Social networks and local institutions in the imperial Habsburg city of Brasov, 1867-1914

我的研究探索了1867年至1914年间特兰西瓦尼亚城市布拉索夫的社会组织。布拉索夫历史上由讲德语的撒克逊人控制，他们构成了传统的精英阶层，并行使历史特权。匈牙利人和Szekler人在地区一级拥有某些权利，而其他几个特兰西瓦尼亚社区，如罗马尼亚人、罗姆人和犹太人，只是被容忍。然而，在研究期间，政治、文化和人口结构发生了戏剧性的变化，差异化、等级化的地方结构面临多重挑战。该领土并入匈牙利后，撒克逊人的政治特权被废除，取而代之的是布达佩斯的代表性政治和标准化的法律框架。伴随着这种政治变化的是大众传播和移民的爆炸性增长，以及众多民族主义运动的发展--所有这些都给这座城市的人口、治理和经济带来了深刻的结构性变化，并引发了关于该市居民身份和组织的辩论。这项研究考察了布拉索夫在这一时期的社会重构，以更好地了解塑造地区城市发展和身份认同的力量和因素。该项目将对档案数据进行社会网络分析，并绘制出城市中的人们如何构建他们的公民、职业、宗教和私人生活。对于历史学家来说，社会网络分析是一项相对较新的技术，尚未应用于特兰西瓦尼亚的任何一个城镇。由于这种方法能够捕捉到广泛、复杂和重叠的网络，因此特别适合于识别和解释布拉索夫跨越宗教、语言、公民和民族群体的社会结构。地方身份和忠诚度是如何表达和辩论的？这座城市日益多样化的人口和移民在多大程度上融入了更成熟的社区并与之互动？我们看到冲突或合作的证据了吗？布拉索夫组织的变化如何反映了更广泛的国家和跨国变化？20世纪罗马尼亚和匈牙利民族主义史学专注于1918年特兰西瓦尼亚从匈牙利转移到罗马尼亚，强调罗马尼亚和匈牙利人口之间的历史分歧和敌意。因此，学术在很大程度上忽略了特兰西瓦尼亚的其他人口，如撒克逊人、塞克勒人、罗马人、犹太人、希腊人和亚美尼亚人。最近关于哈布斯堡帝国晚期的研究也对民族主义运动的作用和受欢迎程度提出了质疑，特别是在城市背景下。特兰西瓦尼亚位于奥地利-匈牙利民族主义色彩浓厚的匈牙利地区，有着悠久的自治历史，但在这些辩论中基本上被忽视了，尽管它的民族、语言和宗教习俗令人信服。因此，这项研究将有助于正在进行的关于奥匈帝国民族主义和民族冷漠的讨论，并将在跨国框架内考察特兰西瓦尼亚。对于当代城市发展和变化的学者来说，它将提供一个详细、广泛的案例研究，解释在一个人口和经济迅速多样化、增长和变化的城市中社会是如何运作的。总体而言，通过运用网络分析，并借鉴城市社会学和社会史以及民族主义研究中形成的概念框架，该项目将为理解布拉索夫在这一快速而深刻的变化时期的日常社会关系和更正式的自我组织结构做出重大贡献。

My research explores the social organisation of a Transylvanian city, Brasov, between 1867 and 1914. Brasov was historically controlled by German-speaking Saxons, who constituted the traditional elite and exercised historical privileges. Hungarians and Szeklers had certain rights at a regional level, while several other Transylvanian communities such as the Romanians, Roma and Jews were merely tolerated. The period of study, however, was one of dramatic political, cultural and demographic change where the differentiated, hierarchical local structure faced multiple challenges. The territory's incorporation into Hungary resulted in Saxon political privileges being abolished and replaced with Budapest's representational politics and a standardised legal framework. This political change was accompanied by an explosion in mass communication and migration, and the growth of numerous nationalist movements - all of which generated profound structural changes in the city's population, governance and economy and stimulated debate about its inhabitants' identities and organisation. This research examines Brasov's social reconfiguration in this period in order to better understand the forces and factors that shape regional urban development and identities.The project will apply social network analysis to archival data and map how people in the city structured their civic, professional, religious and private lives. Social network analysis is a comparatively new technique for historians and has not yet been applied to any of Transylvania's towns. Owing to this method's ability to capture far-spanning, complex and overlapping networks, it is particularly appropriate for identifying and interpreting Brasov's social structures, which spanned religious, linguistic, civic and national groups.The key research questions are: What was Brasov's social and economic organisation? How were local identities and loyalties expressed and debated? To what extent did the city's increasingly diverse populations and immigrants integrate and interact with more established communities? Do we see evidence for conflict or cooperation? How did Brasov's changing organisation reflect broader national and transnational changes?Twentieth-century Romanian and Hungarian nationalist historiography was fixated on Transylvania's transfer from Hungary to Romania in 1918 and emphasised historic divisions and antagonisms between Romanian and Hungarian populations. Consequently, scholarship largely overlooked Transylvania's other populations such as the Saxons, Szeklers, Roma, Jews, Greeks and Armenians. More recent research on the late Habsburg Empire has also questioned the role and popularity of nationalist movements, particularly in urban contexts. Transylvania, located within the highly nationalistic Hungarian part of Austria-Hungary and with a long history of self-governance, has however been largely ignored in these debates despite its compelling mix of nationalities, languages and religious practices. This research will thus contribute to the ongoing discussions about nationalism and national indifference in Austria-Hungary and will examine Transylvania within a transnational framework.For contemporary scholars of urban development and change, it will provide a detailed, far-ranging case study explaining how society functioned in a city whose population and economy was diversifying, growing and changing rapidly. Overall, by deploying network analysis, and drawing on conceptual frameworks developed in urban sociology and social history, as well as in nationalism studies, this project will make a major contribution to understanding both everyday social relations and more formal structures of self-organization in Brasov in this period of rapid and profound change.