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| Anna Jagiellon, Queen of Bohemia & Hungary (d. 1547) Hans Maler zu Schwaz |
We are gradually approaching the half-way mark of the 5 year
Jagiellonians Project which I run, funded by the European Research Council. One
of the (many pleasurable) challenges of directing a project such as this is
managing its communications – striking a balance between saying too little, and
saying too much. On the one hand, part of the purpose of this project is to
raise the profile of the Jagiellonians as an international dynasty among
historians and audiences outside Central Europe. Making full use of a project
webpage, Twitter, mailing lists, quarterly newsletters and conferences in the
UK and beyond is therefore an important part of our activities. At times, I
have felt like a P.R. agency or professional evangelist for the Jagiellonians,
even as (paradoxically) my own scholarly and personal relationship with them
has become more nuanced, and perhaps more ambiguous.
On the other hand, this is also a
fast-moving, collaborative research project – academics often work on a topic
for some time before feeling ready to air their findings. There is a time lag (sometimes
of years) between a project (or project website) launching and polished
historical research hitting journals or bookshelves. All the Jagiellonian
Project’s communications have to come with the tacit tag-line: ‘work in progress’,
or ‘historians still at work’. Another reason for not saying too much is
because this is not a solo project, but a highly collaborative one involving a
team of six researchers. When writing books on my own in the past, I have been
relatively relaxed about recounting the ups and downs of research online.
However, it is not necessarily appropriate to give a blow-by-blow account of
the internal workings, and private discussions, of a large team of scholars as we work together on a collectively authored publication.
As it turns out, a major focus of
the project’s research has been communication itself – how ideas about a Jagiellonian
dynasty were articulated by humanist scholars (those masters of rhetoric and
persuasion) in splendid orations delivered at diplomatic summits, royal
weddings, coronations, and funerals in 16C Central Europe. When I look at our website, so well run by our
project Administrator Briony Truscott, with its family lists, (forthcoming)
maps, timelines and royal portraits, I wonder how far we have inadvertently
slipped into the shoes of those humanist diplomats, courtiers and poets, taking
on ourselves, five centuries on, the task of presenting the Jagiellonians to a
wider world.
