Roumen Daskalov - M.A. Course

M.A. Course PhD Course

ISSUES IN THE MODERN SOCIAL AND CULTURAL HISTORY OF EASTERN EUROPE

ROUMEN DASKALOV,

Recurrent Visiting Associate Professor

KEY WORDS: Eastern Europe, culture, cultural history, history of ideas and ideologies (Enlightenment, liberalism, nationalism, left and right-wing ideologies), social history (social classes, life styles), high/low culture, education and cultural elites, modernity, cultural trends and intellectual debates, Max Weber, Michel Foucault, etc.

GENERAL DESCRIPTION. The course will deal with a number of issues of the cultural history of Eastern Europe (but not Russia and the Baltic) in the modern epoch - the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries. We will start by discussing the various notions of culture and the subfields "cultural history", "social history" (and related fields). Among the substantial issues to be dealt with are the emergence of the East-West divide in Europe (the "making" of Eastern Europe), the cultural impact of the West on the Eastern part of Europe, the spread of modern ideas and ideologies, including nationalism and nation building, cultural identities, etc. Furthermore, the peculiar social development of East-European societies will be tackled, i.e. the major social classes and their outlook, attitudes and life styles, the role of cultural elites ("intelligentsia"), the "high" (literary) and "low" (popular) culture divide and its functions, etc. Though primarily issue-centered and theory-imbued, the course will have a marked comparative dimension, contrasting broadly East and West, and societies and groups of societies within the "East" between themselves (e.g. as to social built-up and ruling social strata, varieties of nationalism, developmental peculiarities, the role of ethnic minorities, etc.). We will end with an attempt to apply Weberian and Foucaudian concepts to the modernizing East-European societies (under communism and after it).

COURSE ASSIGNMENTS:

1. Attendance and active involvement in class discussions are expected from all participants in the course. This presupposes the reading of the required readings. Please, note that though any participation in those discussions is welcome, only meaningful contributions have a positive value in the assessment. In case someone is not able to attend the weekly Seminar for some good reasons, please, inform me in advance (in person or via E-mail).

2. The grading at the end of the course will be formed on the basis of three elements: contribution to class discussions (20%), an oral presentation (30%), and the final paper (50%).

3. Everybody is expected to make an oral presentation - some 20-30 minutes - once during the course. The presentation should focus on (some aspect of) one of the themes that make up the contents of the syllabus. The topic should be agreed with me in advance. It is advisable (though not obligatory) for those presenting to supply handouts (1-2 pages) with the basic points of their presentation to all participants in order to facilitate comprehension and the subsequent discussion.

4. The final (term) paper should be 15-20 pp. long. It should be relevant to one or more of the themes covered in the syllabus. The topic and main ideas should be consulted with me in advance. I will not accept papers outside the scope of the syllabus (and with no bearing to it) and such that have been written for another purpose. The paper should follow the basic rules and conventions of a scholarly text, such as having a clearly defined problem (where possible a "hypothesis"), consistent formulation of the basic ideas, internal organization of the text (to facilitate reading and comprehension), correct citation of sources (and enough authoritative sources), etc. It should be written in good English.

CONTENTS:

Theme 1: Notions of culture. Normative or value concepts and neutral (anthropological) concepts. Culture as values, meanings, mentalities, ways of life, etc. Concepts of civilization (and the historical opposition "culture - civilization"). The interpretative approach to culture.

"Culture" - Art. in: Ritter, Harry. Dictionary of Concepts in History. New York - Westport - London: The Greenwood Press, 1986, 93-98.

"Civilization" - Art. in: Ritter, Harry. Dictionary of Concepts in History. New York - Westport - London: The Greenwood Press, 1986, 39-44.

Geertz, Clifford. Thick description: Toward an Interpretative Theory of Culture. - In: Geertz, Clifford. The Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic Books, 1973, 3-30.

Additional:

"Culture" - Art. in International Encyclopedia of Social Sciences.

