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Harvard University Fall 2011

History 2260Central European History

ProfessorAlison FrankEmail: afrank@fas.harvard.eduOffice hours: Wednesdays, 9-11Office: CES, room 404Classroom: Robinson 107Class meeting: Wednesdays, 1-3 (first meeting, 9/7)

This seminar is designed to offer graduate students with a primary or secondary interest in central &eastern European history an introduction to some of the major historiographical problems currently underdebate in the field, with an eye toward preparing them to make their own contributions, in the form of amajor research paper. The focus of shared readings is on the long nineteenth century, but papers ontwentieth-century topics are also welcome.

The course is organized thematically, and, to a certain extent, geographically but it does not provide achronological narrative of Central Europe in the modern period. A basic understanding of the narrativeof German, Russian, Austrian (Habsburg) history is assumed (but see Readings).

Requirements:

The success of the seminar depends on lively, engaged, & informed discussion involving all participants.Therefore, attendance at & *active participation in* all seminar meetings is required. The quality ofcontributions matters more than their quantity.

Every week, each student will write a short book review of approximately 750 words on that weeks book.The book reviews must be posted on the course website by Monday night, midnight, preceding the class.

In addition, each student will prepare two presentations of about 10 minutes each. The first will be ahistoriographical presentation (10 minutes) addressing themes & controversies surrounding one of theweekly topics (to be chosen the second week of class). The second will be a short overview of thestudents paper, to be delivered during either the ultimate or the penultimate session.

The presentations, response papers, and participation in weekly discussions together account for 50% ofthe grade.

The remaining 50% of the grade will be based on a 20-25 page research paper on a topic to be chosen byeach student in consultation with the instructor. Students will be afforded a great deal of flexibility inchoosing paper topics. They must be historical, they must concentrate on the modern period (from about1750), and they must pertain to a geographical region that can plausibly be called Central Europe. Finalpapers will be due on Monday, December 12, by noon.

Please note that students who register for this course will be required to complete it THIS SEMESTER.Extensions (or incompletes) will NOT be granted.

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Background Reading / Reference:

Students who feel the need to brush up their familiarity with the history of the region may considerreferring to one or more of the following textbooks, as applicable:

On Germany: D. Blackbourn, The Long Nineteenth Century(incomparable social history) or J. Sheehan,German History, 1770-1866(includes Austria)

On Austria-Hungary: C. Macartney, The Habsburg Empire, 1790-1918(old-fashioned, but a classic), or AJPTaylor, The Habsburg Monarchy, 1809-1918(witty, but unreliable), or R. Okey, The Habsburg Monarchy(dull,but recent). Of inestimable value as a reference work is the series Die Habsburger-Monarchie 1848-1918,which now includes 9 volumes (more are on the way), including volumes dedicated to economics, foreignpolicy, the military, etc. etc.

A. Sked, The Decline & Fall of the Habsburg Empire, 2nd ed.(New York, 2001) does not provide a narrativeaccount, but it does provide an excellent historiographical overview at least up to the publication date ofthe first edition (1989). The second edition does only a moderate job of bringing the book up to date, &both editions are now out of print. But to get a sense of longer-standing arguments, it is extremely

valuable.

On Poland: P. Wandycz, The Lands of Partitioned Poland, 1795-1918(Seattle, 1993)

On Ukraine: O. Subtelny, Ukraine: A History. 3rd. edition. U. of Toronto Press, 2000.

Older, but oft cited:J. Rothschild, East Central Europe between the Two World Wars(Seattle, 1974)

Last, but not least, no student should go without:P. Magocsi, Historical Atlas of Central Europe(Seattle, 2002). (First published as Historical Atlas

of East Central Europein 1993 the maps didnt change)

Online Resources

The Slavic Reviewwebsite offers not only online access to the journal, but also an extensive listing of otherjournals devoted to the study of region in several disciplines (including history), and a listing of scholarlyonline guides to research materials

http://www.slavicreview.uiuc.edu/resources/

Humanities & Social Sciences Online (H-Net) is an excellent resource for graduate students &professional researchers (last time I checked, undergraduates were not permitted to subscribe). The mainpage is:

http://www.h-net.org/There you will find links to a listing of all the different subscription-based discussion networks available.These include:

H-German (German History)http://www.h-net.org/~german/

H-Nationalism (Nationalism Studieshttp://www.h-net.org/~national/

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H-Russia (Russian History)http://www.h-net.org/~russia/

H-Soz-u-Kult (Methoden, Theorie, & Ergebnisse neuerer Sozial- und Kulturgeschichte)http://hsozkult.geschichte.hu-berlin.de/

HABSBURG (Culture & History of the Central European Habsburg Monarchy & Its SuccessorStates, 1500-Present)

http://www.h-net.org/~habsweb/And a host of others that can be chosen to suit individual interests (such as H-Quilts, dedicated toQuilting Research & Documentation)

Holly Case at Cornell University maintains a blog, East Central Europe Past & Present with her interviewsof scholars she has invited to Cornell over the past few years

http://ecepastandpresent.blogspot.com/

PRIMARY SOURCES / PERIODICALS ONLINE

http://anno.onb.ac.at/ has a collection of digitized German-language historical newspapers andperiodicals from the Austrian Empire.

http://alex.onb.ac.at/ has a collection of digitized laws and legal texts issued by the Habsburg Monarchyand the Austrian Republic.

Journals

Researchers interested in the region should periodically scan major journals including:American Historical ReviewAustrian History YearbookCentral European HistoryCentral Europe

Contemporary European HistoryEast Central EuropeEast European Politics & SocietiesEuropean Review of HistoryJournal of Modern HistoryJahrbcher fr die GeschichteNationalities PapersPast & PresentSlavic ReviewZeitschrift fr Ostmitteleuropaforschung

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7 Sept. Introduction

14 Sept. Eastern Europe, Central Europe

Larry Wolff, The Idea of Galicia: History and Fantasy in Habsburg Political Culture. Palo Alto, 2010

21 Sept The Balkans

Maria Todorova, Imagining the Balkans. Updated Edition. Oxford, 2009.

28 Sept. Indifference to Nation

Pieter Judson, Guardians of the Nation: Activists on the Language Frontiers of Imperial Austria. Cambridge,MA, 2006.

5 Oct. Orientalism

Suzanne Marchand, German Orientalism in the Age of Empire: Religion, Race, & Scholarship. Cambridge, 2009

12 Oct. Borderlands

Mark Mazower, Salonica: City of Ghosts. New York, 2004

19 Oct. The First World War: Front & Home Front

Maureen Healy, Vienna & the Fall of the Habsburg Empire: Total War & Everyday Life in World War I.Cambridge, 2004

26 Oct World War II

Holly Case, Between States: The Transylvanian Question and the European Idea during WW2. Ithaca, 2009

2 Nov Post-War Reconstruction

Tara Zahra, The Lost Children: Reconstructing Europes Families after WW2Cambridge, MA, 2011

9 Nov Post-War DestructionJan Gross, Fear: Anti-Semitism in Poland After Auschwitz. New York, 2006

16 Nov Chernobyl

Jane Dawson, Eco-Nationalism: Eco-Nationalism: Anti-Nuclear Activism and National Identity inRussia, Lithuania, and Ukraine. Durham, NC, 1996

Svetlana Alexievich and Keith Gessen, Voices From Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster.New York, 2006

30 Nov. Student Presentations