Nationalising the Young in European Borderlands

Implying that history is national, historians for a long time regarded as axiomatic the homogeneity of nation-states. Scholars have pointed to the limitations of nationalisation and to the flexibility of national identities in borderlands. It is recommended that further research be undertaken to detect the extent to which nationalisation politics was a factor in social life worlds of borderland inhabitants. Although the young (it is children and youngsters between 6 and 18 years old) played a pivotal role as a national resource in the 20th century, research on nationalising the young in European borderlands taking a top-down and bottom-up approach is still in its infancy. This project compares nationalisation, national identifications and social life worlds of the young who grew up in European border regions of annexation in the 20th century for the domains of (1) education, (2) organisations and (3) family. The project investigates more deeply these domains by researching the parameters (a) Use of Language, (b) Elite Training, (c) Social Advance, (d) Leisure Time and (e) Family Life. In order to do so, the project selects the two case-study regions Eupen-St.Vith-Malmedy (Belgium) and East Upper Silesia (district Lubliniecki, Poland), and presents a diachronical comparison of both post World War periods (1920/22-1939/40 and 1944/45- 1960). What the project seeks to examine is how nationalisation campaigns attempted to raise the young to be full members of the nation and how the young practiced affirmation or articulated distance towards nationalisation. It identifies the practices and social life worlds of the young and outlines the similarities and differences for both case-study regions. As such, it shows what historiography can gain from an approach centred on the young and bridges the subdisciplinary gap between Western and East Central European historiography. The project presents a sociological history of the young in 20th century European borderlands. Whereas social historical works commonly have a focus on structures, this project highlights the relationship between structures and practices the young executed in order to deal with these structures. Therefore, this study will make use of different research directions: (1) nationalisation studies, (2) everyday life history discipline, (3) comparative borderland studies and (4) oral history/memory studies. It combines a (a) literature study with (b) archival sources on nationalisation policies as carried out among children and youth in various institutionalized structures, (un)published autobiographies, and (d) transcriptions of my already conducted interviews. A careful balance between concreteness and abstraction will lead to a deeper understanding of the way nationalisation, national identifications and social life worlds of the young were interlinked for the case-study regions in the form of a habilitation thesis/second book ready at the end of the stipend.

No additional funding sources recorded.