Kroeber, Alfred and Clyde Kluckhohn. Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions. New York: 1952.

Theme 2: What is the "history of ideas" (intellectual history) and "cultural history". Begriffsgeschichte. Their relations with "social history". The civilization approach.

"Cultural History" - Art. in: Ritter, Harry. Dictionary of Concepts in History. New York - Westport - London: The Greenwood Press, 1986, 88-93.

"Intellectual History, History of Ideas" - Art. in: Ritter, Harry. Dictionary of Concepts in History. New York - Westport - London: The Greenwood Press, 1986, 232-238.

"Social History" - Art. in Ritter, Harry. Dictionary of Concepts in History. New York - Westport - London: The Greenwood Press, 1986, 408-413.

Koselleck, Reinhard. Begriffsgeschichte and Social History. - In: Koselleck, Reinhard. Futures Past. Cambridge, Mass. and London: MIT Press, 1979, 73-104.

Additional:

"Anthropologie historique" - Art. in Andre Burguiere (Ed.) Dictionnaire des Sciences Historiques.

"Intellectuelle (Histoire)" - Art. in Andre Burguiere (Ed.) Dictionnaire des Sciences Historiques.

"Mentalites" - Art. in Andre Burguiere (Ed.) Dictionnaire des Sciences Historiques.

Lovejoy, Arthur. Essays in the History of Ideas. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1948.

Braudel, Fernand. Grammaire des civilisations. Paris: Arthaud, 1987.

Elias, Norbert. The Process of Civilization. Vol. 1-2.

Theme 3: The East - West divide of Europe. Different factors at work and different histories. The "making" of Eastern Europe. Some specifics of the East European historical development in comparison with the West. The making of East-Central Europe and the Balkans.

Gunst, Peter. Agrarian Systems of Central and Eastern Europe. - In: Daniel Chirot (ed.) The Origins of Backwardness in Eastern Europe. Berkeley - Los Angeles - London: University of California Press. 1989, 53-91.

Okey, Robin. Eastern Europe, 1740-1985. Feudalism to Communism. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1986, 13-34.

Wolff, Larry. Inventing Eastern Europe. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994, 1-16.

Additional:

Hupchick, Dennis. Culture and History in Eastern Europe. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire and London: Macmillan, 1994, 43-82, 171-175.

Seton-Watson, Hugh. Eastern Europe between the Wars, 1918-1941. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1945, 1-62.

Gunst, Peter. Einige Probleme der wirtschaftlichen und sozialen Entwicklung Osteuropas. KÜln: Forschungsinstitut f_r Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte an der Universitèt KÜln, 1977.

Matl, Josef. Das Slaventum zwischen Westen und Osten. Klagenfurt: Verlag Kleinmayr, 1958.

Longworth, Philip. The Making of Eastern Europe. Basingstoke, Hampshire: Macmillan, 1994.

Wandycz, Piotr. The Price of Freedom. A History of East Central Europe from the Middle Ages to the Present. London and New York: Routledge, 1992, 171-180.

Theme 4: East-European Enlightenment and liberalism as intellectual developments and as practice (in the enlightened Habsburg monarchy and partitioned Poland). Problems of the adaptation and functioning of Western ideas and institutions in a different social and economic environment.

"Liberalism" - Art. in Ritter, Harry. Dictionary of Concepts in History. New York - Westport - London: The Greenwood Press, 1986, 259-262.

"Enlightenment" - Art. in Ritter, Harry. Dictionary of Concepts in History. New York - Westport - London: The Greenwood Press, 1986.

Okey, Robin. Eastern Europe 1740-1985. Feudalism to Communism. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1982, 35-58, 68-75, 94-98.

Janos, Andrew. The Politics of Backwardness in Hungary, 1825-1945. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1982, 64-92, 316-320.

