Concepts and Interpretations of Central European History - JMMZ082

• Title: Concepts and Interpretations of Central European History
• Guaranteed by: Department of Russian and East European Studies (23-KRVS)
• Faculty: Faculty of Social Sciences
• Actual: from 2016 to 2016
• Semester: summer
• E-Credits: 6
• Examination process: summer s.:
• Hours per week, examination: summer s.:1/1, Ex [HT]
• Capacity: 15 / 15 (15)
• Min. number of students: unlimited
• 4EU+: no
• Virtual mobility / capacity: no
• State of the course: taught
• Language: English
• Teaching methods: full-time
• Teaching methods: full-time
• Note: course can be enrolled in outside the study plan; enabled for web enrollment; priority enrollment if the course is part of the study plan
• Guarantor: doc. PhDr. Jiří Vykoukal, CSc.
• Teacher(s): doc. PhDr. Jiří Vykoukal, CSc.
• Is incompatible with: JMM093

Annotation

Last update: doc. PhDr. Jiří Vykoukal, CSc. (12.02.2024)

This course concentrates on framing and interpreting of modern Central European history. It puts an emphasiz on generalizing schemes as well as on Central European links to neighbouring areas like Austria, Germany, Russia or the Balkans and brings also examples of national perspectives or projections of national interests to concepts of Central Europe.

Literature

Last update: doc. PhDr. Jiří Vykoukal, CSc. (12.02.2024)

Required readings:

Johann P. Arnason, Introduction. Demarcating East Central Europe. European Journal of Social Theory 8(4), 2005, pp. 387-400;

Robin Okey, Central Europe/Eastern Europe: Behind the Definitions: Past and Present, No. 137, 1992, pp. 102-133;

Karl A. Sinnhuber, Central Europe: Mitteleuropa: Europa Centrale: An Analysis of a geographical term. Transactions and Papers (Institute of British Geographers), No. 20, 1954, pp. 15-39;

Recommended readings:

Berend, T. Iván, History derailed : Central and Eastern Europe in the long nineteenth century. Berkerley : University of California Press, 2003;

Berend, I., Decades of Crisis. Central and Eastern Europe before World War II. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London 1998;

Berend, I.T., Central and Eastern Europe 1944-1993. Detour from Periphery to Periphery. Cambridge University Press 1998;

Robert Bideleux and Ian Jeffries, A history of Eastern Europe : crisis and change. London 2007

Requirements to the exam

Last update: doc. PhDr. Jiří Vykoukal, CSc. (12.02.2024)

Course assessment is based on A-F scale defined by Dean´s of the Faculty provision 17/2018 (https://www.fsv.cuni.cz/opatreni-dekanky-c-172018aj) obligatory for all courses and lecturers. Read the provision carefully before applying!

Asssessment structure:

1. Coursework and debate (10 points)

2. Simple test veryfying understanding of compulsory reading (each class); it´s good to prepare synopsis of texts for each class (30 points)

3. Paper (60 points)

Paper (5 000 words), topics (short abstract + list of sources) to be agreed by 17 March 2019, submit deadline: 26 May 2019, paper (Word document) will be sent to [e-mail].

Paper should focus on a clearly defined topic including three items: problem/concept, history, Central Europe (soft overlappings with Balkans,Russia or Eastern Europe possible)
Paper structure:
a) introduction (selection of the topic, research question/hypothesis, comments on sources)
b) text (approaches and methods, which arguments were selected and why, which authors support/do not support your arguments)
c) conclusion (should bring answer to your introductory questions)
d) list of sources

3. Assessment
a) coursework 10 %

b) test 30 %
b) paper 60 %

4. Plagiarism strictly prohibited!!! (https://fsv.cuni.cz/deans-provision-no-182015)

5. Only one absence without leave permitted, second absence like that results in one grade down, and after the third absence like that don´t bother yourself with the course at all :-)

