Inventing a Socialist Nation

Heimat and the Politics of Everyday Life in the Gdr, 1945 90
Erscheinungsjahr 2013
ISBN: 978-1-107-69042-4
Verlag: Cambridge University Press

Buch, Englisch, 362 Seiten, Format (B × H): 152 mm x 229 mm, Gewicht: 524 g

Reihe: New Studies in European History

Twenty years after the collapse of the German Democratic Republic, historians still struggle to explain how an apparently stable state imploded with such vehemence. This 2009 book shows how 'national' identity was invented in the GDR and how citizens engaged with it. Jan Palmowski argues that it was hard for individuals to identify with the GDR amid the threat of Stasi informants and with the accelerating urban and environmental decay of the 1970s and 1980s. Since socialism contradicted its own ideals of community, identity and environmental care, citizens developed rival meanings of nationhood and identities and learned to mask their growing distance from socialism beneath regular public assertions of socialist belonging. This stabilized the party's rule until 1989. However, when the revolution came, the alternative identifications citizens had developed for decades allowed them to abandon their 'nation', the GDR, with remarkable ease.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Palmowski, Jan

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Deutsche Geschichte
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Spezielle Soziologie Sachkultur, Materielle Kultur
• Sozialwissenschaften Ethnologie | Volkskunde Volkskunde Historische & Regionale Volkskunde
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Mentalitäts- und Sozialgeschichte
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politikwissenschaft Allgemein Politische Geschichte

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1. Introduction; Part I. Socialism, Heimat, and the Construction of Identity: 2. Cultural renewal and national division, 1945–c.1958; 3. Trace of stones; Part II. Public and Private Transcripts: 4. Heimat and identity in the Honecker era; 5. Citizenship and participation in the local community - 'Join In!'; 6. Environmental destruction; Part III. Power, Practices and Meanings: 7. Social drama and the euphemization of power; 8. Cultural practices, Eigen-Sinn, and obfuscated meanings; Conclusion: from citizens to revolutionaries.

Über Autor(innen)

Palmowski, Jan
Jan Palmowski is Professor of Modern History and European Studies and Head of the School of Arts and Humanities at King's College London. His previous publications include Liberalism and the City: The Case of Frankfurt Am Main, 1866–1914 (1999) and Citizenship and National Identity in Twentieth-Century Germany (as editor, with Geoff Eley, 2008).