Premiere in Vienna: the First HistGeo Lecture
The first HistGeo Lecture took place on 27 March 2019 in the Redemptoristenkolleg Maria am Gestade in Vienna. It was entitled “Orthodoxes Wien: Ein digitales Geoportal der Geschichte der Wiener SerbInnen (1741–1918)”. Doz. Mag. Dr. Mihailo Popović (Austrian Academy of Sciences), Zlatan Stojadinović, BA (University of Vienna) and Dr. Rainer Simon (Austrian Institute of Technology) presented the state of research within the project “A Digital Geoportal of the History of the Serbs in Vienna (1741-1918)” to a numerous audience. This project is funded by the Magistratsabteilung (MA) 7 – Kultur, Wissenschafts- und Forschungsförderung der Stadt Wien für 2017 until the end of June 2019. This research project focuses on one of the aspects of the history and presence of Orthodox Christians, and in particular of the Orthodox Serbs, in Vienna. Quite often the opinion emerges in the contemporary public discourse that the Orthodox Christians have come to Austria for the first time in the wake of the so-called “Gastarbeiterbewegung” of the 1960s and 1970s. However, their history and presence in Austria dates well back to the 17th century.
At the beginning of the HistGeo-Lecture Mihailo Popović introduced the audience to the project’s starting point and research questions as well as to its aims. After that Zlatan Stojadinović presented evidence on several Viennese Serbs and their families from the 18th and 19th centuries, followed by Rainer Simon who showed the Geoportal and its functionalities. Following the presentation of the tripartite paper, the audience had the opportunity to ask questions and to make remarks. If you are interested in detail on this project, please cf. https://orthodoxes-wien.oeaw.ac.at/index.php?site=home
The HistGeo Lecture Series was founded by Mihailo Popović together with Veronika Polloczek, Bernhard Koschicek and Vratislav Zervan in January 2019 in order to communicate scholarly results of the Long Term Project “Tabula Imperii Byzantini (TIB)” of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and related projects [e.g. the “Digital Tabula Imperii Byzantini (Dig-TIB)”] to national and international scholars, students as well as the interested public in Vienna and Austria.