Fall 2006

History 222—Central Europe, 1848-1989:

Identities, Ideologies, and Borderlands

 

Annemarie Sammartino

Rice Hall 311

Email: annemarie.sammartino@oberlin.edu

Office phone: 775-6572

Office Hours: Monday 10-12; Wednesday 11-12

 

Course Description:

 

The map of Central Europe underwent no less than seven different radical shifts during the one hundred and fifty year period covered in this course. Yet just as state borders shifted with the political tides, the men and women of the region also had to come to terms with a bewildering diversity of political forms—from Fascism to Stalinism and from Imperial rule to democracy. Central Europeans constantly returned to the same questions: How should a community constitute itself politically? What does it mean to be a citizen? What is the relationship between the state and the nation? As Central Europeans underwent revolution, war and occupation, we will examine the answers that they came up with to these questions. This course examines the political, social, and cultural history of this fascinating region, paying particular attention to the ways in which ethnicity, class, and gender factored into evolving national, local, and regional identities. In exploring the different nations of Central Europe, we will analyze the rise of nationalism and the decline of religious sentiment, and the rise and fall of the ideologies of Nazism and Communism.

 

Prerequisites and Requirements:

 

This course assumes a background in European history (either through taking AP European history or History 102). If you do not have this background, please come see me as soon as possible so that we can determine if this course is right for you.

 

Your grade in this class will be determined as follows:

 

All written work must be turned in to receive credit for this class.

 

Explanation of Written Work:

 

5%                   Response to Hull or Browning Lecture

5%                   Reading Intro

10%                 1919 & 1945 Conferences (5% each)

15%                 Participation

20%                 Quizes

20%                 Midterm Essay

25%                 Final Essay

 

5%: There are mandatory lectures on September 14 & 15^th by the historians Isabel Hull and Christopher Browning. You must write a 2-3 page response (not summary) to one of these two lectures. The lecture responses will be graded on a √-, √, √+ basis.

 

20% of the course grade is based on a six-page mid-term essay. In this essay, you will be asked to use the evidence presented in one of the course readings to argue both sides of one of the key debates in the history of either Germany or Austria-Hungary.

 

20% of the course grade is based on three reading & map quizzes. These quizzes will test your knowledge of both the readings and the changing map of Central Europe over the period covered by this course. There will be no make-ups for quizzes except for medical emergencies. If you miss class on a quiz day, you will forfeit credit for that quiz.

 

10% of the grade will be based on your preparation for and participation in two “conferences” over the course of the semester. You will be expected to turn in sheets answering specific questions about your assigned country. These sheets and your preparation in the conference itself will be graded on a √-, √, √+ basis.

 

25% of your grade will be based on a final essay. For this final essay you will have the choice of either reviewing one of a list of selected monographs or looking at a packet of primary source materials.

 

5% of your grade is based on your reading introduction. One time during the semester, you will be asked to introduce the readings for the class. You will do so in teams of 3 students. Your group will send reading questions to me to send out to the class by 5pm two days before the readings are due (so for a discussion on Tuesday, you will send them out by Sunday, etc.). In class, you will introduce the readings giving a five to ten minute account of your responses to the arguments, how you think they fit together, etc. This should not be a summary of the reading but rather an analysis. You will also briefly suggest 2-3 questions for us to begin our discussion with. Prior to doing a reading intro it is suggested (but not required) that you meet with me.

 

15% of your grade is based on your participation in class discussions. Attendance is a key component of participation and is therefore mandatory. If you need to miss a class due to a medical or other emergency, you must provide adequate documentation (such as a doctor’s note) to avoid the absence penalty. If you come late to class, it will count as a one-half absence.

All written work should be double-spaced, in 12-point Times New Roman font on paper with 1” margins. Unless otherwise directed, you MAY NOT turn in papers online but rather, must drop it off at my office or in class on the day it is due. Papers must be stapled. Also, while your grade for any paper is primarily based on their content, errors in grammar or citation style can figure into the grade, especially if such errors are egregious.

 

ALL late papers will be downgraded 1/3 of a grade for every day that they are late.

