Analitinės istorinės regionistikos paradigmos

LTStudijoje pristatomos ir analizuojamos pastarojo šimtmečio trijų iškiliausių Europos istorinių mezoregionų tyrinėtojų sampratos. Istorinė regionistika integruojama į platesnį transnacionalinių istoriografijos prieigų kontekstą (lyginamoji, globalinė istorija ir kt.). Knyga gali būti laikoma istorinių mezoregionų prieigos metodologiniu įvadu, nes joje aptartos pagrindinės sąvokos, episteminių nuostatų klasifikacija, pristatyti išskirtų paradigmų privalumai ir trūkumai, pateiktos tolesnių tyrimų gairės. Studijoje aptarta lietuviškosios istorinės regionistikos ir apskritai transnacionalinio pobūdžio istorinių tyrimų būklė Lietuvoje. [Iš leidinio]Reikšminiai žodžiai: Istoriniai regionai; Istorinė regionistika; Istoriografiniai kontekstai; Paradigmos; Mezoregionai; Historical regions; Historical regionalism; Historiographic contexts; Paradigms; Mesoregions.

ENThe author of the book was inspired by Gerard Delanty, British historical sociologist, and his new study "Formations of European Modernity: a Historical and Political Sociology of Europe" where he framed a new, holistic, and much more differentiated model of Europe’s historical regions. Holistic models of Europe’s historical regions is a rather rare phenomenon in historiography; moreover, the abundance of innovative ideas presented in the book, suggesting of Delanty’s deep insights into the latest trends in historiography and historically oriented social sciences, led the author of this book to the idea that Delanty’s concept of Europe’s historical regions could be treated as a paradigmatic shift in historical regionalism. This gave birth to the idea of comprehensively comparing this model with the two classic ones - Oskar Halecki’s and Jenö Szücs’. Contemporary Western social sciences and the humanities manifest a clear understanding of limitations and pitfalls of "methodological nationalism". Authors distinguish two waves of criticism of methodological nationalism in social sciences: in the 1970s and at the turn of the 21st century. Scepticism of social scientists with regard to the natiocentric research strategy is primarily associated with the linguistic and cultural turns in the 1960s-1970s which led to the crystallization of "post-modern philosophy" and relativistic epistemology. An equally important factor was the boom of the modernist theories on the origins of nation and nationalism that started in the 1960s. They have cast doubt on the belief that humanity is naturally made up of nations - peculiar political and cultural communities with distinct character, national spirit, unique historical destiny etc. - that have existed since time immemorial.As the myth of the "timeless nation" dissipated, the "historicity" of the "national state" as a political entity and the social nature of the concept of space started emerging. The latter idea is directly connected with the "spatial turn". Its representatives understand that such spatial formations as nations and territories of national states are not the preconceived given (essence) but rather social constructions which may emerge, change with time, be overpowered by others, marginalized, and finally vanish whatsoever. Another major innovation was the realization that several competing spatial structures (e.g. national states, empires, city-states, trans-national organizations, etc.) can co-exist at any given moment, therefore the traditional concept of space as a "container" is reality distorting and preventing from groping the dialectics of flows (capital, human, goods, ideas) as well as attempts to impose their control by means of various forms of territorialization. Historians joined the criticism of "methodological nationalism" with the second wave (i.e. at the turn of the 21st century). In their view, the most flawed attitudes of methodological nationalism are not merely the ingrained relict of "teritorialized" thinking (i.e. the division of space in line with the borders of national states and with the orientation towards the contours of present-day states implanted already in high-school textbooks), but also the internalist attitude in the interpretation of causality, i.e. events and processes that took place in the territory of an imaginary nation purportedly determined subsequent events and processes.Two opposite and contrasting historiographic trends can be distinguished at the end of the 20th century: on the one hand, historians from the western republics of the former Soviet Union and other post-Communist European countries are apt to "re-nationalise" history, whereas researchers of the past from the USA and some of the West European countries (Germany, France) are involved in spirited discussions on how to overcome the limitations of natiocentric historiography. Several trends can be distinguished in the latter debate. The approach of transfer history was framed in the late 1980s, whereas in the early 21st century the perspective of entangled history (fr. histoire croisėe) was proposed. In 1991-1992 Ian Tyreli and David Thelen initiated the debate with regard to "transnational history" in the USA. The Organization of American Historians supported the discussion which subsequently involved historians from certain West European countries (Spain, Germany). Participants of the discussion fiercely criticized not only the natiocentric attitude in historiography, but also the traditional methodology of comparative history. The study of "historical regions" should be viewed as a transnational variety of "comparative history" which is more in line with the concept of transnational history than both - classical "comparative history" (when two or more societies are compared) and "transfer history" (when the interaction of two national cultures is analysed). From the methodological point of view, the historical region research model and the comparative historical method are inseparable as, according to Stefan Troebst, the historical region is a historical-structural spatial category which, based on certain historical characteristics, can be used to single out a certain historical type that can be associated with a part of Europe with specific peculiarities. [...]. [Extract, p. 173-175]