Early Music in Central Europe: Collaborated Research, Migrating Sources, Transregional Connections
A Strategic Grant supported by the Visegrád Fund, period: 1. 11. 2023–31. 10. 2026
The project is co-financed by the Governments of Czechia, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia through Visegrad Grants from International Visegrad Fund. The mission of the fund is to advance ideas for sustainable regional cooperation in Central Europe.
Topic and Objectives
Historical narratives on medieval music culture usually depict Central Europe as a marginal region with delayed reception of the newest repertories and with retarded development. This viewpoint is based on insufficient presentation of music sources, their description and interpretation, as well as a misunderstanding of the specific cultural profile of the region. The view also does not correlate with narratives around music ‘centres’, defined primarily based on the knowledge of sources from the European West and South in the post-Second World War period when the study of church culture and music was marginalized or even forbidden by Communist regimes. New or renewed research on medieval liturgical music in all V4 countries in the last three decades is confronted by new methodologies and approaches, to which each country has responded in a different way, developing different strengths - repertory inventories and fragment studies in Hungary, palaeography in Slovakia, questions of transmission and hymnology in Czechia, and monastic studies in Poland. This project follows two goals:
- to build a larger research community with an active knowledge and methodology exchange,
- to develop common projects and publications that will secure firmer standing in future narratives on history and culture in Central Europe.
The project connects four top teams, each of them excelling in a different research area (liturgy, palaeography, monastic studies, hymnology). Four workshops, one held in each of the V4 countries, provide opportunities for knowledge and methodology exchange. An online lecture series enables us to present our most important results to the broad international community.
Team
TEAM PRAGUE
Masaryk Institiute and Archives, Czech Academy of Sciences
Hana Vlhová-Wörner
Rhianydd Hallas
TEAM BRATISLAVA
Institute of Musicology of the Slovak Academy of Sciences
Eva Veselovská
Veronika Garajová
TEAM BUDAPEST
Institute for Musicology, Research Centre for the Humanities
https://zti.hu/index.php/en/early-music
Zsuzsa Czagány
Gabriella Gilányi
TEAM WARSAW
Institute of Art of the Polish Academy of Sciences
Irina Chachulska
Dominika Grabiec
Paweł Figurski
Calendar of events
- November 15, 2023
Lecture in the series Early Music in Central Europe
- November 28-29, 2023
Workshop Bratislava: Manuscript indexing, palaeography
Leader: Eva Veselovská
- February 14, 2024
Lecture in the series Early Music in Central Europe
- June 12, 2024
Lecture in the series Early Music in Central Europe
- September 17-18, 2024
Workshop Budapest: Current fragment studies and liturgical studies
Leader: Zsuzsa Czagány
- November 13, 2024
Lecture in the series Early Music in Central Europe
- February 12, 2025
Lecture in the series Early Music in Central Europe
- June 18, 2025
Lecture in the series Early Music in Central Europe
- September 16-17, 2025
Workshop Warsaw: Monastic studies and palaeography
Leader: Irina Chachulska
- November 19, 2025
Lecture in the series Early Music in Central Europe
- February 10-11, 2026
Workshop Prague: Transmission, hymnology, Digital Humanities
Leader: Hana Vlhová-Wörner
- March 11, 2026
Lecture in the series Early Music in Central Europe
- June 18, 2026
Lecture in the series Early Music in Central Europe
- October 14, 2026
Lecture in the series Early Music in Central Europe