Preliminary Programme

Tue 26 February
    14.15
    16.30

Wed 27 February
    8.30
    10.45
    14.15
    16.30

Thu 28 February
    8.30
    10.45
    14.15
    16.30

Fri 29 February
    8.30
    10.45
    14.15
    16.30

Sat 1 March
    8.30
    10.45
    14.15
    16.30

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Tuesday 26 February 2008 14.15
B-1 ELI01 The academe as an elite arena I: Early Modern Period to First World War
Cave B
Networks: Elites and forerunners , Politics, Citizenship, and Nations Chair: Robert Anderson
Organizer: Marja Jalava Discussant: Robert Anderson
Laurence Brockliss, Michael Moss : Advancing with the Army, the formation of the professional elite
In the United Kingdom and Ireland university education has often been seen as a way for individuals from relatively disadvantaged backgrounds to make successful careers, what in Scotland were known as ‘lads o’pairts’. The authors in a recent wide ranging study of the medical profession in the army during the ... (Show more)
In the United Kingdom and Ireland university education has often been seen as a way for individuals from relatively disadvantaged backgrounds to make successful careers, what in Scotland were known as ‘lads o’pairts’. The authors in a recent wide ranging study of the medical profession in the army during the French wars (1794-1815) have concluded that university education was a necessary condition for entry (something that was not widely known before), but not for success, which depended as much on patronage, connection and being in the right place at the right time. Interestingly the great majority of army doctors came from disadvantaged backgrounds often in disadvantaged parts of the British Isles, such as rural Ireland and Scotland. Without exception they attended universities and most took additional classes and gained extra qualifications after they entered practice. Entering the medical profession was one way in which such men could gain entry to the elite officer corps without the necessary money and influence and indeed the careers of many of their children suggest that they were the advanced guard of what we might call a professional project that subsists to this day. About a third gain access to what we might consider to be the elite proper, contributing to the republic of letters, being elected fellows of learned societies and, perhaps most important, leaving large fortunes. The authors will argue that it is possible to generalise from this study and set university education in the wider context of other professions and of family strategies, something that has been overlooked in previous elite studies. Both the authors have extensive experience of the history of universities and elite formation from the early modern period to today. Michael Moss wrote the concluding chapters of the recent history of the University of Glasgow and Laurence Brockliss is engaged in a large study of Magdalen College Oxford and its members. (Show less)

Daniel Flueckiger : Elite transformation and Democratization
In the 19th century, Switzerland was one of the most quickly democratizing and industrializing countries of Europe. Berne as Switzerland’s largest canton belonged to the liberal cantons that founded the democratic federal state in 1848. Since the late 18th century, representatives of the enlightenment and later of liberalism promoted universities ... (Show more)
In the 19th century, Switzerland was one of the most quickly democratizing and industrializing countries of Europe. Berne as Switzerland’s largest canton belonged to the liberal cantons that founded the democratic federal state in 1848. Since the late 18th century, representatives of the enlightenment and later of liberalism promoted universities and other educational establishments to form new, progressive generations. Indeed contemporaries as well as historians saw universities as an important factor of modernization. However recent research has shown that at least the core elements of Swiss democracy – the direct democratic institutions – resulted not of liberal reform politics but of popular basic movements in the 1830s and 1860s.
In my proposed contribution I intend to revisit the importance of academic education for the development of new generations of politicians and officials. Did university studies result in modernist or critical attitudes? Or did they only supply ambitious professionals with arguments to construct a civil society as an aristocracy of the rich and well-educated (Wirtschafts- und Bildungsbürgertum)? Is it possible to state democratization in relation with the university during some periods or did only happen a transformation or exchange of elites?
To give a set of possible answers to this question, I plan to compare biographies of Bernese politicians and officials born between 1760 and 1820. In a first step I would like to discuss shortly the social origins of officials and politicians during the observed period. In a second step I plan to regard the importance of university studies for the attitudes of the examined persons by presenting some examples of frequent (or frequently not existing) biographic turning points. (Show less)

Jan Eivind Myhre : The Cradle of Elites - the University of Oslo in the 19th Century
19th-century Norway, (semi-)independent from 1814, presents a (perhaps) unique example of the university educated knowledge elite occupying the position of the social elite and the political ruling class. In its heyday (c. 1830-70), the class of the higher civil servants (German Beamten, Norwegian embetsmenn), appointed by the king, possessed the ... (Show more)
19th-century Norway, (semi-)independent from 1814, presents a (perhaps) unique example of the university educated knowledge elite occupying the position of the social elite and the political ruling class. In its heyday (c. 1830-70), the class of the higher civil servants (German Beamten, Norwegian embetsmenn), appointed by the king, possessed the political, social and cultural hegemony in the country, even though the group was only 2000-3000 men strong, in a population of about 1,5 million.
How did this situation come about? The Danish-Norwegian monarchy, supported by the burghers, in the 17th and 18th centuries built a civil service, partly against the aristocracy. The civil servants consisted mainly of university educated lawyers, theologians and medical doctors, plus academy educated officers. Most of the civil servants were educated in Copenhagen, from 1813 in Christiana (present-day Oslo).
The position of the Beamten in the 19th century was partly a result of a political and social void. The nobility withdrew early from Norway (and was in fact ruled out in 1821), and the formerly powerful timber barons were more or less crushed in the wake of the Napoleonic wars. Even though the Constitution of 1814 gave the vote to 40% of the adult males, a long and complicated voting process turned out the render the real power to the class which, with superior verbal skills, convinced most others that it was fit to rule.
The power of the educated class was broken in the course of a few decades after c. 1870. It was economically weakened by inflation and met a competitor in a rising commercial and industrial bourgeoisie. Another competitor was the national counter-cultural opposition, led by farmers, radical university graduates (solicitors and others) and a new educated opposition consisting of college educated teachers and others.
Finally: the hegemony of the civil servant class also rested on its (informal) control of the public sphere, fitting an educated elite. However, with the academic and literary fields parting towards the end of the century, that advantage waned as well. (Show less)

László Szögi : The Hungarian University and Academical System as Cultural Mediator in Eastern Europe in the 18th-19th Centuries
At the South-Eastern edge of Europe Hungary was the last country where in the Midle Ages universities were founded. Later, in the course of the 16th-17th centuries it was the newly founded Jesuit Academies which continued this traditon. The first regular Hungarian university was founded in 1635 and it moved ... (Show more)
At the South-Eastern edge of Europe Hungary was the last country where in the Midle Ages universities were founded. Later, in the course of the 16th-17th centuries it was the newly founded Jesuit Academies which continued this traditon. The first regular Hungarian university was founded in 1635 and it moved to the currant capital, Budapest in 1777. Beside this university, there were further royal academies working in five minor towns of Hungary.

One of the most characteristic feature of Hungarian society in this time was its ethnical and religious diversity. Scientific mobility was very important in this period: there were a lot of students who went abroad to get further education in Europe. Accordingly, a lot of young intellectuals started their carrier from Hungary as they began their studies in Hungarian institutions and later continued their education in universities and academies of Western Europe. The language of the Hungarian higher education up to 1844 was the Latin, the neutral status of this language provided good possibilities for students of all nationalities of the Habsburg Empire and of other Eastern European countries as well to study in Hungarian institutions. Between 1849-1860 the official educational language used at Hugarian universities was the German. Consequently, Hungarian higher education possessed an important role in the process during which the leading intellectuals of the uprising nationalities of Eastern and Southern Europe were gradually formed. In my paper I would like to shed some light to some interesting particulars of this cultural mediator-role played by Hungarian higher education from the 18th century till the beginning of the First World War. (Show less)



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