“Habsburg Scholars and Writings about Romanian Historical Monuments in the Late Nineteenth Century”
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| Year of publication | 2024 |
| Type | Chapter of a book |
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| Description | As policies and institutions for the preservation and study of historical monuments developed in the Habsburg Empire, writings and documentary trips also focused on the lesser-known regions of the Empire’s southeastern border- lands. Architects, ethnographers and historians attempted to explain and promote what they perceived as fascinating monuments, traditions or artefacts of the Romanian, Serbian, Ukrainian or other communities. This chapter looks at these attempts in the writings of several Habsburg scholars about architectural monuments in the region of Bukovina and the neighboring nation-state of Romania. It compares them and also looks at their connection with the work of scholars from Romania to assess the extent to which Habsburg scholars responded to or were influenced by the political context created from the emergence of the new nation-state. Key to the chapter is the shared history and therefore the same type of fifteenth to seventeenth century monuments in Bukovina and in Romania’s region of Moldavia. The shared heritage forced scholars to consider a wider regional context in their analysis, to interact across borders and write studies that balanced the Habsburg policies of promoting regional identities with a recognition of the shared cultural and architectural heritage of Bukovina and Romania. Finally, the chapter finishes with a brief overview of studies about other regions in the southeastern Habsburg borderlands, Hungary, Dalmatia and the nation-state of Serbia, in order to emphasize common scholarly practices beyond regions or nation-states. |
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