 

You will have a total of four “screw-ups” to use over the course of the semester. A “screw-up” can allow you to take a 24 hour extension for a paper (this applies to the Hull/Browning response, the mid-term essay or the final essay, but not preparation for the 1919 and 1945 conferences) or it can be used to take an unexcused absence from class. So, for example, you could take a 48 hour extension on a paper and miss two classes. If you wish for one or several “screw-ups” to apply to a late paper, please indicate that on the first page of the paper when you (finally) turn it in.

 

All work for this class is governed by the honor code. You must write and sign the honor code pledge at the end of each paper and exam. We will talk briefly about the honor code in class, but if you have further questions, please go to: http://www.oberlin.edu/students/student_pages/honor_code.html.

 

Readings/Films:

 

The following required books are available for purchase at the Oberlin College Bookstore:

 

Daphne Berdahl, Where the World Ended (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999)

 

Heda Kovaly, Under a Cruel Star (Teaneck: Holmes & Meier, 1997)

 

Helmut Walser Smith, The Butcher’s Tale (New York: W.W. Norton, 2003)

 

The following books are optional. The readings from Fulbrook and Sked in the syllabus are mandatory but on ERes. If you, however, want to get a sense of this subject in more detail or over a longer time frame, feel free to purchase one or both:

 

Mary Fulbrook, A Concise History of Germany (New York: Cambridge UP, 2004)—available at the bookstore

 

Alan Sked, The Decline and Fall of the Hapsburg Empire 1815-1914 (New York: Longman, 1989)—out of print but many copies are available online

 

Additional required readings are marked with a * if available on ERes or a # if available from an online journal. Probably the easiest way to find any online journal reading is to search for the name of the journal in Obis and go from there. If you have any problems accessing online journals, please let me know as soon as possible.

 

A number of films are also required texts for this course and have been placed on reserve. I will arrange class screenings for these films. If you cannot attend the screening, it is your responsibility to watch the films on your own time.

 

Pandoras Büchse/Pandora’s Box (Germany, 1926)

Czlowiek z marmuru/Man of Marble (Poland, 1977)

Goodbye Lenin (Germany, 2003)

 

Schedule of Readings and Assignments:

 

September 5                Introduction—What is Central Europe?

 

September 7                1848

 

Readings:                    #Robert Nemes, "The Politics of the Dance Floor: Culture and Civil Society in Nineteenth-Century Hungary" (Slavic Review, Winter 2001), 802-823.

 

September 12              German Unification/Creation of the Dual Monarchy

 

Readings:                    *Alan Sked, The Decline and Fall of the Hapsburg Empire 1815-1914                                            (New York: Longman, 1989), 187-238

            *Mary Fulbrook, A Concise History of Germany (Cambridge: Cambridge    UP, 2004), 122-137

 

September 14              NO CLASS—REQUIRED LECTURES

 

September 14              Isabel Hull, “Military Necessity and Mass Killing in the German Imperial                                        Army,” Wilder 101, 4:30pm

 

September 15              Christopher Browning, “Holocaust History and Survivor Testimony: The                                        Starachowice Factory Slave Labor Camps,” Wilder 101, noon

 

September 19              Nationalism in the Austro-Hungarian Empire

 

Readings:                    *Jeremy King, “The Nationalization of East Central Europe: Ethnicism, Ethnicity and Beyond,” Staging the Past, ed. Maria Bucur & Nancy M. Wingfield (West Lafayette: Purdue University Press, 2001), 112-152

                                    *Pieter Judson, “Frontiers, Islands, Forests, Stones: Mapping the Geography of a German Identity in the Habsburg Monarchy, 1848-1900,” Geography of Identity, ed. Patricia Yaeger (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996), 382-406

*Steven Beller, “Kraus’s Firework: State Consciousness Raising in the 1908 Jubilee Parade in Vienna and the Problem of Austrian Identity,” Staging the Past, 46-71                

 

September 21              NO CLASS—BUT HULL/BROWNING REVIEW DUE BY 4PM IN                                      HISTORY DEPARTMENT OFFICE

