Following the award of a €1.4 million European Council Research Starter Grant, Dr Natalia Nowakowska, a fellow of Somerville College, has launched a website on the Jagiellonians.
Dr Nowakowska won the award to conduct a 5-year research project (2013-18) entitled The Jagiellonians: Dynasty, Memory and Identity in Central Europe. Based at the university’s History Faculty, the project will conduct research into one of Renaissance Europe’s most important dynasties, but one whose place in history has been muddled by competing national agendas, which have tended to lead to the fragmentation of scholarship on the dynasty.
The project intends to reveal what an international political phenomenon the Jagiellonian dynasty was, as well as using it as a case-study for considering the nature and functions of political dynasties in Renaissance Europe. In this way, Dr Nowakowska hopes to restore the Jagiellonians to what she views as their rightful place in European history, alongside the Medici, Borgia, Bourbons, Habsburgs and Tudors.
The project is now advertising for four research associates, one each to work on the Hungarian, Lithuanian, German and Czech/Slovak elements of the project. The positions will last for two years and the closing date for applications is 3 February 2014. More information about these positions can be found on the vacancies page of the History Faculty website.
The project also has its own Twitter hashtag: @Jagiellonians .