Projects / Programmes
The Mediterranean and Slovenia
January 1, 2020
- December 31, 2027
| Code |
Science |
Field |
Subfield |
| 6.01.00 |
Humanities |
Historiography |
|
| Code |
Science |
Field |
| H000 |
Humanities |
|
| Code |
Science |
Field |
| 6.01 |
Humanities |
History and Archaeology |
Mediterranean, Slovenia, northern Adriatic region, transnational history, border studies, political history, history of religion, social modernisation, cultural landscape, Slovenian-Italian relations, 20th century
Data for the last 5 years (citations for the last 10 years) on
April 19, 2024;
A3 for period
2018-2022
| Database |
Linked records |
Citations |
Pure citations |
Average pure citations |
| WoS |
120 |
295 |
270 |
2.25 |
| Scopus |
126 |
459 |
414 |
3.29 |
Researchers (23)
Organisations (1)
Abstract
The research programme The Mediterranean and Slovenia draws its scientific potential from a specifically structured milieu that emerged at the intersection between the Adriatic and Central Europe, and which from a historiographic viewpoint highlights the contiguity, and the borderland and interactive character of the Slovenian Mediterranean region. To encompass the complexity, heterogeneity and specificity of the policies, structures, practices and relations in this area, the research will focus on four analytical tasks which, through transnational and comparative histories, open a perspective on this area as a research lab for studying political and social phenomena in the global context of the 19th and 20th centuries. The gender-mixed group of senior, experienced and young researchers will address: 1) political, economic and cultural exchanges; 2) religious policies and practices in the multi-ethnic area of contact; 3)the agency of the individual in processes of social modernisation; and 4) the ideological language of the cultural landscape.
The ambitious, yet carefully scheduled studies will draw from a wide range of sources, largely unavailable until recently, from state, regional and private archives in Slovenia, Italy, the Vatican, Serbia, Croatia, and Austria, including updated databases of vital records and collections of oral testimonies. The transitional nature of the area and the various “regimes of historicity” (régimes d'historicité) suggest the choice of a basic methodological toolkit comprising transnational, comparative and various relational approaches, in particular entangled, shared and connected histories. The transfer of established concepts, such as the spatial and cultural turns, sites of memory or microhistory, from the static national framework onto the multinational border area of the northern Adriatic will enable a qualified level of analysis with interpretational value for other similarly structured regions, granting our research significant international relevance.
The research programme envisages a detailed dissemination strategy with innovative results that will continue the practice of publishing with renowned international journals and editors, while serving as an evidence base available to a wide circle of stakeholders in planning policies for (cross)border area development; for example, through pilot projects making use of cultural heritage in designing innovative products.
The basic aim of the programme is to provide original historical insight into cases of cross-border regional integration from the area between the Alps and the Adriatic as paradigms for bridging ideological, political, economic and cultural divides. Employing this historical viewpoint, we present the possibilities for integration in the area of the northern Adriatic as a meeting point of dominant and alternative globalisations.
Significance for science
The scientific consideration of the area of contact between the Mediterranean and central Europe, which in its specificity represents an extraordinary source of interdisciplinary research, relies on an adapted conceptual and methodological apparatus that we as members of the programme group have developed during the past 15 years with the support of an excellent participating international network.
The advancement of our studies, through the participation of new members in the programme group – some of the world’s leading experts – and their rich research experience and innovative approaches, will enable us to fully exploit the research potential of the upper Adriatic area and disseminate the programme results throughout the international scientific community. It is presumed that our insights expand the perspective of this area as a research laboratory for the study of phenomena of modern and contemporary history, which for various interrelated reasons surpass strictly local significance. The consensus of contemporary humanities is thus that in the 19th and 20th centuries, border areas played the central role in the formation of nation-building narratives. The borderland character of this region is also reflected in other constitutive elements of its historical development, such as multiethnicity, exposure to reciprocal cultural influences and the like, which give it a distinctive mark, while their systematic and complex analysis promises a broader contribution to the theory and development of methodological approaches.