 

September 26              Nationalism in Germany

 

Readings:                    *Mary Fulbrook, A Concise History of Germany (Cambridge: Cambridge                                        UP, 2004), 137-148

 

September 28              Jews & Anti-Semitism in Central Europe

 

Readings:                    Helmut Walser Smith, The Butcher’s Tale

 

October 3                    World War I, pt. I

 

                                    QUIZ #1

 

October 5                    World War I, pt. II

 

Readings:                    *Belinda Davis, “Reconsidering Habermas, Gender and the Public Sphere: The Case of Wilhelmine Germany,” Society, Culture, and the State in Germany 1870-1930

#Maureen Healy, “Becoming Austrian: Women, the State and Citizenship in World War I,” Central European History, 35:1 (2002): 1-35.

 

October 10                  Post-War Settlements & Revolution

                                    Conference #1: 1918/19

 

October 12:                 Successor States and the Minorities Problem

 

Readings:                    *Forum: “What’s in a Name? Anointing the Nation State,” Austrian History Yearbook 2004, vol. 35: 205-267

                                    *Mark Mazower, Dark Continent: Europe’s Twentieth Century (New                                              York: Vintage Books, 2000), 41-75

 

FALL BREAK

 

October 24                  Weimar Germany, pt. I

 

Readings:                    *Mary Fulbrook, A Concise History of Germany (Cambridge: Cambridge                                        UP, 2004), 155-179

 

October 26                  DAY OFF—BUT MIDTERM PAPER DUE IN THE HISTORY          DEPARTMENT OFFICE BY 4PM

 

October 31:                 Weimar Germany, pt. II

 

Film:                            Pandora’s Box (1926)

 

November 2                The End of the Weimar Republic & the Consolidation of Nazi Germany

 

                                    *Mary Fulbrook, A Concise History of Germany (Cambridge: Cambridge                                        UP, 2004), 179-187

 

                                    QUIZ #2

 

November 7                Consent & Coercion in Nazi Germany

 

November 9                Anti-Semitism in Nazi Germany

 

Readings:                    Viktor Klemperer, I Will Bear Witness, selections

 

November 14              World War II, pt. I

 

                                    *Mary Fulbrook, A Concise History of Germany (Cambridge: Cambridge                                        UP, 2004), 187-204

 

November 16              World War II, pt. 2

 

Readings:                    Kovaly, Under a Cruel Star, 1-51

                                    #Chad Bryant, “Either Czech or German: Fixing Nationality in Bohemia and Moravia” Slavic Review 61/4 (2002): 683-706.

 

November 21              The Holocaust

 

Readings:                    *Browning, "One Day in Jozefow: Initiation to Mass Murder" in David Crew, Nazism and German Society, 1933-1945 (New York: Routledge: 2003), 300-315.

*Jan Gross, Neighbors (New York: Penguin Books), 15-78; 95-101

 

November 23              THANKSGIVING

 

November 28              1945

                                    Conference #2: 1945

 

Readings:                    #Eagle Glassheim, "National Mythologies and Ethnic Cleansing: The Expulsion of Czechoslovak Germans in 1945," Central European History, vol. 33, no. 4 (2000).

                                   

November 30              Eastern Europe, pt. I

 

Readings:                    Kovaly, Under a Cruel Star, 52-192

                        * Ludvík Vaculík, “Two Thousand Words to Workers, Farmers,                                          Scientists, Artists, and Everyone,” From Stalinism to Pluralism,126-130

 

December 5                 Eastern Europe, pt. II

 

Readings:                    Daphne Berdahl, Where the World Ended, selections

Film:                            Man of Marble (Poland, 1977)

 

December 7                 1989

 

                                    QUIZ #3

 

Readings:                    * Václav Havel, “New Year’s Address,” From Stalinism to Pluralism,                                            249-253

 

December 12               Central Europe After 1989

 

Film:                            Goodbye Lenin (Germany, 2002)

 

December 14               Final Discussion

 

FINAL PAPER DUE, DECEMBER 21^st 2:00PM IN MY OFFICE (311 RICE).