Journal:Acta Historica Universitatis Klaipedensis
Volume 23 (2011): Daugiareikšmės tapatybės tarpuerdvėse: Rytų Prūsijos atvejis XIX–XX amžiais = Ambiguous Identities in the Interspaces: The Case of East Prussia in the 19th and 20th Centuries = Die vieldeutigen Identitäten in den Zwischenräumen: Der Fall Ostpreußen…, pp. 104–127
Abstract
The article discusses the main factors which shaped the peculiarities and distinctions of political elites in East Prussia in the first half of the 19th c. Among them, it names the growth of self-sufficiency of provincial nobility during the period of the Napoleonic Wars, the role of political elites in the liberal movement for constitutional reforms in Prussia, as well as the use of historical research and symbols of the past, increased in the first half of the 19th c. for the definition of distinction of both the province and its representatives. In the article, particular attention is paid to the examination of the factors of Russian neighbourhood and East Prussia’s position in the borderland between Prussia and Russia, showing their impact during crucial to Prussia events of 1813 and 1848. Due to the intertwining of all of those factors, in the first half of the 19th c., the consciousness of political elites in East Prussia ranged between regional provincial patriotism, Prussian patriotism (perceived through the relationship between the King and his subjects), and the growing sense of belonging to the German nation.
Journal:Acta Historica Universitatis Klaipedensis
Volume 23 (2011): Daugiareikšmės tapatybės tarpuerdvėse: Rytų Prūsijos atvejis XIX–XX amžiais = Ambiguous Identities in the Interspaces: The Case of East Prussia in the 19th and 20th Centuries = Die vieldeutigen Identitäten in den Zwischenräumen: Der Fall Ostpreußen…, pp. 69–103
Abstract
The paper analyses particular meanings which integrated the Germans and Lithuanians living in Prussian Lithuania, defined their regional patriotism, and constituted the fundamentals of the regional culture of remembrance in the 19th and the early 20th c. It also examines the circumstances which, at the turn of the 20th c., gave an opportunity for part of Prussian Lithuanians to create alternative meanings, based on the Lithuanian historical master narrative, and encouraged Prussian Lithuanians to maintain their ethnic peculiarity and to support their distinction from Germans. Since Lithuanian historical narrative, created in Prussian Lithuania, became a source of alternative meanings, its structure, as well as the sources of its formation, is exhaustively analysed in the article. The author tries to resolve the issue whether the alternative culture of remembrance, based on the structure of meanings which were consolidated in the Lithuanian historical narrative and characterized by its own ceremonies, rituals, and monument erection practices, had formed in Prussia Lithuania.
Journal:Acta Historica Universitatis Klaipedensis
Volume 23 (2011): Daugiareikšmės tapatybės tarpuerdvėse: Rytų Prūsijos atvejis XIX–XX amžiais = Ambiguous Identities in the Interspaces: The Case of East Prussia in the 19th and 20th Centuries = Die vieldeutigen Identitäten in den Zwischenräumen: Der Fall Ostpreußen…, pp. 31–68
Abstract
The paper analyses the context of the formation and the narrative structure of the borussianistic historical master narrative based on the myth of Prussia’s German mission. By examining the relationship between the master narrative and the culture of remembrance, the article shows how, during the period of 1871-1914, the meanings of the borussianistic historical master narrative were consolidated into public commemoration practices of East Prussia and how that consolidation changed the multiplicity of identity intrinsic to East Prussia in the first half of the 19th century. On the basis of a case study analysis (the erection of a national monument “Borussia” in Klaipeda/ Memel), the article investigates the forms of application of borussianistic historical master narrative meanings on the territory of East Prussia, inhabited by mixed Lithuanian and German population.
Journal:Acta Historica Universitatis Klaipedensis
Volume 23 (2011): Daugiareikšmės tapatybės tarpuerdvėse: Rytų Prūsijos atvejis XIX–XX amžiais = Ambiguous Identities in the Interspaces: The Case of East Prussia in the 19th and 20th Centuries = Die vieldeutigen Identitäten in den Zwischenräumen: Der Fall Ostpreußen…, pp. 16–30
Abstract
The article actualizes the significance of interdisciplinary research into a region on the basis of a case study of East Prussia and seeks to bring out a problematic character of “professional regional history” in the context of the contemporary science of history. One of the major aims of the article is to emphasize theoretical reflections on interdisciplinary research into a region by featuring some research methods, viz. micro-history and applied history. The employment of the said methods that encourages multiple and precise studies of historical personalities and details typical of the collective consciousness of individuals in a local territory opens an opportunity to also grasp the relationships between cultural, social, economic, and political factors by revealing a clear view of the historical context.
Pub. online:28 Nov 2011Type:IntroductionOpen Access
Journal:Acta Historica Universitatis Klaipedensis
Volume 23 (2011): Daugiareikšmės tapatybės tarpuerdvėse: Rytų Prūsijos atvejis XIX–XX amžiais = Ambiguous Identities in the Interspaces: The Case of East Prussia in the 19th and 20th Centuries = Die vieldeutigen Identitäten in den Zwischenräumen: Der Fall Ostpreußen…, pp. 12–15
Pub. online:28 Nov 2011Type:IntroductionOpen Access
Journal:Acta Historica Universitatis Klaipedensis
Volume 23 (2011): Daugiareikšmės tapatybės tarpuerdvėse: Rytų Prūsijos atvejis XIX–XX amžiais = Ambiguous Identities in the Interspaces: The Case of East Prussia in the 19th and 20th Centuries = Die vieldeutigen Identitäten in den Zwischenräumen: Der Fall Ostpreußen…, pp. 8–11
Pub. online:28 Nov 2011Type:IntroductionOpen Access
Journal:Acta Historica Universitatis Klaipedensis
Volume 23 (2011): Daugiareikšmės tapatybės tarpuerdvėse: Rytų Prūsijos atvejis XIX–XX amžiais = Ambiguous Identities in the Interspaces: The Case of East Prussia in the 19th and 20th Centuries = Die vieldeutigen Identitäten in den Zwischenräumen: Der Fall Ostpreußen…, pp. 5–7
Journal:Archaeologia Baltica
Volume 15 (2011): Archaeology, Religion and Folklore in the Baltic Sea Region, pp. 144–157
Abstract
Mythological space is a scholarly construct, related to various disciplines and representing different research agendas, theoretical standpoints and institutional affiliations. As such, it is illustrated in this article by three case studies relating to reconstructions of the Latvian mythological space. The work of Ludvigs Adamovičs represents the conceptualisation and description of the mythological space in interwar period studies of ancient religion. His views are contested and elaborated by Haralds Biezais in the postwar period within the émigré academic environment. Finally, studies of mythological space by Janīna Kursīte represent the most recent scholarly production in this direction.