In the late 18th and the first half of the 19th century in Central Europe new language-based national identities came to dominate over the old legally, territorially, and historically constructed identities. While national languages struggled to emancipate themselves and obtain official status, the roles and functions of Latin (political, social, communicational, ideological, cultural, and scientific) were changing dramatically. Latin obtained a different significance for the varying social, ethnic and generational segments of society, from being the essential part of an individual identity to representing an obstacle to “national development” (and survival), from guaranteeing justice and harmony between different linguistic communities of a country to hindering change, social and political justice.

The conference aims to explore the different attitudes towards Latin and Latin’s different functions, their chronology and synchronicity, their manifestations in literary, political and journalistic texts and the causes of their shifts. This includes such phenomena as the Enlightenment, educational reforms, social change, the growth of national identities and their mutual influence, political goals, the development of vernacular scholarship etc.

The focus lies on Central Europe with historical Hungary (including Slovakia and Croatia), Transylvania and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth at its centre, but contributions illustrating comparable phenomena in other territories, or the origins of these phenomena in earlier times are also welcome.

Paper proposals (title and abstract of 150-200 words) should be sent to language.conference@neolatin.lbg.ac.at no later than 30 April 2012. Contributions should preferably be in English and not exceed 30 minutes.

Travel and accommodation grants are available within the limits of the conference budget.