Sugar, Peter. The Enlightenment in the Balkans. Some Basic Considerations. - East European Quarterly, 9: 4 (1985), 499-507.

Additional:

Seton-Watson, Hugh. Eastern Europe between the Wars, 1918-1941. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1945, 63-74.

Hupchick, Dennis. Culture and History in Eastern Europe. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire and London: Macmillan, 1994, 122-134.

Brown, Victoria. The Adaptation of a Western Political Theory in a Peripheral State: The Case of Romanian Nationalism. In: Stephen Fischer-Galati, Radu Florescu, George Ursul (eds.) Romania between East and West. New York: Columbia University Press, 1982 (East European Monographs, Boulder), 269-301.

Campbell, John. The Influence of Western Political Thought in the Rumanian Principalities, 1821-1848: The Generation of 1848". - Journal of Central European Affairs, 4:3 (1944).

Theme 5: Nations and nationalism. Varieties of nationalism. Concepts of the nation in Eastern Europe. Phases in the nationalization process. Early (humanistic, cultural) nationalism and later (militant) nationalism.

Gellner, Ernest. Nations and Nationalism. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1983, 1-7, 35-38, 53-64, 137-143.

Smith, Anthony. National Identity. Penguin Books, 1991, 8-28, 59-70.

Greenfeld, Liah. Nationalism. Five Roads to Modernity. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1992, 1-17.

Bibo, Istvan. The Distress of East European Small Nations. - In Bibo, Istvan. Democracy, Revolution, Self Determination. New York: Columbia University Press, 1991, 36-48.

Additional:

Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities. New York: Verso, 1991, 5-7, 9-12.

Hroch, Miroslav. Social Preconditions of National Revival in Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985.

Deutsch, Karl. Nationalism and its Alternatives. New York: Alfred Knopf, 1969, 3-20, 43-46.

Deutsch, Karl. Nationenbildung, Naationalstaat, Integration. Duesseldorf: Bertelsmann Univ. Verlag, 1971.

Wandycz, Piotr. The Price of Freedom. A History of East Central Europe from the Middle Ages to the Present. London and New York: Routledge, 1992, 135-149.

Wolff, Robert. The Balkans in Our Times. Harvard University Press: Cambridge, Mass. 1974, 71-79.

Jelavich, Barbara. History of the Balkans. Vol. 1, Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1983, 171-186, 300-328.

Seton-Watson, Hugh. Eastern Europe between the Wars, 1918-1941. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1945 341-361.

Theme 6: Social classes in the modern East European societies. Outlook, life styles and mentalities of the various classes: nobility, bourgeoisie, peasants, workers, civil servants, the military, etc. Major social conflicts and their ideological elaboration.

Seton-Watson, Hugh. Eastern Europe between the Wars, 1918-1941. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1945, 123-150.

Mosely, Philip. The Peasant Family: The Zadruga. - In: Robert Byrnes (ed.) The Zadruga. Essays by Philip Mosely and Essays in His Honor. Notre Dame-London: University of Notre Dame Press, 1976, 19-30.

Berend, Ivan and Gyorgy Ranki. East Central Europe in the 19th and 20th Centuries. Budapest: Akademiai Kiado, 1977, 29-40, 102-124.

Sanders, Irving. A Balkan village. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1949, 144-152.

Additional:

Gesemann, Gerhard. Heroische Lebensform. Zur Literatur und Wesenskunde der balkanischen Patriarchalitaet. Muenchen: Hieronymus Verlag, 1979 (first published Berlin: Wiking Verlag, 1943).

Tomasevich, Joso, Peasants, Politics and Economic Change in Yugoslavia. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1955 (the relevant chapter).

Trouton, Ruth, Peasant Renaissance in Yugoslavia. 1900-1950. London 1952.

Niederhauser, E. The Problems of Bourgeois Transformation in Eastern and Southeastern Europe. - In: Stephen Fischer-Galati (ed.) Man, State, and Society in East European History. London: Pall Mall Press, 1970, 184-199 (reprinted from Nouvelles Etudes Historiques, Budapest: Akademiaia Kiado, 1965, 565-580).

