scholarly journals Travel Writing and the Integration of East-Central Europe: John Paget’s Hungary and Transylvania

Author(s):  
Márta Pellérdi

John Paget’s travelogue from 1839, Hungary and Transylvania; with Remarks on their Condition, Social, Political, and Economical, makes a clear distinction between the Kingdom of Hungary and the Principality of Transylvania, both under Austrian rule at the time, and the rest of Eastern Europe. In terms of the variety and depth of the descriptions of the social, political, and economic conditions in the East-CentralEuropean country and province, Paget’s comprehensive and objective text stands out from the travelogues written about the region in the nineteenth century. This essay demonstrates that Hungary and Transylvania reveals the author’s intention to rediscover the history and culture of a neglected European nation who have attempted for centuries, successfully, and often unsuccessfully, to orient their politics toward the West rather than the East. It suggests that despite the occasional colonial discourse, Paget’s travelogue is an attempt to economically, politically, and culturally promote the integration of Hungary and Transylvania into the more “civilized” West. (MP)

2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 408-414
Author(s):  
Martin Kohlrausch ◽  
Daria Bocharnikova

This article demonstrates the social and political impact of modernist architects in Europe’s age of extremes beyond the narrower confines of architecture. In East Central Europe with its ideological tensions, massive socio-political ruptures and eventually the establishment of communist regimes, architects’ social visions and the states’ aspirations led to intense interactions as well as strong controversies. In order to unravel these, we stress the relevance of modernism as a belief and knowledge system. In so doing we point to often unacknowledged continuities between the interwar and the immediate post-war period thus re-politicising the work of modernist architects as a project of worldmaking in the context of competing ideologies and sociotechnical imaginaries.


Author(s):  
Jan Fellerer

This chapter identifies key notions about the nature and workings of language and their wider political implications in Europe from around 1789 to the first decades of the nineteenth century. There are at least three formations, aesthetic and philosophical, linguistic, and political. Even though treated under separate headings for ease of exposition, they are meant to meet in this introduction in response to more granular surveys. The political dimension in particular tends to be left to historians or to philologists who deal with that part of the continent where it first gained real prominence: East and East Central Europe. Thus, after the first two sections on aspects of philosophy and early linguistics, where the focus is on Germany with France and England, the third section on language and nation moves eastwards to the Slavonic-speaking lands, to finally return back, albeit very briefly, to the West. The main purpose of this survey to provide introduction and guidance.


2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 40-54
Author(s):  
Barna Bodó

Abstract In East-Central Europe, the past has always been a determining factor as a framework for interpretation: the social construction of the past often serves (served) current political purposes. It is no wonder that in the countries of the region, often different, sometimes contradictory interpretations of the past have emerged. In today’s European situation, however, the countries of Central and Eastern Europe are perhaps most keenly faced by the transformation of Europe, with unclear, chaotic ideas dominating political and intellectual markets instead of previous (accepted) values – in the tension between old and new, Europe’s future is at stake. The question is: what role the states of Central and Eastern Europe play/can play, to what extent they will be able to place the neighbourhood policy alongside (perhaps in front of) the policy of remembrance and seek common answers to Europe’s great dilemmas.


Author(s):  
Mia Korpiola

Secular law remained largely customary and uncodified in east central Europe. While much of south-eastern Europe had remained Christian ever since Roman times, most of east central Europe was Christianized during the high Middle Ages. The Baltic region came later, Lithuania only being converted after 1387. South-eastern Europe was influenced first by Byzantine and then Italian law. In much of east central Europe secular law was based on Slavic customs, later influenced by canon law and German law. The Sachsenspiegel, Schwabenspiegel, and German town law spread to the whole region alongside the German colonization of east central Europe. Towns functioned as conduits of German and learned law. Certain territorial rulers actively promoted Roman law and (partial) codification, while the local nobility preferred uncodified customary law. In addition to foreign university studies, the fourteenth-century universities of Prague and Krakow, cathedral chapters, and notaries helped disseminate the ius commune into the region.


2015 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 177-185 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexandra Makai ◽  
Viktória Prémusz ◽  
Kata Füge ◽  
Mária Figler ◽  
Kinga Lampek

Abstract In this study we examined the health of the ageing population of East-Central Europe. Data derived from the 6th round of the European Social Survey. The aim of our research was to examine the most important factors that determine ageing people’s health status. We paid particular attention to the social ties of our target group.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document