From Bohemia to the Adriatic Sea and Back: The Topography of Central-European Patrimony between Imperial Paradigm and National Contingencies (1900-1940)

Research Area 1. Displacements, “Dépaysements” and Discrepancies: People, Knowledge and Practices
Research Area 3. Objects, Traces, Mapping: Everyday Experince of Spaces

In this project, Daniel Baric’s research aims to analyze the cultural transfers and interculturality in Central Europe, within the Habsburg Empire in particular. To reflect upon the elaboration of patrimony policies and their endorsement by local actors, he takes into account a wider context: the relationship of central imperial power with its Oriental circumferences as one of the major dimensions of the research, which is even more significant for the Austrian Empire.

There is a double aspect of Daniel Baric’s ongoing research, which can be observed and is located among its geographical and historical boundaries. On the one hand, it is Danubian, there is a focus point on imperial Viennese institutions as they are considered to be instrumental in the genesis of modern patrimony policies. On the other hand, there is a specific study revolving around the most peripheral provinces of Austria-Hungarian, Bosnia-Herzegovina and the Adriatic coast under Austria-Hungarian administration (1878–1918).

The research mainly focuses on the tremendous consequences due to the evanescence of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the domains of patrimony development policy and cataloguing process. The archaeologists at that time found new ways of protecting patrimony through the creation of new museums and university chairs, which were made possible by overcoming imperial structures that had collapsed in 1918. Austrian historians, particularly art historians, elaborated a descriptive discourse of patrimony, which aimed to generate a sense of imperial affiliation. Among them, the most influential ones came from Bohemia and Moravia: Rudolf von Eitelberger (1817-1885), Wilhelm Kubitschek (1858-1936) and Max Dvořák (1874-1921).

If the role of the Viennese representatives is now known, that of the regional conservators is, in contradiction, much less the case. 

Carl Patsch (1865-1945) and Anton Gnirs (1873-1933) have so far not been the subject of case studies which would replace them in their path, both imperial until 1918 and national in the inter-two-wars. Their exemplary profile makes it possible to highlight the transfers of knowledge between the centre of the Monarchy and its southern and eastern peripheries: both were scholars born in German-speaking families in northern Bohemia and trained in Prague as students of Charles University. They were sent to the Slavonic speaking provinces in the South of Austria-Hungary and both finished their research once they went back to Bohemia and Austria. Patsch pursued his career from Prague to Sarajevo where he was in charge of patrimony for more than two decades; Gnirs joined from Prague to the port of Pula in Istria, where he was in charge of the same missions at the exact same time.

By taking into account the social environments in which Patsch and Gnirs developed themselves before and after the war, a comparative analysis, of their biographical paths and their scientific production in its relation to the center and to the periphery, should make it possible to shed some light on the new social role devolved to the archeology during the first part of the 20th century. It was at the time, when seaside and cultural tourism became a massive phenomenon, both in the Austro-Hungarian period and in Czechoslovakia in the 1920s, and where a written production on the monuments was intended for different audiences.

In other words, the mainstream archaeological researches were modified due to political changes and their own departure from their first fields of excavation. De facto, studies on romanization and imperial Latinity that were so strongly developed in the Austria-Hungarian period were no more dominant. A new interest emerged for all medieval and national things, giving way to a new paradigm in archaeology.

Areas of research: the intercultural history of the Danubian space, German-Slavic cultural transfers, Austro-Hungarian history, ancient memories, history of museums.

CV

Education

• 2007-2010: Studying at ELCOA (École des Langues et Civilisations de l’Orient Ancien) of Catholic Institute in Paris, specialization in Egyptien hieroglyphics
• 2004: PhD in History, EPHE (École pratique des Hautes Études-Paris, Section des sciences historiques et philologiques)
  Title of the thesis: “La langue allemande en Croatie (1815-1848) : étude interculturelle”
• 1996: Bachelors’s degree in Slavic Studies [Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serb] at Paris IV
• 1996: Diploma in Hungarian at INALCO
• 1993-1998: Studying at École normale supérieure (Ulm)

Affiliations

• Since 2018: Senior Lecturer, Sorbonne Université, UFR Slavonic Studies, Department of BCMS (Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serb)
• 2005-2018: Senior Lecturer, University of Tours, Institute of Germanic Studies 
• 2008-September 2010: Lecturer at EPHE (Paris), chair “L’Europe et le monde germanique (époque moderne et contemporaine)”, Jacques Le Rider. Title of the conferences: “Les provinces orientales de l’empire des Habsbourg, XVIII^e siècle-1918 : histoire et identités”

Selected Publications

• Langue allemande, identité croate. Au fondement d’un particularisme culturel, Paris, Armand Colin, 2013, 403 p.
• Proziran i prezren. Njemački jezik u hrvatskom društvu u prvoj polovici 19. stoljeća, Zagreb, Leykam (coll. « Germano-croatica »), 2015, 383 p. [Adaptation/traduction du titre précédent]

Edited Volumes

• Identités juives en Europe centrale, des Lumières à l’entre-deux-guerres, avec Tristan Coignard et Gaëlle Vassogne, Tours, Presses universitaires François-Rabelais, 2014, 276 p.
• Archéologies méditerranéennes, Revue germanique internationale, 2012, 220 p.
• Mémoire et histoire en Europe centrale et orientale, avec Jacques Le Rider et Drago Roksandić, Rennes, Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2010, 358 p.

Peer-reviewed articles

• “Vepar i Zlatno Runo: odjeci viteštva Nikole Zrinskog u suvremenim pohvalnicama na francuskom jeziku”, Dometi, 2017, p. 67-79
• “‘De la tranchée où l’on fouille à celle où l’on se bat’ : Français et Autrichiens sur le front de la science entre Balkans et Dardanelles”, in Bulletin de l’Institut Pierre Renouvin, “L’Archéologie à l’aune des relations internationales”, Gabrielle Abbe et Mathieu Jestin (dir.), n° 46/automne 2017, p. 61-76
• “La dualité nationale et universitaire des bibliothèques de Strasbourg et Zagreb : une histoire parallèle entre empires, nations et régions”, in Histoire et civilisation du livre : revue internationale, XII, 2017, p. 439-456
• “L’archéologie austro-allemande en Méditerranée orientale, enjeux et interactions”, in Revue germanique internationale, 2012 (16), p. 5-11
• “Archéologie classique et politique scientifique en Bosnie-Herzégovine habsbourgeoise : Carl Patsch à Sarajevo (1891-1918)”, in Revue germanique internationale, 2012 (16), p. 73-89