Jagiellonians: Dynasty, Memory and Identity in Central Europe
Jagiellonians: Dynasty, Memory and Identity in Central Europe is a major new Oxford research project funded by a European Research Council Starting Grant (2013-18). The Jagiellonians were one of the leading royal dynasties in Renaissance Europe, ruling lands which constitute 14 present-day states. Originating in the medieval Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the Jagiellonians became kings of Poland, Bohemia and Hungary, while Jagiellonian brides became significant figures in the courts of Sweden, Austria and beyond. The dynasty was highly cosmopolitan and international, but has so far been studied overwhelmingly in its local contexts.
The project will, firstly, provide the first study of the Jagiellonians as an international political phenomenon, from the fourteenth century to 1596. It will investigate new, multi-disciplinary ways of writing dynastic history; asking what dynasty was and what it was for. Finally, it will explore the on-going role played by the Jagiellonians in the evolution of national and regional identities in Central Europe, from the late Middle Ages to the present day.
The project aims to offer a meta-history of the Jagiellonians, exploring the meanings attributed to the dynasty over the centuries – by the Jagiellonians themselves, their subjects, successors and subsequent generations.
Click here for the project website.
Contact:
Dr. Natalia Nowakowska
natalia.nowakowska@some.ox.ac.uk
Dynasty and Dynasticism 1400-1700 (March 2016)
We held a conference which aimed to ask afresh what royal dynasty was in the late medieval and early modern periods: what beliefs underpinned it, whence its power and mystique derived, and who or what ruling dynasties believed themselves to be. It seeks to put dynasty under the spotlight, as a category of analysis in its own right, and as a major organising political principle in the pre-modern world.
Renaissance Royal Weddings & Cultural Production (April 2018)
A 3 day conference was held to reconsider cultural output for/about royal weddings which took place between c.1400 and c.1600, as an important source for contemporary thought about monarchy and ruling families/dynasties.
The Polish-Italian Royal Wedding of 1518: Dynasty, Memory & Language
A lecture was held to accompany the Bodleian Library exhibition A Renaissance Royal Wedding, marking the 500th anniversary of the wedding of Bona Sforza and King Sigismund I of Poland.
Remembering the Jagiellonians: A Book at Lunchtime (October 2018)
Remembering the Jagiellonians is the first study of international memories of the Jagiellonians (1386–1596), one of the most powerful but lesser known royal dynasties of Renaissance Europe. It explores how the Jagiellon family has been remembered across Central, Eastern and Northern Europe since the early modern period. The book considers their ongoing role in modern-day culture and politics and their impact on the development of competing modern national identities
Professor Natalia Nowakowska, the editor was joined by an expert panel.
