Rethinking Period Boundaries: New Approaches to Continuity and Discontinuity in Modern European History and Culture

Periodisation Is An Ever-present Feature Of The Grammar Of History-writing. As With All Grammatical Rules, The Order It Imposes Can Both Liberate And Stifle. Though Few Historians Would Consider Their Period Boundaries As Anything More Than Useful Guidelines, Heuristic Artifice All Too Easily Congeals Into Immovable Structure, Blinkering The Historical Gaze. Researchers Of Literature Are, Of Course, Challenged By Similar Dilemmas. Here, Too, The Neatness Of Periodisation Can Obscure The Cultural Output Of Awkward Individuals That Do Not Fit The Right Chronological Corset, Whilst Also Creating Unfounded Expectations Of Shared Experience And Expression.rather Than Discard Periodisation Altogether, In This Cross-disciplinary Volume An International Group Of Historians And Literary Scholars Presents Different Ways In Which Accepted Period Boundaries In Modern European History Can Be Challenged And Rethought. To Do So, They Explore Unnoticed Continuities, And Instances Of Delayed Cultural Transfer That Defy Easy Periodisation; Adopt The Perspective Of Social Groups That Standard Periodisation Schemes Have Ignored; And Consider How Historical Actors Themselves Divide Up History And How This Can Affect Their Actions. Frontmatter -- Table Of Contents -- Introduction Periodization Challenges And Challenging Periodization: Interdisciplinary Reflections -- Chapter 1 History Seems Different From The Shop Floor. A Micro-historical Challenge To Established Caesurae In The History Of 20th-century Poland: Transwar Continuities In Żyrardów -- Chapter 2 Rumours Of Re-enserfment, Anti-feudal Identities And “folk Periodization”: The Memory Of Serfdom In Early 20th-century Galicia -- Chapter 3 L’homme Au Couteau Entre Les Dents And Les Classes Dangereuses: A “transwar” Perspective On Continuities In French Anticommunist Discourse -- Chapter 4 Crossing Borders And Period Boundaries In Central European Art: The Work Of Anna Lesznai (ca. 1910–1930) -- Chapter 5 “periodizations” In Intellectual History: On The Plurality Of Continuities In The Public Debates Of Post-war Poland -- Chapter 6 A “product Of A Certain Social Milieu” And A “genius”: Analogies And Continuities Between Pre- And Post-revolutionary Debates On Dante In Russia -- Chapter 7 Continuing Traditions: National Days In Czechoslovakia And Hungary During The 20th Century -- Epilogue Some Problems In Historical And Literary Periodization -- List Of Contributors -- Index Ed. By Lucian George, Jade Mcglynn. Mode Of Access: Internet Via World Wide Web. In English.