Projects / Programmes
Ambition, careerism, greed, betrayal: social-material strategies, practices, and communication of social elites in the Slovenian territory during the Early Modern Period
| Code |
Science |
Field |
Subfield |
| 6.01.00 |
Humanities |
Historiography |
|
| Code |
Science |
Field |
| 6.01 |
Humanities |
History and Archaeology |
History of nobility, survival strategies, public and private life, social communication, criminal, 15th - 18th century, Slovenia
Data for the last 5 years (citations for the last 10 years) on
April 19, 2024;
A3 for period
2018-2022
Data for ARIS tenders (
04.04.2019 – Programme tender,
archive
)
| Database |
Linked records |
Citations |
Pure citations |
Average pure citations |
| WoS |
32 |
29 |
25 |
0.78 |
| Scopus |
67 |
89 |
65 |
0.97 |
Researchers (6)
| no. |
Code |
Name and surname |
Research area |
Role |
Period |
No. of publicationsNo. of publications |
| 1. |
27937 |
PhD Dragica Čeč |
Historiography |
Researcher |
2020 - 2024 |
188 |
| 2. |
14117 |
PhD Boris Golec |
Historiography |
Researcher |
2020 - 2024 |
636 |
| 3. |
24476 |
PhD Katarina Keber |
Humanities |
Researcher |
2020 - 2024 |
193 |
| 4. |
35534 |
PhD Vanja Kočevar |
Humanities |
Researcher |
2021 - 2024 |
104 |
| 5. |
08466 |
PhD Dušan Kos |
Historiography |
Head |
2020 - 2024 |
191 |
| 6. |
20221 |
PhD Miha Preinfalk |
Historiography |
Researcher |
2020 - 2024 |
439 |
Organisations (2)
Abstract
Ambition, careerism, greed, betrayal: social-material strategies, practices, and communication of social elites in the Slovenian territory during the Early Modern Period The research will present the peculiarities and characteristics of the formation and functioning of individual and collective, as well as covert and overt planning of communication in the life of the elites during the formation of special, ordinary and covert social strategies and practices in the economic, legal, and cultural-historical perspective of the provincial environment in a particularistic and absolutist state during the period between the sixteenth and the late eighteenth century in the Slovenian territory. However, these tactics were also shaped by patterns that were as much then as now underlined by the general notions of non-ethics and immorality: greed, fraud, corruption, extortion, and other such conduct. And all this was, despite principled condemnation, tolerated by society. The elites also resorted to immoral business and political measures to successfully adapt to the new circumstances and survive political crises in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, economic crises in the seventeenth century, and state reforms in the eighteenth century. However, in doing so, they had to redefine their value system over and over again and transform it in a way that allowed them to maintain their social primacy. This was only apparently an easy task, as the nobility retained control of the territorial political functions, public offices, and influence on the sovereign’s decisions regarding domestic and foreign policy, economy, as well as in the Church hierarchy. The nobility maintained an important sway especially in the military, but also in the territorial tax and judicial autonomy, which enabled the elites to engage in more or less overt manipulation and misuse of the government revenues and expenditures to their personal gain. In doing so, they took recourse to business fraud, manipulation of tax obligations, deceiving their business partners, corruption, clientelism, etc. In exchange for such conduct to be tolerated, they renounced some of their personal authoritarian mechanisms, especially physical violence and vengeance, duels and judicial arbitrariness, which underscored the medieval feudal society. The new survival paradigms directly affected the family indebtedness, the ratio between liabilities and available assets, and formed a consumer society. One universal consequence was the multi-level weaving of personal and family ties or, rather, social interactions through marriage, sponsorship, as well as friendships forged at school and at work. In the pursuit of family survival strategies, female members had a very important role by complementing male business communication or taking the lead in it themselves. On the other hand, the elite strata also established a social tolerance for conflicts and crime, with the elites regulating interpersonal conflicts themselves, with the occasional formal assistance from the government. The noble elites, furthermore, developed special forms of social communication, which were externally best represented by “salon clubs”. Such associations were intended not only for leisure activities, as communication unfolding within and among salon clubs concerned all matters of life: members debated politics and work; they formed career support networks, gloated on scandals, sought advice on personal predicaments, and at the same time actively devoted attention to science, culture, as well as the latest civilizational accomplishments. This is where the new mechanisms of status solidarity were developed, which can be detected with the analysis of their written communication and social ties. Another increasingly characteristic feature of such communications was a nearly equal participation of both genders.
