Welcome to the Department of Southeast European History and Anthropology
Research in the Department of Southeast European History and Anthropology
Southeast European History and Anthropology at the University of Graz is the only academic institution in Austria that focuses its research and teaching on the history and anthropology of Southeast Europe. This reflects a unique set of circumstances. In the first instance, the university has historical and contemporary significance for South-Eastern Europe due to its geographical location, a key consideration underpinning the foundation of the Chair of Southeast European History in 1970 (notwithstanding the Graz Institute of Slavic Studies, which has strong Balkanological traditions). Secondly, the university's focus on South-Eastern Europe gives us a particular role outwith the academic field in terms of networking, organizing scholarships for students from Southeastern Europe, and designing and supporting research projects which focus on this geographical region.
Our research
The research activities of the Department are characterized by a variety of approaches. One key area is the Historical Anthropology of the Balkans. Historical anthropology, once on the fringes but now central to historical enquiry, can be understood as an extension of a socio-historical approach to the past which deals primarily in elementary experiences and their interpretation by historical actors. Hitherto, historical-anthropological Balkan research in Graz has largely concentrated on problems of family research; further opportunities for new research pathways can be found in intercultural comparison, or via transfer history.
Our primary cultural points of reference are the Mediterranean world, the Middle East, the Caucasus, and Central and Eastern Europe. A second dimension of historical anthropology, practised specifically in Graz, is the combination of historical and cultural anthropological methods and questions, whereby researchers draw primarily on US-American cultural anthropology. Taking historical family research as a point of departure, patriarchal social structures and gender issues provide further areas of focus.
Our research also includes questions about the relationship between tradition and modernity, as well as the social significance of power relations. Research on the processes associated with nation-building, social security, migration, and the outbreak of ethno-nationalism in the former Yugoslavia offer further important areas of enquiry.
Our research focuses
Cultures of remembrance - images of history - historiography
Historical memory in the public sphere and the associated treatment of the past are important research focal points that cover a variety of subject areas. The public use of history manifests itself in different areas. The analysis of images of history in school textbooks is just as much a part of this as observations on shared history, which attempts to counteract the division into one's "own" images of history versus the images of "others". A central area is the historiography of south-eastern Europe and its effectiveness in creating meaning and legitimizing systems. Last but not least, historical narratives in tourist contexts also offer an important focus of research, not least because the framing of destinations and attractions through textual and visual representations of history have proven to be an essential component of nationally- or regionally-oriented identity politics in South Eastern Europe.
Family and gender
Research on historical family and gender relations has been firmly established for three decades and is grounded in the social significance of family in the Balkan countries. The internal relationships of the "Balkan family", as they appeared above all in the west of the Balkan Peninsula, were patriarchal, patrilineal and patrilocal in the pre-modern period. Due to historical and social reorientations in the post-socialist period, the Yugoslav wars and the resurgence of traditional values from pre-socialist times, both re-patriarchalization and westernization tendencies in family and gender relations have emerged as areas of focus. Partly as a result of these developments, feminist movements are finding it difficult to gain a foothold. Research on family and gender relations is interdisciplinary in nature: they incorporate historical as well as sociological, demographic and anthropological issues and methods.
Health and medicine
Just one hundred years ago, the Ottoman Empire was described as the "sick man of Europe". The construction and use of stereotypical attributions are part of the Orientalism-Balkanism complex and form an essential element of research into this area, which focuses on images of health and illness. Going beyond symbolic meanings, the social history of medicine comprises a further focus: this deals with the historical occurrence of epidemics, the social role of doctors and the disciplining, the classification and selection of the population through quarantine, disinfection, vaccinations and other hygiene measures, as well as through eugenic and racial anthropological discourses. For the population of the predominantly agrarian societies of the Balkans, these measures, among others, represent an early point of contact with modernity.
Migration and "transnationalism"
The past and present of south-eastern Europe have been decisively shaped by migration, whilst is hardly an area of social and political life that is not directly affected by the impact of migration. These effects are complex, and extend far beyond the region. The experience of migration often represents a break with one's own history, requiring a reorientation in terms of space and time, and it is usually accompanied by an increased need for social anchoring and security. Dealing with historical and current migration processes therefore represents a major challenge in both theoretical and methodological terms - here, historical-anthropological approaches are particularly suited to probing the multi-layered phenomena of migration.
