Courses

For several millennia, the Danube irrigated Central European empires. It formed a river basin that offers historians an exceptional laboratory for the study– over a longue durée–of trans-imperial, multi-confessional and multicultural societies. The Danube and its tributaries were both an obstacle and a resource. They guided human societies in the definition of territorial boundaries. Cities, bridges and roads were also scattered along them, crossed them, connected them. The Danube river basin shaped the dynamic Anthropocene in which the East Central European societies developed. From the Alps to the Black Sea: the Danube, the Sava, the Drina, the Mura and many other rivers inspired identity narratives, artistic and literary productions, but they also were the theater of intense military conflicts. This seminar is an introduction to the history of East Central Europe from prehistory to WWI. It presents some of the disciplines that a river history can address, and it offers a dialogue between history and anthropology. This is a history of empires from the ground, and from the flows that challenge some of our cultural and political narratives.