The Matica and Beyond: Cultural Associations and Nationalism in Europe(21 National Cultivation of Culture)

Nineteenth-century national movements perceived the nation as a community defined by language, culture and history. Part of the infrastructure to spread this view of the nation were institutions publishing literary and scientific texts in the national language. Starting with the Matica srpska (Pest, 1826), a particular kind of society was established in several parts of the Habsburg Empire – inspiring each other, but with often major differences in activities, membership and financing. Outside of the Slavic world analogues institutions played a similar key role in the early stages of national revival in Europe. The Matica and Beyond is the first concerted attempt to comparatively investigate both the specificity and commonality of these cultural associations, bringing together cases from differing regional, political and social circumstances. Contributors are: Daniel Baric, Benjamin Bossaert, Marijan Dović, Liljana Gushevska, Jörg Hackmann, Roisín Higgins, Alfonso Iglesias Amorín, Dagmar Kročanová, Joep Leerssen, Marion Löffler, Philippe Martel, Alexei Miller, Xosé M. Núñez Seixas, Iryna Orlevych, Magdaléna Pokorná, Miloš Řezník, Jan Rock, Diliara M. Usmanova, and Zsuzsanna Varga.

Table of Contents:
 Acknowledgements  List of Figures  Notes on Contributors  Introduction   Joep Leerssen  1 The Buda University Press and National Awakenings in Habsburg Austria   Zsuzsanna Varga  2 The Matice Česká   Magdaléna Pokorná  3 The Slovak Matica, Its Precursors and Its Legacy   Benjamin Bossaert and Dagmar Kročanová  4 The Matica in an Ethnic-Regional Context: Sorbian Lusatia and Czech Silesia in Comparison   Miloš Řezník  5 The Slovenian Matica: The ‘Foundation-Stone’   Marijan Dović  6 Framing a Regional Matica, from Dalmatian to Croatian   Daniel Baric  7 Macedonian Societies in the Balkan Context   Liljana Gushevska  8 Language, Cultural Associations, and the Origins of Galician Nationalism, 1840–1918   Xosé M. Núñez Seixas and Alfonso Iglesias Amorín  9 Félibrige, or the Impossible Occitan Nation   Philippe Martel  10 Educational, Scholarly, and Literary Societies in Dutch-speaking Regions, 1766–1886   Jan Rock  11 A Century of Change: The Eisteddfod and Welsh Cultural Nationalism   Marion Löffler  12 “Racy of the Soil”: Young Ireland and the Cultural Production of Nationhood   Roisín Higgins  13 Competing National Movements: School Associations and Cultural Nationalism in the Baltic Region   Jörg Hackmann  14 The Galician-Ruthenian Matica (1848–1939)   Iryna Orlevych  15 Tatar Cultural and Educational Organizations and Charities: Muslim Self-Organization in the Russian Empire   Diliara M. Usmanova  Afterword: The Maticas in a World of Empires   Alexei Miller  Index

About the Author :
Dr. Krisztina Lajosi is a Senior Lecturer in Modern European Culture at the Department of European Studies of the Universiteit van Amsterdam. Her research area is nationalism and transnationalism studies, focusing on the intersections between history, media and political thought. Dr. Andreas Stynen is postdoctoral assistant at KU Leuven, Research Group for Cultural History since 1750. Mainly studying the history of urbanism and national movements, he has also published on musical culture, transatlantic migration and practices of remembrance.

Review :
"The Matica and Beyond offers a detailed look at the concrete and modest beginnings of the Central European national movements that only took political form as nation-states after 1918 (or in some cases only after 1989). Its comparisons with the experience of marginalized national groups in Britain, France, and Spain are particularly constructive, especially at a time when the future of a unified Europe no longer seems self-evident". Charles Sebaston, in Sciendo 68 (4), 2020. "This volume is important on several different levels. It contributes to the discussion on the history of nationalism in East-Central Europe. It also provides the cases of the other non-dominant national movements across Europe, thus giving the readers a chance to draw comparisons and conclusions themselves. The potential for comparison is, in fact, one of the strongest characteristics of this volume". Dušan J. Ljuboja, in Slavonica, 26:1, pp. 80-83. "The Matica and Beyond offers us the opportunity to get better acquainted with the functioning of these institutions in the 19th century when they did play a crucial role in society and thus enables us to reassess their place in contemporary society more objectively and responsibly". Eva Palkovičová, January 2021.