Marek Tamm

This volume brings together a selection of Juri Lotman’s late essays, published between 1979 and 1995. While Lotman is widely read in the fields of semiotics and literary studies, his innovative ideas about history and memory remain relatively unknown. The articles in this volume, most of which are appearing in English for the first time, lay out Lotman’s semiotic model of culture, with its emphasis on mnemonic processes. Lotman’s concept of culture as the non-hereditary memory of a community that is in a continuous process of self-interpretation will be of interest to scholars working in cultural theory, memory studies and the theory of history.

Essays in Cultural Semiotics

Juri Lotman - Culture, Memory and History

Anu Mänd

The region called Livonia (corresponding to modern Estonia and Latvia) emerged out of the rapid transformation caused by the conquest, Christianisation and colonisation on the north-east shore of the Baltic Sea in the late twelfth and the early thirteenth centuries. These radical changes have received increasing scholarly notice over the last few decades. However, less attention has been devoted to the interplay between the new and the old structures and actors in a longer perspective. This volume aims to study these interplays and explores the history of Livonia by concentrating on various actors and networks from the late twelfth to the seventeenth century. But, on a deeper level, the goal is more ambitious: to investigate the foundation of an increasingly complex and heterogeneous society on the medieval and early modern Baltic frontier – ‘the making of Livonia’.

Actors and Networks in the Medieval and Early Modern Baltic Sea Region

Making Livonia

Linda Kaljundi

The Chronicle of Henry of Livonia, written by a missionary priest in the early thirteenth century to record the history of the crusades to Livonia and Estonia around 1186-1227, offers one of the most vivid examples of the early thirteenth century crusading ideology in practice. Step by step, it has become one of the most widely read and acknowledged frontier crusading and missionary chronicles. Henry's chronicle offers many opportunities to test and broaden the new approaches and key concepts brought along by recent developments in medieval studies, including the new pluralist definition of crusading and the relationship between the peripheries and core areas of Europe. While recent years have produced a significant amount of new research into Henry of Livonia, much of it has been limited to particular historical traditions and languages. A key objective of this book, therefore, is to synthesise the current state of research for the international scholarly audience. The volume provides a multi-sided and multi-disciplinary companion to the chronicle, and is divided into three parts. The first part, 'Representations,' brings into focus the imaginary sphere of the chronicle - the various images brought into existence by the amalgamation of crusading and missionary ideology and the frontier experience. This is followed by studies on 'Practices,' which examines the chronicle's reflections of the diplomatic, religious, and military practices of the christianisation and colonisation processes in medieval Livonia. The volume concludes with a section on the 'Appropriations,' which maps the reception history of the chronicle: the dynamics of the medieval, early modern and modern national uses and abuses of the text.

A Companion to the Chronicle of Henry of Livonia

Crusading and Chronicle Writing on the Medieval Baltic Frontier

Peter Burke

With its innovative format, Debating New Approaches to History addresses issues currently at the top of the discipline's theoretical and methodological agenda. In its chapters, leading historians of both older and younger generations from across the Western world and beyond discuss and debate the main problems and challenges that historians are facing today. Each chapter is followed by a critical commentary from another key scholar in the field and the author's response. The volume looks at topics such as the importance and consequences of the 'digital turn' in history (what will history writing be like in a digital age?), the challenge of posthumanist theory for history writing (how do we write the history of non-humans?) and the possibilities of moving beyond traditional sources in history and establishing a dialogue with genetics and neurosciences (what are the perspectives and limits of the so-called 'neurohistory'?). It also revisits older debates in history which remain crucial, such as what the gender approach can offer to historical research or how to write history on a global scale. Debating New Approaches to History does not just provide a useful overview of the new approaches to history it covers, but also offers insights into current historical debates and the process of historical method in the making. It demonstrates how the discipline of history has responded to challenges in society – such as digitalization, globalization and environmental concerns – as well as in humanities and social sciences, such as the 'material turn', 'visual turn' or 'affective turn'. This is a key volume for all students of historiography wanting to keep their finger on the pulse of contemporary thinking in historical research.

Debating New Approaches to History

Recently, we have witnessed a rearticulation of the traditional relationship between the past, present and future, broadening historiography's range from studying past events to their later impact and meaning. The volume proposes to look at the perspectives of this approach called mnemohistory, and argues for a redefinition of the term 'event'.

Perspectives on Mnemohistory

Afterlife of Events

Carsten Selch Jensen

The Chronicle of Henry of Livonia was written by a missionary priest in the early thirteenth century to record the history of the crusades to Livonia and Estonia in around 1186-1227. While recent years have produced a significant amount of new research into Henry of Livonia, much of it has been limited to particular historical traditions and languages. A key objective of this book is to synthesise the current state of research for the international scholarly audience.

Marek Tamm

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