A Forgotten Region? East Central Europe in the “Global Middle Ages”

Organizer

Department of Medieval Studies of Central European University, Budapest

Venue

Central European University Budapest CEU Auditorium, 9 Nádor u., Budapest

Location

Budapest

Country

Hungary

From - Until

27.03.2014 - 29.03.2014

Deadline

27.03.2014

Website

https://medievalstudies.ceu.hu/events/2014-03-27/a-forgotten-region-east-central-europe-in-the-global-middle-ages

Department of Medieval Studies of Central European University, Budapest

Shortly before the political changes in the late 1980s, East Central Europe benefitted from increasing attention by both historians and the general public inside and outside the region. This helped East Central Europe reinforce its identity in the European context, but this heuristic rediscovery does not seem to have left a lasting imprint on the perception of the European Middle Ages. Instead, initiatives towards a new conceptualisation of the Global Middle Ages have mainly concentrated on the relationship between Western Europe and other continents.

This conference will challenge this view and pose the question: Can the Global Middle Ages be conceived without taking the central and eastern part of the old continent into account. Or, to put it differently: How can the distinguished consideration of this region contribute to or challenge a new interpretation of the Middle Ages beyond its traditional limits in space and time and beyond the established conceptual schemes?

We offer two possible approaches: contacts and comparisons. Under ‘contacts’ we will focus on transfers and interactions within a shared space or across boundaries: What kind of persons, ideas, institutions, cultural and material goods found their way to other parts of the world from East Central Europe or with the mediation of this region? What motivated such transfers and interactions? Can the approach of “histoire croisée” bring new insights?

Under ‘comparisons’ we will discuss whether similar processes can be identified and analyzed in state, church, and cultural development among “peripheries” in Europe or in other continents on the one hand, and in centers of power and influence in the same time period on the other hand. Or, should comparable phenomena in political, legal, religious, and technical development or in the formation of settlements and communities be less bound to time-frames and analyzed structurally? What kind of comparisons make sense and bring us closer to explaining particular similarities or differences, considering the disparity of source materials? Can we agree upon a new critical methodology of comparative history at all?

Programm

A FORGOTTEN REGION? EAST CENTRAL EUROPE IN THE “GLOBAL MIDDLE AGES”

Department of Medieval Studies of Central European University
Budapest, 27-29 March 2014
Venue: CEU Auditorium, 9 Nádor u., Budapest

Registration:
27 March, 8:30-10:00, 28 March, 8:30-10:00, CEU Octagon, 9 Nádor u., Budapest

27 March, Thursday

9:00-9:30
Opening on behalf of CEU and the Department of Medieval Studies

László KONTLER, Pro-rector for Hungarian and European Union Affairs

Daniel ZIEMANN, Head of Department

9:30-10:00

Session 1, Chair: Niels Gaul

Florin CURTA (University of Florida, Gainesville): East Central Europe: The Gate to Byzantium

10:00-12:00
Session 2, Chair: Katalin Szende

Dariusz ADAMCZYK (German Historical Institute, Warsaw): Arab Silver Redistribution Networks in Early Medieval Eastern Europe: Polycentric Connections and Entangled Hierarchies

Matthias HARDT (Centre for the History and Culture of East Central Europe, GWZO, University of Leipzig): The Importance of Long--distance Trade for the Slavic Princes of the Early and High Middle Ages

Mária PAKUCS (Nicolae Iorga Institute of History, Bucharest): Transit Trade and Intercontinental Trade in East Central Europe in the Late Middle Ages

Balázs NAGY (CEU and Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest): A Region of Prosperity: Economic Interactions in East Central Europe in the Later Middle Ages

12:00-13:00 - Lunch break

12:00-16:00
Bookfair, Venue: Laptop Area of 9 Nádor u., Budapest

13:00-14:30
Session 3, Chair: József Laszlovszky

Martin BAUCH (German Historical Institute, Rome): Environmental Crisis and its Impact on Medieval Societies in Eastern Central Europe and Italy from the Thirteenth to the Fifteenth Century

Péter SZABÓ (Botanical Institute, Czech Academy of Sciences, Brno): Royal Forests in East Central Europe: Merovingian Ideas and Local Realities

Magdolna SZILÁGYI (CEU, Budapest): Roads in a Liminal Zone: Trade and Travel across the Borders of Medieval Hungary

14:30-15:30
Session 4 (Poster Session), Chair: Judith Rasson

Teodora ARTIMON (CEU, Budapest): Stephen the Great of Moldavia: a Marginalized Prince?

Dženan DAUTOVIĆ (University of Sarajevo): The Bosnian Medieval State – Western or Eastern Model?

