European History and Cultural Transfer

Abstract

The European community that is in the process of being created is still searching for its history. For a few years now, the publishing market, which has been attempting -under the heading of 'European history' -to construct a shared past for a present that we now have in common, has been mushrooming. This communal experience is indisputably gaining ground (though more slowly and controversially than some well-known optimists hoped): it is promoted by freedom of movement within the European Union, by the effect of tourism, which some time ago ceased being reserved only for the elite, by the availability everywhere of products that, a few years back, typically represented a certain type of national styles of consumption, and finally by the unifying influence of the media. To the extent that closer relations between the inhabitants of the 'old world' run in parallel with the attempt to create institutions to regulate these common goods, and to protect against movements of people from other areas with their own sets of values, a combination of powerful ingredients is in place that leads one to anticipate a strengthening of 'European' identity.' It is well known in research into identity that history plays an important part in its construction.' And indeed historians from European countries have set themselves the task of jointly putting together a school textbook in which presentations that might otherwise focus on national character and be likely to offend neighbours will be harmonized. Others are looking at ways of celebrating memory (places of memory) that are intended to stimulate European rather than national memory. In addition, German and French historians met a while ago, in the little place of Genshagen near Berlin, with the intention of identifying events that would be suitable for European celebrations, in that they would not be connected with events that one of the participants might be ashamed of, or refer directly to a victory of one over another. But to anyone who studies the history of the two neighbours separated only by the Rhine, it quickly becomes clear that there is not a lot of space left in the calendar for activities that would found a common tradition.The difficulties are obvious, and historians' efforts to overcome them are still at an embryonic stage.4 And meanwhile books on national history fill the bookshop windows. As a general rule, research is still influenced by close familiarity with the archives of one's own country, whereas the historical tradition of another country is understood more or less superficially. However, things are starting to change. Student mobility is continually expanding, and the unilateral connection between young people's careers and their country is fast disappearing. For doctoral students, a knowledge of the relevant languages is also increasing in a way that can only be pleasing. Research grants make it easy to travel to another country to study its history in more detail, just as links between universities are no longer restricted to exchanges of letters or ...

Historyka Studia Metodologiczne

“…I po trzecie niezbędny jest śmiały krok w stronę dziejów gospodarki i techniki, by dostrzec w jaki sposób i ze względu na jakie czynniki artefakty kultury materialnej, przekraczając granice, zmieniały swe znaczenie. Historia gospodarcza winna więc stać się niezbędnym elementem badań nad kulturą 54 . Na mediatorach transferu skupiła swą uwagę Veronika Hyden-Hanscho zajmująca się związkami między dworem wiedeńskim a Francją w XVII i XVIII wieku.…”

2 Der Existentialismus als Gegenstand der Kulturtransferforschung

“…So erschließt sich, von wem, warum, nach welchen Kriterien und auf welche Weise kulturelle Elemente ausgewählt, übersetzt und moduliert werden. Dabei umfassen die Transfergüter nicht nur Gegenständliches wie Bücher oder Aufsätze, sondern auch "Symbole und Symbolhandlungen" 45 wie Bräuche und Begrifflichkeiten, gerade beim Existentialismus, der sich stark als subkulturelle Modeerscheinung manifestiert.…”

Structures on the Move

“…The cultural transfer approach advanced by Matthias Middell and Michel Espagne can be fruitfully employed to analyse such processes (Middell 2000(Middell , 2001Espagne 2003). One of the strategies to fulfil that aim is to look at foreign systems and appropriate particular technologies or stocks of knowledge.…”