Editing the Nation’s Memory

The novel reconsidered: Emotions and anti‐realism in mid‐19th‐century Scandinavian literature

“…The editing, translation and publishing of medieval manuscripts was a great philological enterprise and had a huge impact on national identities (see, e.g., Simonsen, 2018;Thiesse, 2019;Van Hulle & Leerssen, 2008). Obscure manuscripts were turned into mass-produced commodities: an enchanting national heritage for sale.…”

The textbook myth: Slovene peasants as heroes of the glorious past

“…In this sense, it is an intellectual product of the epoch, when historians all over the Europe put themselves in the service of nationalist political projects. During the last two centuries or so, numerous central European saw their research endeavours as a national mission, a means of contributing to the construction and the cultural or political emancipation of their postulated nations (Baár, 2010;Berger & Lorenz, 2010;Van Hulle & Leerssen, 2008;Norton, 2007) While inventing glorious and ancient national histories, many 19 th and 20 th century central European national movements and nation states were able to rely on, for instance, historical sources on medieval kings, military successes of barbarian 'tribes' against the Roman Empire, and various administrative and institutional legacies (Bak, Geary, & Klaniczay, 2015;Evans & Marchal, 2011;Geary 2002). Slovene nationalists and Slovene professional historians, however, did not have such rich material at their disposal.…”

Sua fata

“…Quaerendo 53 (2023) [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22] production, and with the philology-driven reception history of 'national classics' in the nineteenth century.3…”

“…Quaerendo 53 (2023) [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22] 1817: Rukopis Královédvorský (Hanka) 1818: King Arthur (Southey) 1824: Chants populaires de la Grèce moderne (Fauriel) 1828: Romancero General (Durán) 1834: Reinaert de Vos (Willems) 1835: Kalevala (Lönnrot) 1836: Chanson de Roland (Michel) Admittedly, in some cases, these were not the very first actual printings, ever. Parts and variants of the Nibelungen and Reynard had been printed sporadically before 1800; but either as chapbooks or as antiquarian rarities.…”

“…Quaerendo 53 (2023) [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22] in literary history we tend to see as the nodal points the human actors; their letters, institutional affiliations, travels and other communications would then form the connecting lines. From this, we would then trace the 'ideas' , insights, models and theories emerging more or less spontaneously from the meeting of two or more minds.…”