Why does the modern state, with its claim to sovereignty, care so much about secularization and (re)sacralization? In order to address this question, the project examines the (pre)history of the conflict-ridden relationship between transnational institutions and the modern state and also the players who stood at the point of intersection of the two by analysing the shifts in relations between the state and one of the oldest transnational institutions in the world, the Catholic Church. The project examines the conflicts between church and state and the various processes involved in attempts to address these conflicts first and foremost by studying the history of the oaths of loyalty that the (chief) pastors of the Catholic Church were obliged to take and the tensions which arose because of these conflicts in the Habsburg Monarchy and its successor states between 1780 and 1990. Oaths of loyalty to the state bear the marks of the changing relationships between the nation state and the transnational Catholic Church and were generated directly through the negotiations of sovereignty among these actors. The project will offer a comprehensive interpretation of oaths of loyalty in the context of Josephinism, nation building, and communism and their transformations in the context of the shifting relationships of the national, state, and transnational loyalties. Thus, it will provide much needed tools for a longue durée and comparative analysis of state-church relations in Central Eastern Europe. It will also discuss patterns of continuity and discontinuity between the church policy of different regimes, the common and different features of the role of Catholicism in nation building, and the related change of function of the Catholic hierarchy among the peoples of the Habsburg Monarchy. On the plane of global history, it will offer new insights into the roots and the prehistory of the conflicted relationship between transnational institutions and state sovereignty.

This project aims at producing a synoptic analysis of the foreign policy of small states in early modern South-eastern Europe. For centuries, the rulers of the Crimea, Moldavia and Wallachia, Ragusa, Transylvania, and Cossack Ukraine had to cope with their difficult geo-political situation of being at the borderlands between Christian Europe and the Ottoman Empire. The project will be the first attempt for writing a comparative history on the following questions. 1, What kind of strategies these small states followed in order to overcome their vulnerability and survive on the frontier not only of empires but also of civilisations? 2, What was the impact of being placed at cultural borderlands upon their diplomatic practices? 3, How did they try to overcome the problem of having to communicate and present themselves in two radically different political languages (i.e. of their powerful Muslim and Christian neighbours)? 4, How did the agents of diplomacy function in this peculiar geo-political and cultural context, how did it shape their status, practices and the kind of social gains available to them?

“The European Qur’an” (EuQu) will study the place of the Muslim holy book in European cultural and religious history (c.1150-1850), situating European perceptions of the Qur’an and of Islam in the fractured religious, political, and intellectual landscape of this long period. The Qur’an plays a key role not only in polemical interactions with Islam, but also in debates between Christians of different persuasions and is central to the epistemological reconfigurations that are at the basis of modernity in Europe, from Iberia to Hungary. The Qur’an is deeply imbedded in the political and religious thought of Europe and part of the intellectual repertoire of Medieval and Early Modern Europeans of different Christian denominations, of European Jews, freethinkers, atheists and of course of European Muslims. We will study how the European Qur’an is interpreted, adapted, used, and formed in Christian European contexts – often in close interaction with the Islamic world. EuQu will produce, over a six-year period: 1. A GIS-mapped database of the European Qur’an, containing extensive information about Qur’an manuscripts and printed editions (in Arabic, Greek, Latin, and European vernaculars) produced between 1143 and 1800 as well as prosopographical data about the principal actors involved in these endeavours (copyists, translators, publishers). 2. A series of publications: PhDs, monographs written by postdocs and PIs, special issues of academic journals, and animated digital publications for a wider audience and educational uses. They will make key breakthroughs in their fields, dealing with aspects of the transmission, translation and study of the Qur’an in Europe, on the role the Qur’an played in debates about European cultural and religious identities, and more broadly about the place of the Qur’an in European culture. 3. A major exhibition during the final year of the project, “The European Qur’an” to be held at museums in Nantes, London, Budapest and Madrid.

Few parts of Europe witnessed so many population shifts in a few centuries as the Carpathian Basin in 400-900 CE. In this macro-region along the middle Danube, Pannonians, Romans, Goths, Gepids, Longobards, Avars, Bulgars, Slavs, Franks and many others came and went. This is an intriguing test case for the relationship between ethnic identities constructed in texts, cultural habitus attested in the archaeological record, and genetic profiles that can now be analysed through ancient DNA. What was the impact of migrations and mobility on the population of the Carpathian Basin? Was the late antique population replaced, did it mix with the newcomers, or did its descendants only adopt new cultural styles? To what degree did biological distinctions correspond to the cultural boundaries and/or ethnonyms in the texts? If pursued with methodological caution, this case study will have implications beyond the field. HistoGenes will analyse c. 6,000 samples from graves with cutting edge scientific methods, and contextualize the interpretation of these data in their archaeological and historical setting. The rapid progress of aDNA analysis and of bio-informatics now make such an enterprise viable. However, the methods of historical interpretation have not kept pace. HistoGenes will, for the first time, unite historians, archaeologists, geneticist, anthropologists, and specialists in bio-informatics, isotope analysis and other scientific methods. Many team members have already collaborated successfully in a pilot project, which has demonstrated the feasibility of the approach and of the integrated workflow at the core of the project. A wide range of particular historical questions will be addressed from an interdisciplinary perspective, and fundamental theoretical and methodological issues can be explored. HistoGenes will not only advance our knowledge about a key period in European history, but also establish new standards for the historical interpretation of genetic data.

The project proposes both to create an electronic registry of representative online and offline, private and public collections of cultural opposition in all former socialist countries in Europe and to study the origins, uses and changing roles of these collections in their social, political and cultural contexts. We seek to further an understanding of how these (private and public, alternative and mainstream) collections work, what functions they serve in their respective societies, and how they represent their holdings to the public. The project will examine the legal and political circumstances that determined the collections before 1989 and the conditions that shape them in the post-socialist period. The analyses of the collections will identify various types of cultural opposition. Objectives include: 1. an online registry and a transnational database of collections in the original languages and English that will be accessible to European archival platforms and networks; 2. descriptions of and guides to the collections to enhance the quality of research and provide guidance on the role of the EU in this respect; 3. country reports on the collections and proposals concerning methods of preserving cultural heritage, and a handbook on various types of cultural opposition represented by the collections; 4. online curriculum development and digital content for educational purposes; 5. a documentary film festival, traveling and online exhibitions and local media events based on selected collections; 6. a set of recommendations concerning how to exhibit the cultural opposition movements of former socialist countries for the House of European History. This project will highlight the positive aspects of the former cultural opposition movements, such as democratic participation, autonomy and cultural plurality, and will remind us of an important pan-European truth: that civic courage can produce genuine cultural values even under authoritarian rule.