MECERN 2023

Continuity and Change - Medieval Central Europe (Visegrad Grant, no. 22220140)

The project contributes to the exchange of ideas and strengthens the professional network of institutions researching medieval Central Europe. In addition, it involves broader audiences, especially students. We will organize an international conference on the theme Continuity and Change in Medieval Central Europe, another in the row of successful biennial conferences initiated by MECERN (Medieval Central Europe Research Network, (http://mecern.eu/). It will be open to scholars from Visegrad countries and beyond, building on the cooperation of academic institutions involved in the MECERN network.

The project focuses on the strengthening of the professional network of academic institutions and individual researchers and students dealing with research on medieval Central Europe by organizing a major international conference with related events. After successful conferences in Budapest (2014), Olomouc (2016), Zagreb (2018), and online in Gdansk (2021), the Fifth Biennial Conference of MECERN (http://mecern.eu/) will focus on the vexed relationship between continuity and change in medieval history, especially in Central Europe. Continuity and Change have always been topics that historians, archeologists, art historians, social scientists and scholars from other disciplines were interested in. Recently our society has

faced profound changes and disruptions. What was the situation in the Middle Ages? Was Central Europe as a specific historical, cultural, religious and political region shaped by continual developments on the social and political level? Or, was it rather marked by unexpected and radical changes, which were the essential driving forces in the regionʼs historical development? Which medieval changes influenced the development in Central Europe substantially? What were the ruptures in the medieval past? Which phenomena and spheres of life were marked by continuity rather than change? What are the methods that medievalists use to detect and study them? These are the issues that the network of scholars and students will focus on.

PARTNERS

Eötvös Loránd University

University of Gdańsk

Palacký University Olomouc