In an effort to draw attention to the very wide variety of European historical traditions, the editors of Contemporary European History decided to commission a series of essays that will introduce our readers to the diverse historiographies and historical practices being produced in different European languages and national contexts. While this journal has been particularly active in supporting perspectives from transnational, international and global history, we also recognise that the national frame remains crucial for the production of historical narratives throughout Europe, whether it be through the training of historians, or the funding, peer-reviewing, institutionalisation and reception of historical research.
This initiative emerged out of a discussions amongst the editors over how the journal could best represent European history more broadly. Since the journal's foundation in 1992, our central vision has been to connect the histories of Europe: east to west, north to south, imperial metropole to periphery. We have strived to situate twentieth-century Europe in its vibrant global context, highlighting the ways that local events and actors are embedded in broader transnational and comparative themes. Thus this new series aims to shine a spotlight on the meaning of ‘writing European history’ in different parts of Europe.
We reached out to historians across Europe and asked them to write essays that would help introduce readers to the diversity of debate about twentieth-century Europe. Forthcoming essays include Ukraine, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, France, Portugal, the Netherlands, Albania, Serbia and Hungary. The goal of these essays is not to pitch a definitive account of a national history but rather to engage critically with developments in the field of contemporary European history, as it is produced in different national and linguistic contexts. We gave our authors agency in how to define and shape their pieces, and how best to convey the dynamism and difference in the production of historical knowledge across Europe.
The resulting essays are wide-ranging, posing important questions for us to reflect upon. How did a distinct cultural and social historical turn emerge in 1970s Sweden and what is its legacy? How did the Communist Party's formation of Albanian archives shape subsequent historiographical and methodological approaches? To what extent is the current crackdown on the Central European University part of a broader debate over the politicisation of Hungarian historical thinking? How has the French Resistance been understood through history and in the public sphere? And in the case of our inaugural essay published in the pages that follow: how have Ukrainian historians deliberately reframed the core questions of their history to cultivate a post-Soviet historiography?