Annamária ÉRSEK (Université Paris Sorbonne): Mid-fourteenth-century Crypto-portraits: East Central Europe as Center of Production

János INCZE (CEU, Budapest): War Financing in East Central Europe. The Pledges of Sigismund of Luxemburg in Hungary

Márta KONDOR (CEU, Budapest): Sigismund of Luxembourg: from Prague to Znojmo across the Whole of Europe

Piotr Dawid KOŁPAK (Jagiellonian University, Krakow): The Characteristics of Saint Patrons of the Polish Kingdom in Medieval Latin Europe

Wojciech KOZLOWSKI (CEU, Budapest): A Dynastic Triangle: Poland, Bohemia and Hungary in the Late Thirteenth Century

Andrej MAGDIČ (Institute for the Protection of Cultural Heritage of Slovenia, Maribor): Ptuj from the Ninth to the Eleventh Century - The Town between East and West

Judit MAJOROSSY (Ferenczy Múzeum, Szentendre): Community and Individuality: The Socio-Topography of Butchers in Medieval Urban Space

Christopher MIELKE (CEU, Budapest): Archaeology and Queenship: Gendered power in the Material Record

Ardian MUHAJ (University of Lisbon): When the “Peripheries” Take over the Role of the Centre

Elena SUFF (State Pedagogical University, Chisinau): The Moldo-German Chronicle: A History of Stephen the Great for Occidental Eyes

15:30-16:00 - Coffee

Session 5
Roundtable headed by Daniel ZIEMANN (CEU, Budapest): The Question of Identities

16:00-18:00: Part I - Historical and Archaeological Approaches

Jiří MACHÁČEK (Masaryk University, Brno): “Too Far Away” – the Archaeology of Early Medieval Society in East-Central Europe. The Case of Great Moravia

Trpimir VEDRIŠ (University of Zagreb): Was Croatia Ever Part of the Carolingian Empire?

Sergiu MUSTEATA (Ion Creanga Sate University, Chisinau): The Carpathian-Danube Regions from the Eighth to the Tenth Century

Gábor BRADÁCS (University of Debrecen): The Transition of the Concept of Central Europe in the Ottonian Empire – Historiographic and Diplomatic Analysis

Daniel ZIEMANN (CEU, Budapest): Emperor Otto III and the Birth of Central Europe

18:00-18:30 - Coffee

18:30-19:30- Part II - The question of Identities – Anthropological approaches

Stefan EICHERT (University of Vienna): Differing Perceptions of the Middle Ages in the Eastern Alpine Region – A Case Study of Carinthia/Austria

Mladen ANČIĆ (University of Zadar): For the Triangulation of History: Notes on the Possibilities of Historical Anthropology in Comparative Studies

Matthew B. KOVAL (University of Florida, Gainesville): Look What those Pagans Did! Uses of the Memory of Pagan Violence in Hungary, Poland, Denmark, and Bulgaria

19:30 - Reception

28 March, Friday

9:00-10:00

John SHATTUCK, Rector and President of CEU: Address in Honor of János M. Bak

Session 6, Chair: Gábor Klaniczay

Felicitas SCHMIEDER (FernUnviersität, Hagen): Medieval Latin Europe Connecting with the Rest of the World: The East Central European Link

10:00-11:30
Session 7, Chair: János Bak

Grischa VERCAMER (German Historical Institute, Warsaw): Different Depictions of Rulership in Europe by Chroniclers of the Twelfth Century – England, Poland and the Holy Roman Empire

Gerald SCHWEDLER (University of Zurich): Crowned: Rituals of Sovereignty in Central Europe in the Later Middle Ages

Marcela K. PERETT (Bard College, Berlin): Re-discovered Kinship: Bohemia and England in the Early Fifteenth Century

11:30-11:45 - Coffee

11:30-14:15
Bookfair, Venue: Laptop Area of 9 Nádor u., Budapest

11:45-13:15
Session 8, Chair: Gerhard Jaritz

Stefan BURKHARDT (University of Heidelberg): Lost Between Empires? East Central Europe and the Two Roman Empires in the Middle Ages

József LASZLOVSZKY (CEU, Budapest): Power Centres and Monasteries

Jan VOLEK (University of Florida, Gainesville): Internal Affair: The First Crusade against the Hussites

13:15-14:15 - Lunch break

14:15-15:45
Session 9, Chair: Felicitas Schmieder

Cameron SUTT and David RANDS (Austin Peay State University, Clarksville): Inheritance: Prescription and Practice in Árpádian Hungary and Kamakura Japan

Julia BURKHARDT (University of Heidelberg): Negotiating Realms. Political Representation in a “Forgotten Region”

Iurii ZAZULIAK (Ivan Franko National University, Lviv): Slavery, Serfdom and Violence on the Periphery of Eastern Europe in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries. Old Themes and New Approaches

15:45-16:00 - Coffee

Session 10
Roundtable headed and challenged by János M. BAK, (CEU, Budapest): A “forgotten”? “region”?

