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The volume aims to explore the elites in East-Central and South-Eastern Europe during the long nineteenth century from the perspective of their gregarious tendencies (i.e., groupness), to assess the role of the latter in the elite’s decisions and agenda, and to observe the transformations brought in this regard by the changing social and political landscape.
While the gregarious tendencies of the members of the elite were rooted in their shared perspectives, in their mutual interests or in the communion of cultural patterns, it is clear that during the process of group formation, kinship ties played an unassailable part, although they were likely never a causal factor.
The volume covers the research on elites from the early 18th century to the interwar period, focussing on the Banat, Bessarabia, Bohemia, Bulgaria, Dalmatia, Hungary, Rumania, Serbia, Slovenia, as well as looking into Austria in total.
Through a series of life stories, which the author reconstructs with the aid of many new sources, readers discover how certain men and women defined and adapted their loyalties and affiliations, how they fashioned their identities, how they enrolled their linguistic, political, economic, and social resources to build a family and a career. Travelling between Istanbul, Vienna, Trieste, Moscow, Bucharest, or Iaşi, individuals of different backgrounds built their networks across borders, linking people and objects and facilitating cultural transfer and material and social change.