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33.2 - Elite Formation

Special Issue
Mixed Issue
HSR Vol. 33 (2008) No. 2: Special Issue: Elite Formation

Victor Karady (Hrsg.): Elite Formation in the Other Europe (19th-20th Century)

Recent research in various European countries has completely reshaped and renewed our views of the conditions and the scope of trends of social mobility towards elite positions and the reproduction of social elites observable in the period following the collapse of feudal regimes in Europe.

This special issue offers a selection of the papers presented at the international conference on “Elite Formation, Modernization and Nation Building” (May 2007 in Budapest). The conference was a first successful attempt to organize a network for the promotion of empirical socio-historical re­search on modern and modernizing elites in a number developing societies, especially belonging to the Other Europe. Scholars from both parts of Europe, the West and the East (in the broad sense of both designations) discussed problem areas, methodological schemes and research results in concrete terms related to post feudal elites, their social, ethnic, denominational and regional recruitment, education, power position, internal professional set-up as well as political-ideological orientation and stra­tegies in a possibly comparative perspective. The main to­pical focus of the conference rested on small nation states of East-Central and Northern Europe, with the involvement of experts of Western countries as well.

The 16 contributions of this special issue “Elite Formation in the Other Europe (19th-20th Century)” deal with four main themes: “Ruling Elites from Feudalism to the Modern State”; “Student Populations and the Changing Function of Universities”; “The Transformation of Intellectual Professions” and “Comparative Perspectives”.