishing practices, to qualitative ethnographic analysis (semi-structured interviews, participant observation) as used in linguistic anthropology.

 

Financing and duration

The project is financed by The Research Council of Norway under the FRIPRO program 2019-2021.
Advisory Board
Prof. Tara Zahra, University of Chicago, Dept. of History
Prof. Vladimir Biti, University of Vienna, Dept. of Slavic Studies
Dr. Guido Snel, University of Amsterdam, Dept. of European Studies 
Prof. Susan Gal, University of Chicago, Depts. of Linguistics and Anthropology
Prof. Victor Friedman, University of Chicago, Dept. of Slavic Studies 
Prof. Marko Čudić, Head of Dept. of Hungarian Studies at the University of Belgrade