Overview
The area that constitutes the Austrian federal province of Burgenland belonged to the Hungarian part of the Habsburg empire until the end of World War I. This book helps us realize that geographical knowledge does not come ready-made. Instead, it is created by knowledge makers: geographers, historians, statisticians etc. This knowledge-making helped to legitimatize the area transferred between Austria and Hungary, shape the Burgenland identity, and depict its geopolitical role in the rise of national socialism. This book is about how those studying Burgenland, the creators of its geographical knowledge, saw and represented the province. It explores how they grasped the geographical characteristics of the region through their own perspective, influenced by their own professional positions, individual careers, motivations, and by the broader historical and social medium. The way the area between the provinces of Lower Austria and Styria came about as Burgenland is enthralling, as is how the people there experienced this change of sovereignty and how everyday social and economic relationships were transformed. Tracing the geographical discourses in the interwar period and beyond, the book argues that Burgenland became a successful geographical project, and departs from thoughts of subdivision, unviability, and backwardness, concentrating instead on fertility, unity, and modernization.
Full Product Details
Author: Ferenc Jankó (Associate Professor, Eötvös Loránd University)
Publisher: Central European University Press
Imprint: Central European University Press
Dimensions:
Width: 15.20cm
, Height: 2.20cm
, Length: 22.90cm
Weight: 0.682kg
ISBN: 9789633866498
ISBN 10: 9633866499
Pages: 382
Publication Date: 31 August 2024
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
Professional & Vocational
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: In Print
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Reviews
""From Borderland to Burgenland is a wonderful achievement. In eight expertly translated chapters, each beautifully illustrated and extensively referenced, Ferenc Jankó takes us on an absorbing journey into the contested historical geographies of a fascinating region. Our companions are a diverse and disputatious cast of teachers and tourists, artists and photographers, scientists and surveyors, and (perhaps most importantly) geographers and historians, all brilliantly analyzed in these elegantly written pages. From their fractious debates about languages and landscapes, societies and economies, and identities and cultures emerged a powerful idea of Burgenland as a 'natural' border region, an exemplification of the complex history and geography of Central Europe in the 20th century."" --Mike Heffernan ""In this work Ferenc Jankó analyses the geographical discovery of the geopolitically extremely interesting federal province, Burgenland, which was incorporated into the Republic of Austria in 1921. The geographical research was carried out not only by geographers, but also by representatives of other disciplines and local historians. The book deals with the practice of geographical research, the respective perspectives and careers of the researchers and how these have also contributed to the formation of Burgenland's identity in times of political changes from the end of the Habsburg Empire to the time of National Socialism."" --Petra Svatek
"""From Borderland to Burgenland is a wonderful achievement. In eight expertly translated chapters, each beautifully illustrated and extensively referenced, Ferenc Jank� takes us on an absorbing journey into the contested historical geographies of a fascinating region. Our companions are a diverse and disputatious cast of teachers and tourists, artists and photographers, scientists and surveyors, and (perhaps most importantly) geographers and historians, all brilliantly analyzed in these elegantly written pages. From their fractious debates about languages and landscapes, societies and economies, and identities and cultures emerged a powerful idea of Burgenland as a 'natural' border region, an exemplification of the complex history and geography of Central Europe in the 20th century."" --Mike Heffernan ""In this work Ferenc Jank� analyses the geographical discovery of the geopolitically extremely interesting federal province, Burgenland, which was incorporated into the Republic of Austria in 1921. The geographical research was carried out not only by geographers, but also by representatives of other disciplines and local historians. The book deals with the practice of geographical research, the respective perspectives and careers of the researchers and how these have also contributed to the formation of Burgenland's identity in times of political changes from the end of the Habsburg Empire to the time of National Socialism."" --Petra Svatek"
Author Information
Ferenc Jankó is associate professor at the Department of Social and Economic Geography, Eötvös Loránd University.
