In the Middle Ages, the Banat and Transylvania were part of the Kingdom of Hungary and, from the middle of the 16th up to the 18th century, fell under the rule of the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman Turks were defeated in the early 18th century and these territories were reintegrated into the Habsburg monarchy. In addition to the original population (Romanians, Hungarians, Serbs), other ethnic groups (such as Roma, Jews, Turks) lived in these territories as well. However, these sparsely populated areas soon began to be colonized.
The issue of the settlement of Romanian territory, more specifically the Banat and the regions of Transylvania from the 18th to the 20th century, still offers many unanswered questions, which have so far been only rarely examined by historians. Areas of today’s territory of Romania were colonized by Germans, Bulgarians, Slovaks, Czechs and Croatians, Armenians and Jews through waves of migration. Ethnic groups came to the territory of Banat and Transylvania for various reasons, lived and worked there in various branches of social, political, economic, spiritual, cultural and artistic life. The new settlers significantly influenced the development of the local settlements as merchants, artists and craftsmen, but also as soldiers. This theme can also be understood as an arc, which connected the modern period with the earliest recorded history and can reveal both the path taken by these ethnic minorities and also their peculiarities, thanks to which they differed from the locals or other colonists.
The Balkan History Association invites specialists to submit their contributions in connection with the following topics: historical causes and consequences of the settlement of the territory of Banat and Transylvania; the course and development of settlements in specific regions of Romania; the economic, cultural, social and political aspects of the life of immigrants in their new homeland; the religion of immigrants and their religious and spiritual life; the formation and maintenance of national awareness of colonizers; the transformation of the landscape and environment in the process of colonization.
Submission procedure
The volume will be published by Peter Lang (in the series “South-East European History”). Original manuscripts should be prepared following the editorial guide of Peter Lang available on its website, especially “Style Guidelines – British English” and “Submission Guidelines“. You can see the chapters of this open access volume to understand how manuscripts should be edited. Manuscripts must not have been published, submitted for publication or available on the internet elsewhere. Interdisciplinary work is particularly welcome. Please submit your proposal, including the title of your manuscript, an abstract (up to 300 words), and an author’s biography (up to 100 words) to all editors. The abstract should include the research question and purpose, the approach and main ideas, and results. No figures, tables, footnotes, or endnotes should be included in the abstract. Articles should not exceed 8,000 words in length including footnotes and references (reference list or bibliography).
Deadlines
March 4, 2024: Submission of the proposals to editors
March 11, 2024: Notification of accepted proposals
June 3, 2024: Receipt of final chapters for peer-review
Editors
Michal Franko (Trnava University), matofranko@gmail.com
Attila Varga (Institute of History “George Bariţiu“, Cluj-Napoca), atyvarga@yahoo.com
Thomas Lorman (UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies), t.lorman@ucl.ac.uk
Please circulate this call for papers among your colleagues and other potentially interested scholars.