Institute for Eastern European History and Area Studies at the Eberhard Karls University, Tubingen (Germany)

Research project „Circulation of News and Goods. The Transfer of Modern Urban Forms of Living in the German Speaking Press in Bohemia and Hungary, 1815-1848“

Webpage: http://www.uni-tuebingen.de/fakultaeten/philosophische-fakultaet/fachbereiche/geschichtswissenschaft/seminareinstitute/
osteuropaeische-geschichte/forschung/forschungsarbeiten/zirkulation-von-nachrichten-und-waren.html

Case Study

“Floods as Transnational Media Events: Mapping of Dispersed Public in the Flows of Communication in the Cases of Natural Disasters in St Petersburg 1824 and Buda and Pest in 1838.”

The study is considered a contribution motivated by cultural studies and media history adding to the discussion on transnational approaches which are taken by a spatial historiography. It looks at the topic of flooding in urban space and focuses on two outstanding examples from the first half of the 19^th century: 1) the storm tide of November 1824 which caused backwater in the Neva and flooded huge parts of St Petersburg, and 2) the ice drift of the Danube in March 1838, a flood disaster which destroyed a large part of the prosperous merchant city of Pesth (Pest) and the suburbs of the residence of the Hungarian Palatine in Ofen (Buda). Due to their consequences, these two catastrophes take a special place in the urban, cultural, and political history of the early 19^th century. Besides the royal seats of the Russian Empire and the Habsburgian Kingdom of Hungary, this study includes Prague as a third capital into its realm of observation. In the case of the Bohemian residence, the study does not explore yet another flooding, so e.g. of the Vlatva, as an additional, third event of catastrophe, but focuses on the perception of these two geographically distant flood catastrophes in the Prague press and the reactions in the general public.

In two regards this study enters unknown territory. It moves geographically within a triangular constellation between St Petersburg, Prague and Buda-Pest and covers a period of time which – anyways being marginalised as Biedermeier or Vormarz-era – has not yet been seriously taken into consideration for the exploration of natural catastrophes. Also the media-historical approach of the study, i.e. to explore the medial representation of two transnational media events primarily by analysing the empirical material of a single medium, namely the German speaking “Prague Newspaper” (Prager Zeitung) and the affiliated entertainment journal “Bohemia”, has – as far as we now – no equal in the historic research on catastrophes.

The study demonstrates that these flood disasters were constructed as media events within transnational communication. Although Prague, as Bohemia in general, was not affected by the storm or the flooding, the editor and publisher of the “Prague Newspaper” felt it necessary to depict the current landscape of flood disaster which had its starting point at the Upper Rhine and spread to the shores of the Neva. A geographically wide-scattered net of correspondents, which was used for the news coverage of the German speaking newspapers, made it possible for a broad readership to create a mental map of Central Europe shaped by the current catastrophe scenario and to really internalize it through the regular reading of the news. A forerunner of modern entertainment journalism – so the thesis of this paper – had a considerable stake in the emergence of this mental map.

Established as transnational media events, these flood disasters contributed to the imagination of a pan-European space. Viewed in this context, the study seizes on the question to what extent the handling of catastrophic natural phenomena in the first half of the 19^th century influenced the self-image of an imagined community of urban elites in Europe. Here the study resumes the model of “dispersed public” which has become common in the past years within the communication and media studies. For the political daily press as well as entertainment journals did not only produce depictions of catastrophes but they also had the potential to bring about social integration as well as to generate empathy and altruism. In regard to the donation campaigns and fund-raisers, the study focuses on cultural practices of charity which, as practical action caused by a current catastrophe, mark the contribution of non-governing but elitist social classes in public events.

Focusing on two devastating floods in the urban space, the study shows that the dispersed public in Central and East Europe during the first half of the 19^th century experienced effective impulses of a flow of information which increased rapidly at that time. This enables the researcher to regard the European world as a European space of communication. This view could emerge simultaneously with the different efforts of creating and firmly establishing national identity. Beyond the power-political realm, the medial networks, which were oriented towards transnationality, caused a certain perception and rehearsal of social and cultural practices which carried the sign of modernity and would not stop at national borders.

Research Project

The study proposed here emerged as a pilot study within the framework of a research project which is pursued at Tubingen University since October 2013. The topic of the research project is “Circulation of News and Goods. The Transfer of Modern Urban Forms of Living in the German Speaking Fictitious Press in Bohemia and Hungary, 1815-1848“. The research group consists of representatives of the Institute for Eastern European History and Area Studies and of the Ludwig Uhland Institute for Empirical Cultural Studies. The time plan for this project is two years and the planned date of completion is December 2015. The project is funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media upon a Decision of the German Bundestag.

The project explores the period between 1815 and 1848 and asks which forms of modernity were developed with the help of entertainment on the cultural transfer line, which at the time connected the cities of Leipzig, Vienna and St Petersburg. Here, we are mainly interested in two intersections of this German speaking axis of communication: the cities Pest (Buda-Pest) and Prague. We focus on the fictitious press and its networks in order to exemplarily explore the processes of cultural transfer, which helped spreading new urban styles of living of the European “elegant world”.

