In 2008 the Georg Eckert Institute began work on this new internet project, which was funded in its pilot phase by the federal state of Lower Saxony. The multilingual edition EurViews aims to collect concepts of Europe and Europeanness conveyed in history textbooks from all over the world of the 20th and 21st centuries, to critically edit them, and to render them accessible to an international public. EurViews employs a historical and systematic approach and seeks to unveil the plurality and changeability of concepts of Europe, sensitising its readers to the variability of and rivalry between different memory cultures.

An international team of authors is compiling a comprehensive edition of texts, maps and illustrations that will be accessible in three languages: alongside the original language, in German and English translation. Historical and contemporary textbook sources from all European and many non-European countries are being incorporated, furnished with commentaries and contextualised. The result is an edition with a modular structure that can be extended when and as required, and which provides a wealth of different research landscapes with a unique stock of source material that has been difficult to access up until now. Above all, the edition thus allows for diachronic and synchronic comparative analyses on shifts in state-defined representations of Europe in the 20th and 21st centuries, whilst at the same time raising questions concerning transnational trends and boundary-breaking transfer processes.

In the pilot phase, the modules for three European countries were compiled: for Germany, France and Poland. Thanks to the steadily growing circle of authors and partners we have now begun analysing sources from further countries, and are developing a model with which to extend the edition. The project is closely linked to existing research, such as the project, ‘Competition and Convergence: Images of Europe in German and French Textbooks from 1900 to the Present Day’, funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG). We are also currently conducting a study on European Icons: Images of Europe in European Textbooks of the 20th Century in cooperation with the TU Braunschweig. Here, we are investigating aspects of a European canon of images in textbooks. As independent fundamental research this project successfully complements the EurViews edition.

The Georg Eckert Institute has in many respects discovered new research ground with the EurViews project. The results of the pilot study (sources, commentaries and contextualising essays) will be made available to the public in 2011. The Georg Eckert Institute thus seeks to emphasise the application-based orientation of its research as well as its unique position as an academic centre in the network of scholars researching textbooks and other educational media. Such a comprehensive and ambitious project would not be possible without our internationally far-reaching, long-standing and stable cooperative partnerships. 

The following phases of the project will equally require contributions from other scholars as well as suggestions as to how we can optimise our steadily growing internet edition. Should you be interested in working with us or if you would like to write a commentary on a module currently available, please contact a member of the pilot project. 

 

Project Head: Prof. Dr. Simone Lässig
Project Coordinator (pilot study): Dr. Kerstin Schwedes
Associated Fellow: Daniel Stange, M.A.

Pilot study: 1 April 2008 – 30 June 2010
Project funding: Federal State of Lower Saxony