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This book explores the uncharted territory of the history of archaeology under Communism through the biographies of five women archaeologists from the Soviet Union, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, and Poland. They were working in medieval archaeology, with a specific focus on the (early) Slavs. The choice of specialists in medieval archaeology has much to do with the fact that in the five East European countries considered in this book, medieval archaeology began to develop into a serious discipline less than a century ago. The main catalyst for the sudden rise of medieval archaeology was a dramatic shift in emphasis from traditional political and constitutional to social and economic history. In five countries, the rise of medieval archaeology thus coincides in time, and was ultimately caused by the imposition of Communist regimes. The five women were therefore true pioneers in their field, and respective countries.
In The Slavic Dossier, Iurie Stamati’s objective is to understand the reasons for the emergence of two different discourses on the place of the Slavs on the territory of Moldova and their role in the genesis of Moldovans and their culture during the medieval period in the Soviet archaeology. His analysis goes beyond the utilitarian perception of Soviet archeology. To achieve this, Stamati not only questions the political contexts in which these discourses emerged, but also looks at the history of the Moldovan archaeological field, personal profiles of archaeologists, their theoretical and ideological attachment, relationships and interactions with each other inside and outside the archaeological field.
In The Long Sixth Century in Eastern Europe, Florin Curta offers a social and economic history of East Central, South-Eastern and Eastern Europe during the 6th and 7th centuries.
This volume is a unique publication as it examines the Marxist attitudes in East Central European historiography and archaeology for the first time, with an emphasis on the co-existence of Marxist and other methodologies between the 1950s and 1970s in the local historiographies in question. Its approach is to distinguish between pseudo-Marxism as an ideological tool on the one hand, and Marxism in the form of historical materialism as a way to interpret the medieval world on the other. Contributors are: Florin Curta, Piotr Guzowski, Adam Hudek, Tereza Johanidesová, Jitka Komendová, Jiří Macháček, Andrzej Marzec, Martin Nodl, Attila Pók, David Radek, Tadeusz Paweł Rutkowski, Iurie Stamati, Rafał Stobiecki, Gábor Thoroczkay, Przemysław Wiszewski, Piotr Węcowski, Martin Wihoda, and Dušan Zupka.
This book analyzes two Romanian villages – 2 Mai and Vama Veche – as spaces of relative freedom during the last decades of socialist rule. This microhistorical study refutes simplistic views of the communist past which focus on political figures and events, and instead explores ordinary people and everyday life. Taking a multidisciplinary approach, it considers a broad range of sources, including official Communist Party documents, secret police files, personal memoirs, oral history interviews, ethnographic films, songs, and artistic performances. This book intertwines three narrative threads: that of the visitors (mainly members of the Romanian intelligentsia, young people, and hippies); that of the local inhabitants; and that of 'authority' (local and central state agents actively engaged in surveillance and supervision). In doing so, it interrogates the spectrum of consent/dissent and resistance/collaboration hitherto neglected in scholarship.
This volume examines interdisciplinary boundaries and includes texts focusing on material culture, philological analysis, and historical research. What they all have in common are zones that lie in between, treated not as mere barriers but also as places of exchange in the early Middle Ages. Focusing on borderlands, Continuation or Change uncovers the changing political and military organisations at the time and the significance of the functioning of former borderland areas. The chapters answer how the fiscal and military apparatus were organised, identify the turning points in the division of dynastic power, and assign meaning to the assimilation of certain symbolic and ideological elements...
The Oxford Handbook of the History of Archaeology offers comprehensive perspectives on the origins and developments of the discipline of archaeology and the direction of future advances in the field. Written by thirty-six archaeologists and historians from all over the world, it covers a wide range of themes and debates, including biographical accounts of key figures, scientific techniques and archaeological fieldwork practices, institutional contexts, and the effects of religion, nationalism, and colonialism on the development of archaeology.
Little is known about the Christianization of east-central and eastern Europe, due to the fragmentary nature of the historical record. Yet occasionally, unexpected archaeological discoveries can offer fresh angles and new insights. This volume presents such an example: the discovery of a Byzantine-like church in Alba Iulia, Transylvania, dating from the 10th century - a unique find in terms of both age and function. Next to its ruins, another church was built at the end of the 11th century, following a Roman Catholic architectural model, soon to become the seat of the Latin bishopric of Transylvania. Who built the older, Byzantine-style church, and what was the political, religious and cultu...
Winner of the 2020 Verbruggen prize This book provides a comprehensive synthesis of scholarship on Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages. The goal is to offer an overview of the current state of research and a basic route map for navigating an abundant historiography available in more than 10 different languages. The literature published in English on the medieval history of Eastern Europe—books, chapters, and articles—represents a little more than 11 percent of the historiography. The companion is therefore meant to provide an orientation into the existing literature that may not be available because of linguistic barriers and, in addition, an introductory bibliography in English. Winner of the 2020 Verbruggen prize, awarded annually by the De Re Militari society for the best book on medieval military history. The awarding committee commented that the book ‘has an enormous range, and yet is exceptionally scholarly with a fine grasp of detail. Its title points to a general history of eastern Europe, but it is dominated by military episodes which make it of the highest value to anybody writing about war and warmaking in this very neglected area of Europe.’ See inside the book.
This prize-winning study of post-WWII Romania examines the fraught relationship between national heritage and Socialist statecraft. In Socialist Heritage, ethnographer and historian Emanuela Grama explores the socialist state’s attempt to create its own heritage, as well as the ongoing legacy of that project. While many argue that the socialist regimes of Central and Eastern Europe aimed to erase the pre-war history of the socialist cities, Grama shows that the communist state in Romania sought to exploit the past for its own benefit. The book traces the transformation of Bucharest’s Old Town district from the early twentieth century into the twenty-first. Under socialism, politicians an...