One of the obvious areas of exchange between the Visegrad countries is scientific-cultural cooperation, which will hopefully remain a stable structure above the daily foreign policy battles. Even after decades, the International Visegrad Fund (IVF), which supports cultural and scientific relations, is the most successful joint venture of the Central European countries, encouraging the sharing of experience and, in some cases, the development of a common scientific strategy, in the face of isolation, which often leads to wrong paths in science. In the 21st century, shared responsibility for the advancement of science, these common goals and interests are paramount and should be welcomed and nurtured. In many fields of research, ongoing communication, consultation and follow-up are essential; in their absence, disciplines cannot be pursued at a high level of understanding and sensitivity. The regional dissemination of experience is particularly fruitful in research in humanities, which focuses on exploring the values of a shared cultural past. In many cases, these values and resources are themselves shared and cannot be expropriated.
Collaboration between Slovak, Czech, Polish and Hungarian scholars takes on a new, almost personal dimension in the field of medieval research, if only because the interconnection of the regions can be traced back to this period. The Visegrád royal meeting of 1335 was a pragmatic and symbolic event: at this 14th century “conference”, Charles Robert of Anjou, Casimir III and John of Luxembourg, Kings of Hungary, Poland and Bohemia agreed on common interests and the possibilities of (mainly economic) cooperation. As a result, a new trade route was marked out, bypassing Vienna, which brought the countries of the region the richest decades of their history. The “corridor” allowed for a continuous flow and exchange of cultural influences and interactions. Through it, different customs intermingled, creating a new, large-scale, modern – in its own right – Central European culture in the late Middle Ages, while elevating the region to the status of an equal (not peripheral) player in Europe.
Visegrad cooperation had an impact even in an area that in the Middle Ages was an institution independent of and above the state: the church culture, and thus also church music. Central European migration routes were created for singers, chant repertories, copyists and codex illuminators, who were free to use these paths, accepting commissions at will at the various stations along the route. An excellent example of this is the case of the group of music codices recently linked to the city of Nagyszombat (Trnava in present-day Slovakia). The manuscripts were presumably produced in a local 14th–15th-century scribal workshop, where the mixed elements of the music writing suggest the collaboration of Hungarian, Bohemian and German copyists who may have worked either simultaneously or handed over the baton to each other over several decades. Their work captures the colours of their nationalities, while at the same time clearly showing a common style and the signature of the local tradition.
It is difficult to imagine significant progress in the field of medieval liturgical chant research today without cooperation with neighbouring countries. This would not be technically possible either, since most of our surviving sources from the Kingdom of Hungary before 1541 are to be found in libraries and archives outside the present-day borders. These sources are invaluable treasures of Hungarian cultural history, but they are understandably important for research beyond the borders as well, if one does not give in to the temptation to remove them from their historical context. It is unfortunate if the same source material is studied in several isolated coordinate systems. It would be welcome if this were to become less and less frequent.
The frosty relations under socialism were later resolved by groping, then partnership and even friendship, which also enabled access to sources. At the same time, there is a need for clashes of views and fruitful debate (for example on how to name our common sources). The aim can be to share and acknowledge each other’s methods and results, and to mutually support research. The internet is a great help in this, where projects and databases form an intricate network and can provide a rich source of data for all branches of plainchant studies, including at the regional level. We could even share our ideas and suggestions on a common platform.
The results of our „Lendület” / „Momentum” research group working on medieval manuscript fragments would be poorer without the work of our Slovak colleagues in source research and publication of manuscripts in catalogues and websites, as we can – mutually – enrich their knowledge with our results through joint brainstorming. It is good if our findings converge, and slowly add to and round off the mosaic picture of our common medieval past, allowing new terminologies and basic concepts to be consolidated, significantly advancing the exploration and interpretation of our sources and the dissemination of the results in wider international research community. The scientific publications, meetings and online discussions of the past years are also signs of a change of approach towards common thinking, in the series of which – in the field of chant studies – the scientific cooperation currently funded by the Visegrad Fund could be a very important link, if we can make good use of it. In the framework of the joint work that inspired the writing of this blog post, face-to-face professional meetings have taken place and will continue to take place, where chant and liturgy scholars from the four countries will engage in dialogue, hopefully in the future, to put increasingly nuanced questions on the agenda, to compromise on contentious issues, and to interpret regional phenomena in a multifaceted but also shared way.
In the framework of this current project, the kick-off meeting of chant and liturgy scholars of the Visegrad countries took place in Bratislava on 28–29 November 2023. See our report on this here: https://ldzf.zti.hu/2023/12/04/kutatocsoportunk-a-visegrad-nemzetkozi-muhelykonferencian-pozsonyban/).
Next year Budapest will host the meeting, followed by Prague and Warsaw. This promises many results and breakthroughs in the field of medieval Central European source studies.
The poster and the full program can be downloaded here: Workshop-Bratislava-2023-poster
