Empty Signs, Historical Imaginaries : : The Entangled Nationalization of Names and Naming in a Late Habsburg Borderland / / Ágoston Berecz.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Berghahn Books Complete eBook-Package 2020
• VerfasserIn: Berecz, Ágoston,
• Place / Publishing House: New York; , Oxford : : Berghahn Books, , [2020]; ©2020
• Year of Publication: 2020
• Language: English
• Series: Austrian and Habsburg Studies ; 27
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (350 p.)

Set in a multiethnic region of the nineteenth-century Habsburg Empire, this thoroughly interdisciplinary study maps out how the competing Romanian, Hungarian and German nationalization projects dealt with proper names. With particular attention to their function as symbols of national histories, Berecz makes a case for names as ideal guides for understanding historical imaginaries and how they operate socially. In tracing the changing fortunes of nationalization movements and the ways in which their efforts were received by mass constituencies, he provides an innovative and compelling account of the historical utilization, manipulation, and contestation of names.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- List of Illustrations -- Acknowledgements -- Notes on Text -- Introduction -- Part I. Peasants -- 1. Under Ancestral Masks -- 2. Family Names on the Ground -- 3. Place Names and Etymologies from Below -- Part II. Nationalisms -- 4. Faces of the Self-Other -- 5. Dimensions of Family-Name Magyarization -- 6. Signposts over the Land -- Part III. The State -- 7. Floreas into Virágs -- 8. The Most Correct Ways to Spell One’s Name -- 9. The Grand Toponymic Manoeuvre -- Conclusions -- Appendix A. Tables -- Appendix B. Place-Name Index -- Bibliography -- Index