Five biographical profiles -- Romantic historiography in the service of nation-building -- Institutionalization and professionalization -- Intellectual background -- Language as medium, language as message -- National antiquities -- Feudalism and the national past -- The golden age -- Perceptions of others and attitudes to European civilization
Summary
Peripheral cultures have been largely absent from the European canon of historiography. Seeking to redress the balance, Monika Baar discusses the achievements of five East-Central European historians in the nineteenth century: Joachim Lelewel (Polish); Simonas Daukantas (Lithuanian); Frantisek Palacky (Czech); Mihaly Horvath (Hungarian) and Mihail Kogalniceanu (Romanian). Comparing their efforts to promote a unified vision of national culture in their respective countries, Baar illuminates the complexities of historical writing in the region in the nineteenth century
