{"id":138,"date":"2017-09-04T19:14:15","date_gmt":"2017-09-04T18:14:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/csaints.zrc-sazu.si\/?page_id=138"},"modified":"2018-03-15T12:53:55","modified_gmt":"2018-03-15T11:53:55","slug":"the-project","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/cultural-saints.zrc-sazu.si\/en\/the-project\/","title":{"rendered":"The Project"},"content":{"rendered":"

The research project \u201cNational Poets and Cultural Saints of Europe: Commemorative Cults, Canonization, and Cultural Memory\u201d (J6-6486; October 1, 2014 \u2013 September 30, 2017) was funded by the Slovenian Research Agency (ARRS). The project team was headed by Marijan Dovi\u0107 and included eleven researchers (eight from the Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts [ZRC SAZU], three from University of Ljubljana).<\/p>\n

SUMMARY<\/h3>\n

The project examines a hitherto poorly researched area. It uses a comparative approach to identify and describe the patterns of commemoration and canonization of national poets and other artists as a specific set of practices that spread across Europe like a wave, starting especially in the 1840s in the context of cultural nationalism. These practices are studied on the basis of the expanded concept of canonization (in addition to textual practices such as critical edition, exegesis, appropriation, and indoctrination, the concept also includes ritual practices, the use of relics, monumental networks, the role of the educational apparatus, etc.) and treated in the context of the establishment of new imagined communities and their (collective) cultural memory. In this way, the project seeks to reappraise the role of continuous veneration of chosen representatives in the process of forming European nations\u2014especially smaller ones, where the emphasis on literature and language was even greater. At the same time, the project strives to demonstrate that the effectiveness of this formation is more easily explained if one takes in account the elements that bring national movements into the vicinity of religious practices. Through an interdisciplinary and international combination of literary studies with other disciplines, the project seeks to permanently contribute to a better understanding of the underlying structures that still define the relationships and tensions between modern societies in Europe.<\/p>\n

The primary goals of the project include refinement of the prevailing concepts in the relevant field of literary studies (national poets, cultural saints, the canon and canonization, commemorative cults, etc.) and subsequent construction of a basic model of the study of canonization in the broader cultural context. This theoretical and methodological framework is critically tested by a number of diverse case studies. The main focus remains on the canonization of national poets, with case studies spanning from Russia (Alexander Pushkin) to Portugal (Lu\u00eds de Cam\u00f5es) and from Greece (Dionysios Solomos) to Iceland (J\u00f3nas Hallgr\u00ed<\/em>msson). This broad European panorama is also presented in the form of a bilingual (English and Slovenian) website devoted to National Poets and Cultural Saints of Europe<\/em>. A number of articles and book chapters are devoted to individual examples from \u201csmall nations\u201d; for instance, to the Czech national poet Karel H. M\u00e1cha, the Bulgarian national poet and revolutionary Hristo Botev, and the Montenegrin national poet and clerical and secular ruler Petar II Petrovi\u0107-Njego\u0161. To offer a comparative contrast, individual studies deal with some of the most prominent figures of \u201cmajor literatures\u201d that were crucial for the dissemination of models of commemorative cults throughout Europe (William Shakespeare, Friedrich Schiller, etc.), and several cases of other artists that were the subject of veneration in the context of cultural nationalism. Special attention is given to the canonization of the Slovenian poet France Pre\u0161eren, which represents a complex case even in the broader European context.<\/p>\n

KEYWORDS<\/h3>\n

national poets, cultural saints, literature, nation-building, cultural nationalism, commemorative cults, literary canon, canonization, cultural memory, memorials, Europe<\/p>\n