Theme 7: Education and cultural elites in Eastern Europe. The "intelligentsia" as a specific historical social stratum in the East. Its role in nation-building, state-building, modernization, Westernization, etc. The intelligentsia as a supplier of political elites. Political and economic elites, their relative strength and relations, and the consequences for the political and economic development.

Gella, Aleksander. An Introduction to the Sociology of the Intelligentsia. - In: Gella, A. (ed.) The Intelligentsia and the Intellectuals. Beverly Hills, Calif. Sage Publications, 1976, 9-16.

Gella, Aleksander. The Life and Death of the Old Polish Intelligentsia. - Slavic Review. 30: 1 (1971), 12-27.

Shils, Edward. The Intellectuals and the Powers. - In: Rieff, Philip (ed.) On Intellectuals. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1969, 25-48.

Smith, Anthony. National Identity. Penguin Books, 1991, 91-98.

Seton-Watson, Hugh. Eastern Europe between the Wars, 1918-1941. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1945, 138-145.

Additional:

Konrad, Georg and Ivan Szelenyi. The intellectuals on the Road to Class Power. Brighton: Harvester Press, 1979.

Clarke, James. Education and National Consciousness in the Balkans. In: Clarke. James, The Pen and the Sword. Studies in Bulgarian History. (ed. Dennis Hupchik) East European Monographs, Boulder, 1988, 24-57.

Daskalov, Roumen, Transformations of the East European Intelligentsia: Reflections on the Bulgarian Case. East European Politics and Societies, 10: 1 (1996), 46-84.

Theme 8: The notions of "high" (literary) and "low" (folk, popular) culture. The "discovery" of popular culture in Western Europe and what motivated it: reaction to the Enlightenment, romanticism, the intellectual vogue for the "primitive", nationalism. Literary and folk cultures in the East European societies: consolidation of literary languages, emergence of national literature and art, etc. Their functions.

Burke, Peter. Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe. London: Temple Smith, 1978, 3-23.

Smith, Anthony. National Identity. London: Penguin Books, 1991, 63-68.

Jelavich, Charles and Barbara Jelavich, The Establishment of the Balkan National States, 1804-1920. Seattle, London: University of Washington Press, 1977, 266-283.

Skendi, Stavro. The Emergence of the Modern Balkan Literary Languages. A Comparative Approach. - In: Skendi, Stavro, Balkan Cultural Studies. New York 1980 (East European Monographs, Boulder, N 72), 3-21.

Additional:

"Culture populaire" - Art. in Andre Burguiere (Ed.) Dictionnaire des Sciences Historiques.

"Livre" - Art. in Andre Burguiere (Ed.) Dictionnaire des Sciences Historiques.

Bourdieu, Pierre. Les Usages de "peuple". - In: Bourdieu, P. Choses dites. Paris: Les Editions de Minuit, 1987.

Gesemann, Gerhard. Heroische Lebensform. Zur Literatur und Wesenskunde der balkanischen Patriarchalitèt. M_nchen: Hieronymus Verlag, 1979 (first published Berlin: Wiking Verlag, 1943).

Jelavich, Barbara. History of the Balkans. Vol. 1, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983, 171-179.

Theme 9: What is "ideology". Left and Right-wing ideologies in Eastern Europe: agrarianism, socialism (communism), fascism.

Ricoeur, Paul. Lectures on Ideology and Utopia. New York: Columbia University Press, 1986, 1-17.

Weber, Eugen. Varieties of Fascism. Malabar, Florida: Robert Krieger, 1982, 26-62.

Weber, Eugen. The Right. An Introduction. - In: Hans Rogger and Eugen Weber (eds.) The European Right. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1965, 1-28.

Okey, Robin. Eastern Europe 1740-1985. Feudalism to Communism. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1982, 124-132, 173-180.

