Introduction: Acta Comparationis—An Alternative Genealogy of World Comparatism
Rezumat
Abstract: This Special Issue re-examines Acta Comparationis Litterarum Universarum (1877–1888), celebrated in recent years as the first journal of comparative literature. It resists a hagiographic recuperation of its editor, Hugo Meltzl, to reveal the journal’s entanglements with the political, epistemological or linguistic structures of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and its wider inter-imperial context. The essays in the Special Issue cast new light on subaltern literatures and neglected individual contributors—women, Romani, Jewish—and foreground the journal’s clash between an all-encompassing archiving ambition and its hierarchical presumptions. We foreground both the journal’s indebtedness to nineteenth century epistemology (stadial change, organicism, racialization) and its pivotal role in shaping future comparative literature.
Keywords: Acta Comparationis Litterarum Universarum, Hugo Meltzl, Austro-Hungarian empire, comparative literature, multilingualism, archive.
Acknowledgement: This work was funded by the EU’s NextGenerationEU instrument through the National Recovery and Resilience Plan of Romania—Pillar III-C9-18, through the project A Global History of Romanian Comparatism: A Case Study in Inter-Imperial Comparative Literature (1877-1944), PNRR-III-C9-2023-I8-CF 22/27.07.2023, contract no. 760276/26.03.2024.
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