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The Cold War was not only about the imperial ambitions of the super powers, their military strategies, and antagonistic ideologies. It was also about conflicting worldviews and their correlates in the daily life of the societies involved. The term "Cold War Culture" is often used in a broad sense to describe media influences, social practices, and symbolic representations as they shape, and are shaped by, international relations. Yet, it remains in question whether -- or to what extent -- the Cold War Culture model can be applied to European societies, both in the East and the West. While every European country had to adapt to the constraints imposed by the Cold War, individual development was affected by specific conditions as detailed in these chapters. This volume offers an important contribution to the international debate on this issue of the Cold War impact on everyday life by providing a better understanding of its history and legacy in Eastern and Western Europe.
Multiculturalism has long been linked to calls for tolerance of cultural diversity, but today many observers are subjecting the concept to close scrutiny. After the political upheavals of 1968, the commitment to multiculturalism was perceived as a liberal manifesto, but in the post-9/11 era, it is under attack for its relativizing, particularist, and essentializing implications. The essays in this collection offer a nuanced analysis of the multifaceted cultural experience of Central Europe under the late Habsburg monarchy and beyond. The authors examine how culturally coded social spaces can be described and understood historically without adopting categories formerly employed to justify the definition and separation of groups into nations, ethnicities, or homogeneous cultures. As we consider the issues of multiculturalism today, this volume offers new approaches to understanding multiculturalism in Central Europe freed of the effects of politically exploited concepts of social spaces.
The 15 essays collected here focus on literary and cultural relations between Germany or Austria on the one hand and the neighbouring countries of eastern and southern Europe on the other, with particular reference to the period since the Wende, but also with a glance back to the period of German division. Topics include the overarching theme of psychological, political, historical and geographical boundaries and the perspective offered by German writers from both East and West on Poland, Russia and neighbouring countries. Equally important to the contributors are specific authors who have crossed national and cultural borders, such as Libuše Moníková, Irena Brežna, Richard Wagner and Hans Bergel. The role of memory, Vergangenheit, time and space are examined in the context of works by Anna Mitgutsch, W G Sebald, Christoph Ransmayr and Elisabeth Reichart, and the reception of the theories of Pierre Nora in the German-speaking countries. The re-emergence of the Right in politics, drama and film forms a further dimension explored in these essays. Neighbours and Strangers will be of interest to students and scholars working on contemporary German and Austrian culture.
The book sheds light on the preconditions and consequences extending far beyond the event that opened up totally new horizons in 1917. To mark the centennial of the Russian Revolution, an international team of both junior and experienced scholars from Austria, Belarus, Brazil, the Czech Republic, France, Israel, Poland, Russia and Slovakia brought together contributions from the surprisingly broad interdisciplinary field of comparative, economic, conceptual, and political history, human geography and urbanism, literature, media studies, and political science. The book explains the Russian revolution in a complex ambiguity between the event and its immediate consequences, medium-term social and economic transformations, and the long-term reconfiguration of the spaces of politics and culture.
A first attempt to present an approach to Ukrainian history which goes beyond the standard 'national narrative' schemes, predominant in the majority of post-Soviet countries after 1991, in the years of implementing 'nation-building projects'. An unrivalled collection of essays by the finest scholars in the field from Ukraine, Russia, USA, Germany, Austria and Canada, superbly written to a high academic standard. The various chapters are methodologically innovative and thought-provoking. The biggest Eastern European country has ancient roots but also the birth pangs of a new autonomous state. Its historiography is characterized by animated debates, in which this book takes a definite stance. The history of Ukraine is not written here as a linear, teleological narrative of ethnic Ukrainians but as a multicultural, multidimensional history of a diversity of cultures, religious denominations, languages, ethical norms, and historical experience. It is not presented as causal explanation of 'what has to have happened' but rather as conjunctures and contingencies, disruptions, and episodes of 'lack of history.'
"Introduction -- Identity and ideology -- The early novels: Das Spinnennetz, Hotel Savoy, Die Rebellion -- Radetzkymarsch as historical novel -- Die Kapuzinergruft and the confrontation with history -- Conclusion -- Selected works by Joseph Roth -- Works cited -- Index.
The Centers for Austrian Studies, founded by the Austrian Federal Ministry for Science and Research since the 1970s, play an important role for the Austrian and international scientific community. They promote studies on Austria and Central Europe in their host nations, as well as give Austrian students the possibility of conducting research abroad and of getting in touch with the local scientific community. This volume contains reports on the activities of these institutions in the academic year 2011/2012 and includes working papers by some of their most promising PhD students. The research presented covers various aspects of Central European history in moderns times, ranging from the 15th century to the present. (Series: Europa Orientalis - Vol. 13)
How objective are our history books? This addition to the Writing History series examines the critical role that memory plays in the writing of history. This book includes: - Essays from an international team of historians, bringing together analysis of forms of public history such as museums, exhibitions, memorials and speeches - Coverage of the ancient world to the present, on topics such as oral history and generational and collective memory - Two key case studies on Holocaust memorialisation and the memory of Communism
Analysing the transformation of Berlin’s former Allied border control point, "Checkpoint Charlie," into a global heritage industry, this volume provides an introduction to, and a theoretically informed structuring of, the interdisciplinary international heritage debate. This crucial case study demonstrates that an unregulated global heritage industry has developed in Berlin which capitalizes on the internationally very attractive – but locally still very painful – heritage of the Berlin Wall. Frank explores the conflicts that occur when private, commercial interests in interpreting and selling history to an international audience clash with traditional, institutionalized public forms o...