Sugar, Peter. Conclusion. - In: Peter Sugar (ed.) Native Fascism in the Successor States, 1918-1945. Santa Barbara: California, 1971, 147-156.

Additional:

Rogger, Hans. - Afterthoughts. - In: Hans Rogger and Eugen Weber (eds.) The European Right. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1965, 575-589.

Berend, Ivan and Gyorgy Ranki. East Central Europe in the 19th and 20th Centuries. Budapest: Akademiai Kiado, 1977, 125-141.

Janos, Andrew. The One-Party State and Social Mobilization: East Europe between the Wars. - In: Samuel Huntington and Clement Moore (eds.) Authoritarian Politics in Modern Society. New York-London: Basic Books, 1970, 219-224.

McClellan, Woodford. Svetozar Marcovic and the Origins of Balkan Socialism. Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1964.

Theme 10: Cultural trends in Eastern Europe from the end of the nineteenth Century until World War II. New sensibilities and life styles and their artistic elaboration. Native modernisms and their tensions. Cultural debates: Europeanism versus indigenism, modernism versus traditionalism, the "return to the native" phenomenon.

Rothschild, Joseph. East Central Europe between the Two World Wars. Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 1974, 382-398.

Berend, Ivan and Gyorgy Ranki, East Central Europe in the 19th and 20th Centuries. Budapest, 1977, 63-74.

Schorske, Carl. Fin-de-siecle Vienna. Politics and Culture. New York, 1980, 3-10, 24-46, 295-302.

Hitchins, Keith. Rumania, 1866-1947. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994, 292-334.

Additional:

Jelavich, Charles and Barbara Jelavich, The Establishment of the Balkan National States, 1804-1920. Seattle, London: University of Washington Press, 1977, 266-283.

Theme 11: Application of some Weberian ideas and theories to Eastern Europe. Max Weber's predictions about "socialization" of the economy and its consequences, his ideal types of bureaucracy, his account of the nature and preconditions of modern capitalism, Weberian types of legitimacy and the problem of succession in power, his stratification model and closure theory. Varieties of (irrational) capitalism in Eastern Europe after communism.

Weber, Max. Socialism. -In: Weber, Max. Political Writings. Cambridge University Press, 1994, 284-302.

Weber, Max. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. London and New York: Routledge, 1992, 13-31.

Weber, Max. Economy and Society (the parts on bureaucracy and charisma)

Additional:

Daskalov, Roumen. Application of some Weberian Ideas to Contemporary Eastern Europe. - Proceedings of a Conference on Max Weber (forthcoming).

Theme 12: Application of some Foucaudian concepts and theories to Eastern Europe (of the communist and postcommunist period). Michel Foucault's ideas about disciplinary power and the modern process of disciplining; disciplinary procedures and institutions, etc. Politics and truth-telling: confrontation with Vaclav Havel's "apolitical politics" and Patocka-Havel's "living in truth".

Foucault, Michel. The Foucault Reader (ed. Paul Rabinow). Penguin Books, 1991, pp. 179-213.

Foucault, Michel. Two Lectures. - In: (ed.) Michael Kelly: Critique and Power, Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 1994, 31-46.

Havel, Haclav. The Power of the Powerless. - In: Havel, Vaclav. Living in Truth. London and Boston: Faber and Faber, 1987, 40-50.

Additional:

Daskalov, Roumen. Le pouvoir disciplinaire et le socialisme d'etat: quelques reflexions accrochees a celles de Foucault. - In: Brossat, A. (ed.) Hommage de l'Est a Foucault. Nancy: Press Universitaire de Nancy, 1994, pp. 111-121.

Daskalov MA Course

CONTENTS:

Berend, Ivan and Gyorgy Ranki. East Central Europe in the 19th and 20th Centuries. Budapest: Akademiai Kiado, 1977, 29-40, 63-74, 102-124.