Eastern European countries, with events such as the Slavic Congress in Moscow
of 1867, and excavations of ‘Slavic’sites in countries such as Russia and Poland
(Geyer 1987: 59; Raczkowski 1996: 197–9; Shnirelman 1996: 222–5).
Regionalism and some emerging nationsA similar trend of constructing teleological accounts based on evolutionary
ideas for a country’s past took place in most European regions. In contrast to
the assumptions of some authors, regionalism did not contradict nationalism;
the opposite was usually the case. In most cases regionalism was—and still
is—part and parcel of nationalism. Regional identity does not conXict with
national aspirations, but is complementary and, in fact, furnishes the corre-
sponding national identity with local roots (Storm 2003: 252). Cultural
revivalism in the regions originated in the eighteenth century and crystallized
in the creation of many local learned societies in the 1840s, as seen in Chapter
12, a process which continued and expanded from the 1860s. Membership of
local societies became not only a means of satisfying personal intellectual
curiosity, but was also a way to climb up the social and academic ladder
through personal contacts, and it is the latter fact that may explain societies’
popularity. In Western Europe examples from diVerent countries such as
Spain and Switzerland and the Czech area in Eastern Europe illustrate this.
In Spain, after theWrst societies were founded in Madrid (Numismatics 1837)
and Tarragona (1844), others came along later in the century, such as Seville
(1870), Valencia (1871), Mallorca (1880), Carmona (1885), Osuna (1887),
Barcelona (1878, 1888), Mataro ́(1888), and Ca ́diz (1893) (Dı ́az-Andreuet al.
forthcoming). In Switzerland a historical and archaeological society was
founded in Neuchaˆtel in 1864 (Kaeser 2004: 334). In Eastern Europe, societies
appeared in Ca ́slav (1864), Kutna ́Hora (1877) and Prague (1864, 1888)
(Princ 1984: 13). Other examples could be added here from Britain (Hudson
1981: chs. 1–2; Piggott 1976), France (Duval 1992), Germany (Marchand
1996a: ch. 5), and Russia (Shnirelman 1996: 222). The regionalist revival
could also be seen as parallel, to a certain extent, to similar movements in
the colonies as mentioned in Part III of this volume.
The archaeological section of most learned societies aimed to retrieve
information about the ancient past of the region undertaking excavations
and building collections, which would then be a tool for education through
their display in local museums. Some of the latter institutions followed
the pattern already seen for national museums, in the sense that for the
organization of the displays inspiration was sought from evolutionist prin-
ciples. In 1865 in France, for example, Toulouse’s Museum of Natural History
382 National Archaeology in Europe