Muslim cultures - Ottoman heritage
Viewed through the reductive lens of the Orient-Occident dichotomy, Muslim cultures were long described as static and inferior to the West. They had resisted any form of innovation, a state of affairs attributed to religion. Avoiding this Eurocentric and orientalizing view and using a constructivist approach, this project examines mutual processes of perception, exchange and visualization from the early modern period to the present day in relation to the European and Anatolian territories of the Ottoman Empire and its successor states, as well as in relation to Muslim migration societies. Instead of a traditional philological orientation, this project's focus is on historical-anthropological as well as cultural and social science aspects. Further points of focus include the handling of the Ottoman heritage and the investigation of patriarchal structures and gender relations in Muslim societies both within and outwith Asia Minor.
Visual culture
Research in this area places visual culture at the center of theoretical and methodological approaches. Cultural phenomena are analyzed in terms of their visual representations, their visibility and perceptions associated with them. By examining the nature, role and function of images, fundamental questions are posed about concepts of ordering and structuring societies and about the variety of forms and practices in which cultures are produced, negotiated and used along historical, political, social and economic processes. Through the establishment of the image database VASE [Visual Archive of Southeastern Europe], collected visual data will be made available to researchers, teachers and students in order to facilitate an active engagement with images from the past.
Methodological skills
A historical methodology that places people as individual, social and cultural actors at the center of its research cannot be said to commit itself to a single approach, either theoretically or methodologically. The human sciences require a variety of methodological approaches (including the natural sciences). At the centre of our research is a mixture of methods drawn from the historical sciences and cultural anthropology. Work in the archives and libraries is supplemented by communicative research strategies, or vice versa. Specifically, we apply comparative methods as well as memory research, communicative research, historical and anthropological image research and historical demography; research is also guided by methods that are capable of uncovering micro-perspectives in which people as actors come to the fore.
Field research - communicative research
An important method of historical anthropology is field research / communicative research. Spending time in the "field" being researched, collecting empirical data through observation and questioning, and reflecting on one's own position can provide insights into numerous social and cultural phenomena and critically illuminate the processes by which knowledge comes into being. Field research / communicative research methods are particularly relevant when it comes to exploring attitudes and opinions and the motives behind actors' own actions. Methods of multi-sited ethnography are also increasingly being used in migration research, which not only focus on actors in different places, but also include a greater interdisciplinary diversity, taking in areas such as cultural and media studies.
Historical demography
Historical family and gender research also demands the application of quantifying and demographic methods when making use of serial sources such as censuses, tax lists, and church records. Household structures are determined by demographic events (births, marriages, deaths and migrations) and are also influenced by demographic patterns. Research in Graz has therefore also focussed on historical conditions and developments in the areas of fertility, nuptiality, mortality, morbidity and migration in South Eastern Europe. We have particular expertise in the area of marriage patterns and household formation, as well as the historical development of difference and conformity with Western and Central European patterns.
Historical and anthropological image research
Iconographic and iconological analyses of individual images demand attention to the context in which the image was created, the various contexts in which it was used, and the historical and socio-cultural conditions of its reception. Quantitative photographic analyses using the serial-iconographic method enable synchronous comparison of different image collections or for the diachronic observation of an image genre or motif over a longer period of time. The pictorial is not only used as a primary historical source, but can also be used as a research tool in interactive communication - for example in picture interviews.
Micro-perspective - Agency
The holistic view of south-eastern Europe and the objecthood of this region - derived from foreign domination resulting from the intervention of great powers - characterise Western historiography. The significance of such approaches only becomes apparent when they are combined with micro-perspective contexts and the horizons of ordinary people. This relationship also applies in reverse: the boundaries and relevance of the lifeworlds of (small) "ethnic" groups, such as the Vlachs or Pomaks, or the scope of the agency of migrant shepherds and their families, only become comprehensible when they are related to supra-regional processes - in this case to nation and nation-state formation, the formation of state borders that cut through settlement areas and migration routes, and regional and global (agricultural) economic developments.
