Introduction: Mediating European History

This chapter introduces theoretical approaches to the comparative analysis of documentary and fictional historical drama dealing with major periods, events, themes, and social and cultural tendencies in the twentieth century. Analytical and theoretical perspectives include cognitive and cultural memory theory, social and cultural history, genre analysis and reception of some of the main series. A central concept introduced is mediated cultural encounters, which underlines the importance of television documentary and drama for a national and European understanding of history. Expectations of the new century drawn from selected newspapers of 1900 are compared with what later historical research has said about developments in this century.