6. Warning: this is an MA course typical of bachelors low survival rate!

Syllabus

Last update: doc. PhDr. Jiří Vykoukal, CSc. (12.02.2024)

Programme of the course (files uploaded to SIS):

 

1.         19.02.  Introduction

2.         26.02.  Parameters of the topic (Wandycz, Palacký)

Questions: 1. Which was the significance/impact of the Roman Empire/culture for later history of Europe (which was the meaning of this heritage for Western/Eastern part of Europe? Could Europe develop progressively also without this heritage? 2. Is it possible to speak about Central Europe already in the medieval period or was it only the Habsburg monarchy which (maybe unconsciously) created Central Europe? 3. What was the nature of the double-delay of Central Europe behind Europe and catching-up Europe? 4. Were the 20th century Central European crises (authoritarianism; leftist and rightist extremism) more of exogenous or endogenous origin?

3.         05.03.  Western and Eastern Europe (Wolff)

Questions: 1. Why the West European cartography started to be interested in Eastern Europe just in the 18th century?; 2. Why  1699, 1709, 1711, 1717, 1721 a 1742 were important for forming of European picture of Eastern Europe?; 3. How Bohemia, Hungary and Poland-Lithuania fitted to the overall picture of Eastern Europe?; 4. Who was Stanislaw Leszczynski and which role played in European perfception of the East?; 5. How the idea of the border-line between Europe and Asia was developing?; 6. How the emergence of Eastern Europe was linked to the decline of the Ottoman Empire?; 7. What the Boskovich´s travels acrross Eastern Europe were saying about the European perception of the East?; 8. How the French Encyclopaedia depicted Eastern Europe?

4.         12.03.  Eastern Europe and Russia (Halecki, Koschmal)

Questions: 1. Which is the nature of mutual European/Russian perception of each other? 2. What is mythical about European/Russian mutual perception and what is means when this dialogue of myths is understood as a myth?; 3. Which are the main elements of European/Russian (self) perception of Russia?; 4. Which are the main sources of Russian feelings of super/interiority vis a vis Europe?; 5. How Russia separated from Rus´?; 6. Which are the main elements of "Russian civilization" following the fall of Rus´?; 7. Does the Halecki´s concept of Russia respond to Koschmal´s concept of how Europe produces pictures of Russia?

5.         26.03.  Eastern Europe and Double-Central Europe (Halecki)

Questions: 1. Which was the essence of debate on differences and similarities between Eastern and Western Europe (J. Bidlo, A. Toynbee, Hugh Seton-Watson)?; 2. What is meant by "evident analogy in the formation and constitution of both Western and Eastern Europe"?; 3. What´s the essence of "Photian and Cerularian schizms" and why Western and Eastern Church split?;  4. Which are main territorial sections of Eastern Europe?; 5. Which was the impact of Friedrich Naumann´s work on debates on Central and Eastern Europe?; 6. Which historical circumstances made West-central Europe Central, but not Western, and which made East-Central Europe Central, but not Eastern?

6.         02.04.  Innovation (Jenö Szücs)

Questions: 1. Which are (according to Szücs) the main elements of what we call Western Europe and what it means when Szücs speaks about the "secret of Western development"?; 2. Which si the nature of Western "entirely new model of political and social power"?; 3. Which types of theoretical liberation broadened Western freedoms?; 4. Which were the main differences in the development of Eastern and Western absolutist state?; 5. How reactions to first crisis of feudalism contributed to formation of specific regional identity of East-Central Europe?

7.         09.04.  Culmination and dilemmas (Kundera and Konrad)

Questions: 1. Helsinki process and Central European fears; 2. Who is responsible for Central Europe and its fate? 3. What is Eastern and what is Western,

8.         16.04.  Poland (Kochanowicz, Porter)

9.         23.04.  Hungary (Bibó, Kürti)

10.       30.04. Slovakia (Kovac, Bakke)

11.       07.05. Czechia? (Baer)