SCHOLARLY BACKGROUND<\/h3>\n

The project \u201cNational Poets and Cultural Saints of Europe\u201d uses comparative approaches to strengthen and synthesize the existing partial studies of the patterns of commemoration and canonization of national poets and other artists throughout Europe. The project addresses various cultural figures that were objects of veneration (usually posthumously) in the context of nineteenth-century national movements; in the process of canonization, these figures became representatives of their respective national cultures and can in many respects thus be included within the concept of \u201ccultural saints.\u201d Due to the prevalent fetishism of linguistic practices in the matrix of cultural nationalism, the most prominent figures were \u201cmen of letters,\u201d especially poets, but often also composers, painters, and even linguists. Particularly marked was the canonization of \u201cnational poets\u201d (from J\u00f3nas Hallgr\u00edmsson and Robert Burns to Hristo Botev and Dionysios Solomos, and from Lu\u00eds de Cam\u00f5es and Miguel de Cervantes to Adam Mickiewicz and Alexander Pushkin). Although these figures lived in different periods, they all became objects of commemorative cults in the second half of the nineteenth century, and in all cases the process of their canonization continues to the present day.<\/p>\n

In national scholarly traditions, these figures are thoroughly researched in terms of biography, \u0153uvre, influence, etc.; the corresponding corpus of studies is often excessively large (consider Shakespeare studies, Pre\u0161eren studies, M\u00e1cha studies, Pushkin studies, etc.). While these rigorous scholarly traditions are themselves important elements of the process of canonization, this process itself is poorly researched even in the case of hypercanonical figures of international stature; usually, the data is accessible in national languages only. Nonetheless, the material that is available makes it possible to develop the necessary methodological and analytical tools, including a model of canonization. This model strives to improve the prevailing text-oriented views of the canon and to enrich them with findings and approaches of anthropology and cultural studies as well as with contemporary re-conceptualizations of textuality itself. This expansion highlights areas that have often been neglected: ritual practices, the use of relics, memorial sites, the school apparatus, the political aspects of the canon, etc.<\/p>\n

RESEARCH PROBLEMS<\/h3>\n
    \n
  1. National poets and cultural saints \u2013 theoretical foundation:<\/em>\n
      \n
    1. a definition of \u201cnational poets\u201d and \u201ccultural saints\u201d;<\/li>\n
    2. a delimitation of religious and (secular) cultural aspects of canonization;<\/li>\n
    3. an assessment of the role of cultural saints in the (re)production of cultural memory in the context of the \u201cimagining\u201d of European nations, with special emphasis on the differences between ethnic groups with and without a nation-state (verification of the hypothesis about the specific importance of cultural saints for ethnic groups without a nation-state).<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/li>\n
    4. Canon and canonization \u2013 theoretical foundation:<\/em>\n
        \n
      1. a systematization of the concept of \u201ccanonization\u201d in a broad cultural context;<\/li>\n
      2. an examination of individual elements of the canonization model;<\/li>\n
      3. a verification of hypotheses concerning the special importance of certain aspects of canonization (memorial sites, school apparatus, intertextuality, ideological appropriation).<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/li>\n
      4. Canonization of national poets and other cultural saints \u2013 a comparative perspective:<\/em>\n
          \n
        1. identification and description of the structural patterns of canonization (based on empirical material from 1840 onwards);<\/li>\n
        2. a typology of different models of canonization;<\/li>\n
        3. analyses of liminal and hybrid cases.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/li>\n
        4. The canonization of France Pre\u0161eren in the Slovenian and European contexts \u2013 a case study:<\/em>\n
            \n
          1. an investigation into the relations between Pre\u0161eren and his \u201crivals\u201d (Vodnik, Koseski) as well as \u201cantitheses\u201d (Vraz), and between the (cultural) canonization of Pre\u0161eren and the (religious) canonization of Slom\u0161ek;<\/li>\n
          2. a reappraisal of the prevailing scholarly and journalistic theses on Pre\u0161eren (such as those about the \u201cPre\u0161eren structure\u201d and the \u201cSlovenian cultural syndrome\u201d);<\/li>\n
          3. a contextualization of Pre\u0161eren in relation to other national poets (particularly those of so-called small nations).<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

            OBJECTIVES, METHODS, AND EXPECTED RESULTS<\/h3>\n

            The principal objectives of the project are:<\/p>\n