Constructing Nationalities in East Central Europe

Description

The hundred years between the revolutions of 1848 and the population transfers of the mid-twentieth century saw the nationalization of culturally complex societies in East Central Europe. This fact has variously been explained in terms of modernization, state building and nation-building theories, each of which treats the process of nationalization as something inexorable, a necessary component of modernity. Although more recently social scientists gesture to the contingencies that may shape these larger developments, this structural approach makes scholars far less attentive to the "hard work" (ideological, political, social) undertaken by individuals and groups at every level of society who tried themselves to build "national" societies. The essays in this volume make us aware of how complex, multi-dimensional and often contradictory this nationalization process in East Central Europe actually was. The authors document attempts and failures by nationalist politicians, organizations, activists and regimes from 1848 through 1948 to give East-Central Europeans a strong sense of national self-identification. They remind us that only the use of dictatorial powers in the 20th century could actually transform the fantasy of nationalization into a reality, albeit a brutal one. CONSTRUCTING NATIONALITIES IN EAST CENTRAL EUROPE CONTENTS PREFACE Introduction. CONSTRUCTING NATIONALITIES IN EAST CENTRAL EUROPE Chapter 1. FROM TOLERATED ALIENS TO CITIZEN-SOLDIERS Chapter 2. THE REVOLUTION IN SYMBOLS Chapter 3. NOTHING WRONG WITH MY BODILY FLUIDS Chapter 4. BETWEEN EMPIRE AND NATION Chapter 5. THE BOHEMIAN OBERAMMERGAU Chapter 6. THE SACRED AND THE PROFANE Chapter 7. ALL FOR ONE! ONE FOR ALL! Chapter 8. STAGING HABSBURG PATRIOTISM Chapter 9. ARBITERS OF ALLEGIANCE Chapter 10. SUSTAINING AUSTRIAN “NATIONAL” IDENTITYIN CRISIS Chapter 11. “CHRISTIAN EUROPE” AND NATIONAL IDENTITY IN INTERWAR HUNGARY Chapter 12. JUST WHAT IS HUNGARIAN? Chapter 13. THE HUNGARIAN INSTITUTE FOR RESEARCH INTO THE JEWISH QUESTION AND ITS PARTICIPATION IN THE EXPROPRIATION AND EXPULSION OF HUNGARIAN JEWRY Chapter 14. INDIGENOUS COLLABORATION IN THE GOVERNMENT GENERAL Chapter 15. GETTING THE SMALL DECREE INDEX