Specialists from all over Europe will discuss the ideas behind and practices of these cultural associations, and how they influenced each other.

For more information on the subject, see Building cultural nations.

Program

The scheme is designed to offer the possibility for NISE to expand its reach without reducing the operability of the governing bodies as a result of the size of its membership.

Associated Members (AM) are invited to the triennial NISE conferences, have access to the Discussion Platform and can make use of the NISE platform to propose and carry out projects.

The following scholars have already entered the new AM scheme:

• Małgorzata Myśliwiec - Uniwersytet Śląski, Katowice-Poland
• Ostap Sereda - Ivan Krypiakevych Institute of Ukrainian Studies, L’viv-Ukraine
• Pavel Tereshkovitch - European Humanities University, Vilnius-Lithuania

The new series accompanies the work in progress within the NISE platform, reproducing working papers, material for comparative studies and other texts presented at NISE events (conferences, workshops, seminars etc.). They will play an important part in the realisation of the platform’s goals, to arrive at a comprehensive comparative historiography of national movements in Europe.

The first conference was held in 2010, in Skopje, the capital of Macedonia. The gathering was set up as a so-called working conference, with two main topics linked intrinsically to each other: the first subject of data entry into the database and the archival situation for national movements; the link rested with the input strategy for the database.

The publication of the results, with the title Developing the NISE platform. Proceedings of the First NISE Conference. Skopje (Macedonia), 27-28 May 2010, starts with a presentation of the database framework ODIS and then discusses one of the possible choices of subject for entering information: nationalist periodicals of the 19th century, in this case the national historical journals.

To be able to enter data, they obviously have to be available, in one form or another. The situation for the sources and their holding institutes, however differs markedly across Europe, in particular the archival conditions. The mainpart of publication is therefore devoted to scouring the archival landscape for the study of national movements, presenting a selection of archival histories, sometimes interwoven with that of an institute: from Catalonia and the Basque country, from Macedonia and the Sami in Norway, and for the Kurdish people. Not all these texts have been drafted by accomplished archivists. What they however all have in common, is the great pride they show in their archival heritage, reflecting the importance of archives for national memory and underpinning national identity in the process.

They also illustrate what is the case for all heritage and research institutes with national movements as (part of their) field of interest: they are very diverse in legal status, materials, activities and the scope of their subject matter. However, they also have many things in common, confronted with problems that are specifically linked with their subject. Therefore the findings of a Round Table at the end of the conference discussing these matters were inserted into this publication, showing the way to possible structural cooperation.

The publication Developing the NISE platform. Proceedings of the First NISE Conference. Skopje (Macedonia), 27-28 May 2010. (Proceedings 1), is available at the price of 15 euro.

Contents

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Diana Mishkova is head of the Centre for Advanced Study (CAS) in Sofia and professor of history at the Department of Southeast-European History at Sofia University. She has held various scientific positions at universities in Europe and the USA and participated in and/or directed numerous transnational and comparative research projects. Among her major fields of interest are the modern and contemporary history of Southeastern Europe, nationalism, modernization, and comparative (historical) research methodology.

Alan Sked, from the London School of Economics (LSE), felt that his research and intellectual interests did not coincide with the mainpart of the SC.

The research and archival Herder-Institut in Marburg (Germany) was founded in 1950 and is specialized in eastern Central Europe (the Baltics and the Königsberg enclave, Poland and -western-Ukraine). Located in beautiful as well as functional buildings, it holds unique archives and documentation and boasts a huge scientifically valuable output of publications, also on nationalism (for more information, cf. its website (www.herder-institut.de).

The independent and inter-disciplinary European Center for Minority Issues (ECMI) in Flensburg (Germany) was co-founded in 1996 and is co-funded by the governments of Denmark, Germany and Schleswig-Holstein with an Executive Board consisting of representatives also from the OSCE, the Council of Europe and the European Union. Housed in a historic building, it conducts practice and policy-oriented research, provides information and documentation, and offers advisory services concerning minority-majority relations in Europe. It organizes workshops, seminars and conferences and its specialized library provides the hub for the ECMI’s research projects and Internet information program (for more information, see www.ecmi.de).

An Foras Feasa, the Institute for Research in Irish Historical & Cultural Traditions, at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth (near Dublin), supports individual and collaborative research projects in the areas of Humanities and Technology. Among its research priorities figure ICT innovation and the humanities, multiculturalism and multilingualism, the history and cultural politics of migration between Ireland and Europe, and the global context of cultural heritage and social capital (see more at www.forasfeasa.ie).

Finally, the Dansk Centralbibliotek for Sydslesvig in Flensburg (Germany) is the central heritage and research centre for the Danish minority in Germany in particular and the Slesvig/Schleswig area in general (more on its structure and activities in the first issue of a new series in 2012 presenting extensively the NISE network members; in the meantime see www.dcbib.dk).