16:00-18:00 Part I

Nora BEREND (University of Cambridge): Medieval Regionalism: A Comparative Approach

Márta FONT (University of Pécs): The Emergence of East Central Europe and Approaches to Internal Differentiation

Anna ADAMSKA (University of Utrecht): Comparing the Comparisons: The Many Literacies of East Central Europe

Gábor KLANICZAY (CEU, Budapest): Possible Items and Methods of Comparison in the Medieval Religious History of Central Europe

Eduard MÜHLE (University of Münster): The Limited Applicability of the Term East Central Europe for Medieval Studies

18:00-18:30- Coffee

18:30-19:30 Part II

Zsolt HUNYADI (University of Szeged): Towards Globalism? Papal-Hungarian Relations as Reflected in the Twelfth-century Charters of the Hungaria Pontificia

Attila BÁRÁNY (University of Debrecen): Early Sixteenth-century Hungary in the Eyes of Westerners: “Shield of Christendom” or a “Remote Land” on the Frontiers of “Barbaricum”?

Anna KUZNETSOVA (Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow): East Central Europe as a Notion in Russian Scholarship

Olga KOZUBSKA (Ukrainian Catholic University, Lviv): Even More Forgotten? Red Rus’, Galicia, Ukraine in (or out of) Context

20:00 – Dinner Venue: Lobby, 13 Nádor u., Budapest

29 March, Saturday

9:30-10:30
Session 13, Chair: Cristian Gaşpar

Johnny Grandjean GØGSIG JAKOBSEN (University of Copenhagen): Friars Preachers in Frontier Provinces of Medieval Europe

Béla Zsolt SZAKÁCS (CEU and Pázmány Péter Catholic University, Budapest): The Place of East Central Europe on the Map of Romanesque Architecture

10:30-11:00 – Coffee

11:00-12:30
Session 14, Chair: Balázs Nagy

Michaela ANTONÍN MALANÍKOVÁ (Palacký University, Olomouc): “The Golden Age” of Female Engagement in Medieval Urban Economy? Lands of the Bohemian Crown in a Comparative Perspective

Beata MOZEJKO (University of Gdansk): Late Medieval Gdansk as a Transmitter between Regions: Western European, Hanseatic and Central European Contacts

Katalin SZENDE (CEU, Budapest): Town Foundations in Central Europe and the New World in a Comparative Perspective

12:30-13:15 - Lunch break

13:15-14:45
Session 15, Chair: Marcell Sebők

Julia VERKHOLANTSEV (University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia): Myths of Origin and the Art of Etymology in Medieval Chronicles Written in Bohemia, Poland, Croatia, and Hungary

Robert ANTONÍN (University of Ostrava): From Warrior to Knight – The Paths of Chivalric Culture in the Central European Space on the Example of the Czech Lands

Mária DOBOZY (University of Utah, Salt Lake City): Evidence of Cultural Exchange in German and Hungarian Music and Song in Print

14:45-15:00 – Coffee

15:00-16:00
Session 16, Chairs: Katalin Szende, Daniel Ziemann, Balázs Nagy

Kevin BROWNLEE – Julia VERKHOLANTSEV (University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia): Europa Indivisa: Towards a Global Middle Ages (A Pilot Seminar Project)

Márta FONT (University of Pécs): A Forgotten Region? Or Necessity of Publicity?

Concluding remarks, future plans

Conference Organizers:
Katalin Szende szendek@ceu.hu
Balázs Nagy nagybal@ceu.hu
Daniel Ziemann ziemannd@ceu.hu

Organizing Committee:
János M. Bak bakjm@ceu.hu,
Gerhard Jaritz jaritzg@ceu.hu,
Gábor Klaniczay klanicz@ceu.hu,
József Laszlovszky laszlovj@ceu.hu

Conference Coordinator:
Annabella Pal palannab@ceu.hu

Conference Assistants:
Anna Kónya konyaanna@gmail.com,
János Incze ijancsi@yahoo.com

CEU, Department of Medieval Studies, 1051 Budapest, Nádor u. 9., Tel: +36 (1) 327-3051
medstud@ceu.hu, http://medievalstudies.ceu.hu