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An assessment of the role of the Middle Ages in national historiography and in modern conceptions of national identity, looking at relatively young nations, and regions which claim national traditions but were slow to achieve, or regain, separate statehood. Examples range from Ireland and Iceland through Austria and Italy to Finland and Greece.

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List of Contributors Introduction; G.Marchal PART I: CELTS AND SCANDINAVIA Transmission and Translation of Medieval Irish Sources in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries; B.Cunningham The ´Decline of Norway´: Grief and Fascination in Norwegian Historiography on the Middle Ages; J.E.Myhre ´Braves Step out of the Night of the Barrows´: Regenerating the Heritage of Early Medieval Finland; D.Fewster Interpreting the Nordic Past: Icelandic Medieval Manuscripts and the Construction of a Modern Nation; G.Hálfdanarson PART II: BENELUX A Serious Case of Amnesia: The Dutch and their Middle Ages; P.Raedts Medieval Myths and the Building of National Identity: the Example of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg; M.Margue & P.Péporté An Era of Grandeur: The Middle Ages in Belgian National Historiography, 1830-1914; J.Tollebeek PART III: BALKANS To Whom Does Byzantium Belong? Greeks, Turks and the Present of the Medieval Balkans; J.Niehoff-Panagiotidis The Image of the Kosovo Battle (1389) Today: A Historic Event, a Moral Pattern, or the Tool of Political Manipulation; M.Suica PART IV: CENTRAL EUROPE Italy´s Various Middle Ages; M.Moretti & I.Porciani Medievalism and Swiss National Identity; G.Marchal The Public Instrumentalization of the Middle Ages in Austria since 1945; H.Wolfram ´Old Czechs were Hefty Heroes´: The Construction and Reconstruction of Czech National History in its Relationship to the ´Great´ Medieval Past; F.Smahel Conclusion; R.J.W.Evans Bibliography Index

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BERNADETTE CUNNINGHAM Deputy Librarian, the Royal Irish Academy, Dublin, Republic of Ireland DEREK FEWSTER Researcher in the Department of History, the University of Helsinki, Finland GU?MUNDUR HµLFDANARSON Professor of History, the University of Iceland MICHEL MARGUE Professor of History at the University of Luxembourg MAURO MORETTI Professor in the Department of Human Sciences, Siena Foreign University, Italy JAN EIVIND MYHRE Professor of Modern History, the University of Oslo, Norway JOHANNES NIEHOFF-PANAGIOTIDIS Professor of Byzantine Studies, the Free University Berlin, Germany PIT PÉPORTÉ Researcher in the Department of History, the University of Luxembourg ILARIA PORCIANI Professor of Contemporary History, the University of Bologna, Italy PETER RAEDTS Professor of Medieval History, Radboud University Nijmegen, the Netherlands FRANTI EK MAHEL Vice-director, the Centre for Medieval Studies, Czech Academy of Sciences, the Czech Republic MARKO UICA Lecturer in the Department of History, the University of Belgrade, Serbia JO TOLLEBEEK Professor of Cultural History, the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium HERWIG WOLFRAM Emeritus Professor of Medieval History, University of Vienna, Austria

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