Empty Signs, Historical Imaginaries

Download or read book Empty Signs, Historical Imaginaries written by Ágoston Berecz and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2020-03-20 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Set in a multiethnic region of the nineteenth-century Habsburg Empire, this thoroughly interdisciplinary study maps out how the competing Romanian, Hungarian and German nationalization projects dealt with proper names. With particular attention to their function as symbols of national histories, Berecz makes a case for names as ideal guides for understanding historical imaginaries and how they operate socially. In tracing the changing fortunes of nationalization movements and the ways in which their efforts were received by mass constituencies, he provides an innovative and compelling account of the historical utilization, manipulation, and contestation of names.