Specifically, we can find here and deal with cases of multifaceted European and global histories, such as the diversity of resistance strategies provoked by totalitarian regimes, the first germs of the Cold War on European soil, and, for example, the first attempts at overcoming the ideological divisions decades before the Fall of the Iron Curtain, which were perhaps possible precisely because of the mentioned specific circumstances. All these will be addressed with an interdisciplinary approach and examined either as case studies or as subjects of transnational analysis. Similarly complex are the social and cultural contexts of this area, which encompass in particular the practices of forming and adjusting individual identities, facing the transformations of society and introducing new policies. In our analytical valorization and endeavour to reach beyond the existing studies in the studied area we will follow the thesis by L. Febvre that each historical period generates its own mental representation/interpretation of the past. We also see great potential in a comparative analysis with analogous environments (e.g., with South Tyrol during Fascism).
The studies of trans-Adriatic political and intellectual networks, especially the non-institutional, which extended beyond the national and ideological divides, will in many ways capture the aspects omitted by the classic studies of political and diplomatic history. We will also pay attention to the elements emphasised by more recent approaches to the study of international relations (paradiplomacy, the concept of soft power, economic diplomacy). This is the viewpoint from which the involvement of the Adriatic space into processes of alternative (socialist) globalisation should also be regarded. For us such original, and for the studies of Yugoslav internationalism, most valuable insight opens through the paradigmatic cases of the Port of Koper and the Splošna plovba shipping company.
Our scientific contribution of interpretational value also for other regions where a distinctive relation between the ethnic and the religious has come to form, will be provided by studies of religious groups through intra-confessional relations, interreligious relations, attitudes of lay people towards hierarchy, of theologians towards representatives of secular ideologies, etc. The breadth of this angle of vision will be an important element in overcoming stereotypical perceptions
Significance for the country
“The Mediterranean dimension” has been part of the foreign policy, economic, traffic and cultural orientation of the Slovenian state since its foundation, which is reflected in a series of its official documents (e.g., in the Resolution on the Strategy for the Adriatic, 2009, and in the Strategic Document on Foreign Policy of the Republic of Slovenia, 2015). Anchored in the scientific and developmental potential of a uniquely structured milieu that formed at the intersection of physical-geographical units, civilisations and cultures between the Adriatic and central Europe, the research programme The Mediterranean and Slovenia and its implementation provide a much needed basis for this strategic orientation.
The concept of the studies planned within the programme follows the Programme of the Ministry of Education, Science and Sport for the Promotion of Research and Development in the Field of Science 2016–2020, our focus being on the dissemination of the results among the broadest interested public. In the first place, we are making an intellectual contribution to development through critical reflection on society by securing the foundations for a better coexistence in an area conspicuous for the presence of historically determined divisions. In the border area we are still, if not more so than years ago, faced with the sensitivity of certain historically determined complexes and cultural practices, which our research programme addresses and which directly affects relations between states and within the EU (e.g., tensions in diplomatic relations among Italy, Slovenia and Croatia at the beginning of 2019). We consider the reflection on ideological constructions, which are still making the cooperation between neighbouring countries difficult, as a basis for creating a more efficient Slovenian foreign policy and defining a common European agenda, as well as a facilitator for economic and other types of cooperation.
The study of cultural practices enables a confrontation with and surpassing of the “traditional” stereotypes and prejudices hindering the formation of efficient and economically sustainable policies in relation to demographic challenges. In this respect, as members of the programme group we will continue to pursue our commitment of intellectual contribution to the current public debates and disseminate our findings to the widest possible circle of stakeholders. We will provide a valuable perspective on the challenges that Europe in general has come up against now and which the Alps-Adriatic region has been marked by for decades. These include issues related to illegal migration, cross-border integration, meeting with the crisis of the social state and an ageing society, multiculturalism, religious pluralism and globalisation. Our reconstruction of and reflection on historical experience and ways of dealing with these problems can be an important contribution to policy-making, functioning of public institutions and the processes of designing curricula in education, as well as to new editions of school textbooks (their authors are also members of the programme group). The results are imparted to society through participation in various professional bodies (membership in the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, EUROCLIO, State Matura Commission, the Historical Association of Slovenia, editorial boards of established scientific journals, etc.).
An innovative approach to the research problem of the multi-level and complex contact of Slovenia with the Mediterranean is not only important for the identification of political, economic, legal, religious and cultural ties extending through this area, but also for the identification of the developmental challenges that such a specific environment presents. Based on the valorization of the untapped potential of cultural (intangible and tangible) and natural heritage, the programme contents will serve as a basis for designing innovative, integrated, themed and sustainable tourism
