Recovering Past Stories for the Future: A Synergistic Approach to Textual and Oral Heritage of Small Communities

Project Information

RESTORY

Grant agreement ID: 101132781

DOI

10.3030/101132781

EC signature date 6 November 2023

Start date 1 January 2024

End date 31 December 2026

Funded under

• Culture, creativity and inclusive society

Total cost

€ 3 000 000,00

EU contribution

€ 3 000 000,00

Coordinated by

UNIVERSITATEA BABES BOLYAI
Romania

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - RESTORY (Recovering Past Stories for the Future: A Synergistic Approach to Textual and Oral Heritage of Small Communities)

Reporting period: 2024-01-01 to 2024-12-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The EU-funded RESTORY project intends to revitalize the cultural heritage of small communities by uncovering overlooked narratives and practices, exploring collective agency through historical resource management, and extracting lessons on sustainability in areas like schooling, recycling, and communication. It brings together 20 partners – universities, public institutions, companies, and NGOs – from 12 European countries.The point of departure and the main motivation of this scholarly endeavour was the observation that small-sized communities are currently detached from their historically-built cultural traditions, unaware of their roots and past experiences, and ultimately unable to access the resources that derive from understanding landscape-related heritage. With a focus on Transylvanian Saxons and ten international case studies, spanning from the Middle Ages until nowadays, the project advocates cross-cultural understanding and comparative research. Therefore, RESTORY employs a multidisciplinary approach rooted in social sciences and humanities by combining classical historical methods (archival research and oral interviews) with digital tools, cultural anthropology, human geography, sociology, and psychology. By blending these diverse methodologies, the project highlights the dynamic interaction between cultural heritage and social resilience, promoting a deeper understanding of how communities shape and sustain their identities over time. Ultimately, RESTORY’s larger goal lies beyond academia. On the one hand, the project activates cultural professionals in training sessions to enhance heritage awareness, conservation, and exploitation on a local level. On the other hand, the humanistic and liberal research philosophy of this academic initiative resonates with the constituents of the democratic societal vision, coalesced around generous values like constructive inclusiveness and plurality of views.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

RESTORY has undertaken various research initiatives to investigate the emotionally charged connection between community and cultural heritage. Principal activities encompassed archival research, historiographical criticism, and oral history interviews, bolstered by comprehensive literature assessments. The project has generated academic output, including published papers, conference presentations, and draft articles, enhancing continuing intellectual discourse. Team members have engaged in local and international dissemination campaigns, enhancing professional networks and promoting multidisciplinary collaborations. RESTORY also promoted lectures by distinguished experts in history, sociology, anthropology, and heritage studies, focusing on topics of memory, identity, and cultural preservation in post-conflict contexts. These knowledge-transfer workshops and expert-led talks have improved methodological proficiency, especially in oral history, microhistory, and archive research. Additionally, the project organized a specific training event on network analysis in historical research, providing researchers and cultural sector professionals with quantitative tools for examining past interactions. Together, these activities strengthen multidisciplinary collaboration, promote novel research methodologies, and enhance the academic and professional advancement of project participants. True to its creed, according to which historical discourse needs to extract its narrative energy from within the very community that created it, RESTORY’s researchers included local protagonists as often as possible in investigations. Especially the oral history interviews echoed wonderfully in local communities, emulating a sense of belonging, a reconnection with a lived past, and a participatory presence that inspired and energized interviewers and interviewees alike. Moreover, the locally circumscribed past was connected with larger national and international memory repositories (archives and libraries), retrieving previously unacknowledged stories, thus painting a more vivid picture of the dynamics between centres and peripheries, depicting intuitive solutions adopted in the past to still existing societal issues: sustainable management of resources, or local schooling.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

Compared to the actual state-of-the-art, the RESTORY project has already achieved significant results across multiple topic areas, contributing to the study, preservation, and dissemination of local cultural heritage. Predilect fields during the first 12 months of research development were medieval textual analysis and criticism, centre-periphery dynamics, historical place-attachment evaluation, and community-related urban development and planning. The already published (peer-reviewed) articles and chapters, as well as submitted and in-development academic papers and oral presentations at conferences, circulate unknown primary information extracted from regional and international memory institutions and/or disseminate innovative theoretical models of data interpretation. Equally important are the participatory investigations featured by oral history field campaigns, leading not only to a wealth of academic information but also to an increased awareness of historical roots as a resource for local development in terms of entrepreneurial and touristic potential. The same result was targeted and partially achieved through the initiated training of those GLAM institutions located in small-sized settlements. Education and training played a crucial role, with a dedicated workshop for GLAM professionals providing valuable insights into cultural management and innovative VR/AR reconstructions of historical objects were developed, offering immersive ways to experience local history.

RESTORY Oral History Fieldwork in Sighișoara, Romania

RESTORY_WP5 Meeting in Matera_Italy

RESTORY 2024 overview

RESTORY Oral History Workshop in Cluj-Napoca, Romania

RESTORY Consortium Kickoff Meeting, Cluj-Napoca, Romania

RESTORY Oral History Fieldwork in Sighișoara, Romania

RESTORY_WP2 Meeting in Paris_France

RESTORY Historical Network Analysis Workshop in Cluj-Napoca, Romania

RESTORY International Conference, Coimbra, Portugal

RESTORY Oral History Fieldwork in Cincu, Romania

RESTORY Digitization of local cultural heritage in Cincu, Romania