From comparison to reciprocity
Different methods of comparison are used to investigate these questions. Starting from historical comparison on a synchronous as well as on a diachronic level, the geographical field extends from intra-European to non-European regions. A key component of our approach is the critical examination and deconstruction of the '"right-wrong" dichotomy which has arisen in Western perceptions of the Balkans, itself based on a model of a European norm. Instead of focussing on "difference" or "commonality", our research aims to uncover areas of mutual influence and complexity, such as in the relationship between the Ottoman Empire and Muslim cultures.
Library of the Section of Southeast European History and Anthropology
Orders are accepted online:
suedost.bibliothek(at)uni-graz.at
and in person :
Our opening hours: Monday: 9.00-13.00 and Friday: 9.00-11.00
The reading room is also open during these times! Alternatively, you can also use the reading room in the departmental library at Heinrichstr. 26/4th floor (opening hours according to the homepage).
The Departmental Library is connected to the international interlibrary loan system via the University Library . The titles are available viaUnikatsearchable. We pay particular attention to the expansion of our special library, as we have to fulfill a public task in addition to our subject-specific one. Through exchanges, gifts, acquisitions from private libraries and finally also through purchases, we now have around 50,000 individual works and journal holdings.
Individual works
Thanks to several legacies (Balduin Saria, Ludwig von Gogolák, Robert Schwanke, Erich Beck libraries), the departmental library has holdings on late antiquity and the Middle Ages in the Balkan and Danube regions (approx. 25 percent). The remaining 75 percent is divided between south-eastern Europe in general and its countries, mainly for the 19th and 20th centuries (approx. 70 percent) and peripheral areas (Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Russia, approx. 5 percent). Additional focus currently being developed: historical anthropology (primarily of south-eastern Europe, the Mediterranean region, the Middle East and the Caucasus). Military maps mainly of the Danube and Balkan region from the late 19th century to the Second World War (approx. 120 items); atlas of the Danube countries (completed edition), atlas of Eastern and South-Eastern Europe (ongoing).
Halpern Collection
This collection, which was made available to the Graz department by the American cultural anthropologist Joel M. Halpern (Prof. emeritus of the University of Massachusetts), contains partly unique material and covers the Yugoslavian region of the last two centuries. It consists of sources that are fundamental for quantifying studies of household and family structures (censuses, registers, tax lists, status animarum), as well as supplementary sources (field research notes, interview material and autobiographies). This collection is rounded off by an extensive collection of monographs and essays relevant to Balkan family history.
See also: Project "Balkan Family"
Swaying estate
This Albanian studies collection, owned by the Viennese Albania expert Robert Schwanke, who died in 1993, is made up of monographs and essays on regional studies, history, culture, linguistics and politics. It consists of over a thousand volumes of books and journals.
Beck's Bukovina Collection
In 2007, the Bukovina Library was purchased from the estate of Dr. Erich Beck. Dr. Beck published several bibliographies on the history of Bukovina in the 1960s.
The history of the chair and the premises
The Chair of Southeast European History at the Historisches Institut at the University of Graz was founded in 1970 as the successor to the former Chair of Byzantine Philology and Intellectual History. Teaching commenced in the winter semester of 1970. Following the introduction of the University Organization Act in 1975, the Historisches Institut was renamed the Institut für Geschichte, whilst the former chair became the Department of Southeast European History and Anthropology. The first head of the department was Ferdinand Hauptmann, previously Professor of Modern History at the University of Sarajevo. He retired in 1986 and was succeeded in 1988 by Horst Haselsteiner (until then assistant at the Institute for East and Southeast European Studies at the University of Vienna). After his appointment to the University of Vienna as full professor as the successor of Richard Georg Plaschka (1993), Karl Kaser, until then a contract assistant at the department, took over as full professor and head of the department in 1996.
Our premises
The department is housed in the north wing of the so-called Meerscheinschlössl, a baroque palace said to have been built in the 16th century as the residence of the papal nuncio for Inner Austria. The building takes its name from Johann Meerschein, who ran a coffee house on the premises in the 1800s, whilst other rooms were used for dancing and playing cards; although less can be said of the latter two activities, coffee consumption remains a carefully cultivated tradition to this day.
At first sight this quarter might give the impression of a certain latent tranquillity. The history and ambience of the building are deceptive, however: the 500 or so square metres of offices, seminar rooms and library space across three floors are a hive of activity - not least because every opportunity has been exploited to internationalize our research operations and facilitate wider networking.