The research project considers itself a contribution to transnational historiography and systematically connects within its approach the expertise from German, East European and South East European studies. It reconstructs a European topography of “sociable life” which developed and survived in interaction with the traditional forms of a cosmopolitan courtly society on the one hand and the efforts towards nation-states on the part of the bourgeois society on the other. The German speaking actors and media of entertainment in Bohemia and Hungary lie at the core of the studies. Questions will be discussed that focus on the transfer of knowledge on a modern urban style of living within a network of correspondents, which covered Pest and Prague, Leipzig, Vienna and St Petersburg. This gradually increasing circulation of news and goods will be explored by focusing on the press and on material culture. Personal networks and journalistic strategies will be reconstructed with the help of two central case studies of magazines in Hungary and Bohemia. Aim of the project is to trace within the German speaking press market the specific medial constellations of entertainment which were developed, implemented and also rejected through interaction of the imperial metropolises and the aspiring cities in Central Europe.

In the framework of the project, an online portal will be designed and established. This portal is aimed at depicting the German speaking press landscape according to the research questions of the project. Therefore we will bibliographically record the relevant journals, comment on them from a perspective of press history, and compile them systematically in a virtual library. At the moment we are looking for a suitable technical solution to combine the electronic resources and to adequately visualise the content of research in regard to the networks and mental maps.

Biographical note

Anna Ananieva is an assistant professor at the Institute for Eastern European History and Area Studies at the University of Tubingen, Germany. She acts as the leader of the project “Circulation of messages and goods”. Her research focuses on Russian and German literature and cultural history in the European context, and on transfer studies. Her recent studies cover the topics of press and publishing history, cultural and media practices of entertainment and sociability, and social constructions of elegance. She published four books, and was editor of two themed issues of journals, in particular: “Russisch Grün” (transcript 2010; Russian Green. Cultural Poetics of Garden in the Long 18^th Century Russia); “Geselliges Vergnügen” (Aistehsis 2011; Sociable Pleasure. Cultural Practices of Entertainment in the Long 19^th Century), “Räume der Macht” (transcript 2013; Spaces of Power. Metamorphoses of City and Garden in Early Modern Europe).

Rolf Haaser is aresearch fellow at the project “Circulation of messages and goods” at the Institute for Eastern European History and Area Studies at the University of Tubingen, Germany. Before that, he was aresearch fellow at the project „Von der ‚Aufklärung’ zur ‚Unterhaltung’: Literarische und mediale Transformationen in Deutschland zwischen 1780 und 1840“ (From ‘Enlightenment’ to ‘Entertainment’: Literary and Medial Transformations in Germany between 1780 and 1840) at the Institute for German Studies, Compared Literature and Cultural Studies at the University of Bonn, Germany. He published seven books and many articles on topics within the scope of his research interests, covering amongst others: Hessian literature history (17^th-21^st centuries); university history and student unions in the 18^th and 19^th centuries; public and secrecy: history of lodges and secret societies in the 18^th and 19^th century, entertainment journals round 1800; and unpublished works of Felix and Editha Klipstein.

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Further Materials:

Ananaieva_BKM_flyer

Map for Discussion:

Custom and Maker Session Proposals:

Custom Session

We would consider it helpful, to establish a discussion set on the topic “networks of elites: transfers of objects and knowledge in transnational spaces”. This topic appears to be relevant for a couple of participants of the workshop. Specifically there seems to be a common research interest with the projects of Alexander van Wickeren(Transfer of ‘Gundi’-Tobacco), Tom Cunningham (Missionaries of the Church of Scotland), Gero Tögl & Tobias Englmeier (Bayreuth Theatre Festival), Nico Randeraad, Christophe Verbruggen and Hans Blomme (Transnational Intellectual Cooperation in the long 19th century), Stefan Nygård (Scandinavian intellectuals), and Erdem Kabadayi (Organizations of Ottoman urban Neighborhoods).

On the basis of the concrete research projects the following key questions may be the subject for a common cross-project discussion:

How are we to proceed in order to reconstruct historical networks?
Which groups of actors who usually get lost sight of should be drawn into consideration?
Can there be specified certain types of social spaces that serve as privileged sites for the networks of the elites?
What sources prove to be especially rich (reliable / surprising) in the reconstruction of the transfer of objects (things)?
Can there (and if so, where) be designated significant differences between the early modern and more recent (modern) operations in knowledge transfer?

Maker Session

In the context of this section we would like to share information on how to use particular “tools”. We would like to get to know possible applications and to discuss their options and limits with colleagues who already have worked with them:

1) Specifically we are interested in approaches and experiences in the configuration of archive and library material to a work platform in the context of Virtual Research Environment (VRE) (abstract of the working group Genth / Maastricht: Nico Randeraad, Christophe Verbruggen and Hans Blomme).
We would like to learn and exchange ideas about how the practical research can shapedwith DARIAH (Digital Research Infrastructure for the Arts and Humanities) and CENDARI (Collaborative European Digital Archive Infrastructure), and what technical and human resources are necessary.

2) With regard to visualization of networks, we would like to know what the possibilities are in terms of application of sociological data analysis for historical research, in particular we would like to get to know the possibilities of “Connecting History and Space with VennMaker” by Martin Stark & Michael Kronenwett.