Institute of History
Topic
Confessional Aspects in the Public Activity and Literary Production of Daniel Lichard
PhD. program
Slovak History
Year of admission
2026
Name of the supervisor
Doc. Peter Šoltés, PhD.
Contact:
Receiving school
Faculty of Arts, Comenius University Bratislava
Annotation
The doctoral project focuses on analysing the role of confessional differences in the processes of social and cultural modernisation in the Slovak milieu of the nineteenth century through a case study of Daniel Lichard (1812–1882). The aim of the dissertation is to examine how confessional identity and interconfessional tensions shaped his public engagement, journalistic and literary output, as well as his strategies of communication with Slovak society, which was confessionally divided between an Evangelical minority and a Catholic majority.
The principal theoretical framework of the research is the concept of the Second Confessionalisation, which makes it possible to analyse religion and confessional affiliation not merely as a persistent cultural framework, but also as an active political and social factor in the modernisation processes of the nineteenth century.
The dissertation will investigate how Daniel Lichard addressed and negotiated the confessional question in different historical contexts—from the disputes over mixed marriages in the 1840s, through the revolutionary years of 1848/49 and the period of neo-absolutism, to the conflicts between the so-called Old School and New School in the 1860s and 1870s, as well as the so-called Matica years. Particular attention will be paid to identifying when and in what ways confessionalism was employed as a mobilising instrument in political and cultural struggles, and conversely, in which periods efforts emerged to mitigate confessional tensions in favour of the concept of national unity.
The research will focus on an analysis of Lichard’s texts (including his sermons), public speeches, and associational activities as arenas in which strategies of confessional communication, social mobilisation, and national integration were formulated and tested.
The doctoral project forms part of a broader research programme on confessionalisation and the politicisation of society in the long nineteenth century, conducted within an APVV-funded project at the Institute of History of the Slovak Academy of Sciences.
Requirements: proficiency in Slovak/Czech; English (minimum B2); German; at least passive knowledge of Hungarian is an advantage.
The principal theoretical framework of the research is the concept of the Second Confessionalisation, which makes it possible to analyse religion and confessional affiliation not merely as a persistent cultural framework, but also as an active political and social factor in the modernisation processes of the nineteenth century.
The dissertation will investigate how Daniel Lichard addressed and negotiated the confessional question in different historical contexts—from the disputes over mixed marriages in the 1840s, through the revolutionary years of 1848/49 and the period of neo-absolutism, to the conflicts between the so-called Old School and New School in the 1860s and 1870s, as well as the so-called Matica years. Particular attention will be paid to identifying when and in what ways confessionalism was employed as a mobilising instrument in political and cultural struggles, and conversely, in which periods efforts emerged to mitigate confessional tensions in favour of the concept of national unity.
The research will focus on an analysis of Lichard’s texts (including his sermons), public speeches, and associational activities as arenas in which strategies of confessional communication, social mobilisation, and national integration were formulated and tested.
The doctoral project forms part of a broader research programme on confessionalisation and the politicisation of society in the long nineteenth century, conducted within an APVV-funded project at the Institute of History of the Slovak Academy of Sciences.
Requirements: proficiency in Slovak/Czech; English (minimum B2); German; at least passive knowledge of Hungarian is an advantage.