Projects / Programmes
Images of Economic and Social Modernisation in Slovenia in the 19th and 20th Centuries
January 1, 2004
- December 31, 2008
| Code |
Science |
Field |
Subfield |
| 6.01.00 |
Humanities |
Historiography |
|
| Code |
Science |
Field |
| H270 |
Humanities |
Social and economic history |
industrialisation, agriculture, urbanisation, structural changes, finance, banks and banking, insurance business, economic and social policy, way of life, tourism, trade, social security, advertising, crime
Researchers (13)
Organisations (1)
Abstract
The 19th and 20th centuries were an extremely important period from the point of view of the social and economic changes that occurred in Slovenia. This was a period of gradual modernisation of Slovene society and the Slovene economy, a period characterised by the momentous transition from an agrarian society to an industrial society with all the accompanying consequences on the social and economic structure. In this period not only did Slovenes embark on the road of cultural and political emancipation, they also began, with a slight delay, the process of economic emancipation. The research programme therefore looks at the long-term processes of transformation of Slovene society and the Slovene economy. The research spans a long period of two centuries, within which individual periods differ considerably from one another in terms of the concept of social order, the dynamics and depth of developmental tendencies, and the integration into a wider area. The desire to avoid creating the impression that economic and social phenomena in the Slovene lands were in any way exceptional requires researchers to place research problems, for the purposes of comparison, within the specific time, place and social environment of the Habsburg monarchy and Yugoslavia in its monarchist and socialist versions.
Significance for science
The programme group has placed the research of long term structural economic and social transformations in Slovenia into the European frame of reference. If we want to include the Slovenian economic and social experiences into the wider geographical area of Central Europe or Europe as a whole, then it is necessary to carry out a comparison of the Slovenian situation with its closer as well as broader environment in order to complete an integral analysis. Such an approach ensures a realistic comparison and evaluation of Slovenian economic and social development. At the same time, Slovenian distinctiveness and characteristics in the closer and broader economic, social and political environment are emphasized each time. It is also not possible to neglect the fact that simultaneously we also see the incorporation of Slovenia into the European economic and social historical dimensions, into the processes and forces, which were not only a Slovenian peculiarity, but were characteristic of the environments where Slovenians used to live in the past. At the same time the programme group has used various methodological approaches and upgrade the usual historiographic methodology with interdisciplinarity. The programme group pave the way for a specific area of economic and social history within Slovenian historiography, ensuring its recognition in the broader European scientific environment. The group keeps developing its own methodological approaches, delving into its own research subjects, thus acquiring more and more of its own identity within historiography as well as in the context of humanities and social sciences. The programme group is the only one in Slovenia whic is dealing comprehensively with economic and social history.
Significance for the country
The program was at the conceptual and substantive level based on the principles of the the questions of national identity, its distinctiveness and familiarisation with contemporary history. At the same time it actively strengthens the Slovenian identity in the European and wider international arena. The research program has a direct impact on the field of preserving the national cultural heritage and presenting it in a comprehensive manner. Historical dimensions of the economical and social aspects of the modernization of the Slovenian territory introduce additional elements into the conceptualisation of the cultural and historical memory as it exists now. The work involves a distinctive and analytic interaction between economy and society in a long period of time, covering a century and a half, presented at the synthetic level. The program with the knowledge synthesised keeps further expanding the area of discussion within contemporary Slovenian historiography in the field of economic and social history. The acquisition of new realisations about the interaction between society and economy in a broad context in the empirical as well as interpretative framework allows for the communication of the Slovenian scientific sphere with foreign expert circles, ensuring empirical and interpretative foundations for other humanities and social science disciplines in Slovenia. By exchanging knowledge and experience in the broader international space, integration into the contemporary historiographic developments will be furthered, while the upgrading of our own realisations with the corpus of the information from the European and world context will be stimulated. On the basis of communication with the international environment and the foreign academic communities, Slovenian economic and social history is becoming distinctive and integrated into the broader European and world comparative historical overviews. In this way we make it possible for the foreign public to use our past as one of the elements for the legitimisation of their present attitude to us. With the pedagogic activities and by preparing the textbooks and other study materials, the group also ensures the transfer of knowledge from the scientific to the educational sphere. Other dissemination procedures enable the understanding of the co dependent relationship between society and economy in the historical perspective. We should also underline the strengthening or encouragement of the social sensitivity for the importance of technical or technological heritage as an integral part of the national cultural heritage and thus also an element of the national self awareness.
Most important scientific results
Final report,
complete report on dLib.si
Most important socioeconomically and culturally relevant results
Final report,
complete report on dLib.si
