Search results
During the final decade of the German Democratic Republic (GDR), young citizens found themselves at the heart of a rigorous programme of socialist patriotic education, yet following the fall of the Berlin Wall, the emphasis of official state rhetoric, textbooks and youth activities changed beyond recognition. For the young generation growing up during this period, ‘normality’ was turned on its head, leaving a sense of insecurity and inner turmoil. Using a combination of archival research, interviews, educational materials and government reports, this book examines the relationship between young people and their two successive states in East(ern) Germany between 1979 and 2002. This time-span straddles the 1989/1990 caesura which often delimits historical studies, and thus enables not only a detailed examination of GDR socialisation, but, crucially, its influence in unified Germany. Exploring the extent to which a young generation's loyalties can be officially regulated in the face of cultural and historical traditions, changing material conditions and shifting social circumstances, the book finds GDR socialisation to be influential to post-unification loyalties through its impact on the personal sphere, rather than through the official sphere of ideological propaganda. This study not only provides insight into the functioning of the GDR state and its longer-term impact, but also advances our broader understanding of the ways in which collective loyalties are formed.
This book aims to revisit the county study as a way into understanding the dynamics of the English civil war during the 1640s. It explores gentry culture and the extent to which early Stuart Cheshire could be said to be a ‘county community’. It investigates the responses of the county’s governing elite and puritan religious establishment to highly polarising interventions by the central government and Laudian ecclesiastical authorities during Charles I’s Personal Rule. The second half of the book provides a rich and detailed analysis of the petitioning movements and side-taking in Cheshire during 1641-42. This important contribution to understanding the local origins and outbreak of civil war in England will be of interest to all students and scholars studying the English Revolution.
and its institutions, particularly the Bundeswehr, for fear that history may repeat itself. As the debate initiated by Meyer and Trittin suggests, this period of history is likely to remain central to the formation of collective loyalties in Germany for the immediate future. The relationship of young adults to the National Socialist past also supports the thesis that personal experience in the GDR claimed greater importance in the formation of patriotic sentiment than formal GDR socialisation. Firstly, the influence of this period in shaping young people’s loyalties
formation (or rejection) of loyalty to, and identification with, unified Germany? Secondly, how do the young generation’s loyalties help explain the (in)stability and the demise of the GDR? This study thus aims to deepen our knowledge of the functioning of the GDR and its longerterm impact, but also to advance our understanding of the ways in which collective loyalties, frequently understood as ‘patriotism’, are formed in a broader sense. Eastern identity in the wake of the GDR Issues of identity inevitably dominated the unification process, and were no more prominent
provide a clear delineation of these terms. National loyalties, which may simply be cultural in nature, thus need not be nationalist in their demands. Where, then, does this discussion leave patriotism? In contrast to the above concepts, patriotism has been the subject of much less scholarly work over recent decades, yet forms the focus of this book because of its predominance in the propaganda of the GDR. It was frequently appealed to in socialist regimes, as it called for the collective loyalty of their citizens, yet avoided the use of the term ‘nationalism’, which
. Foremost among these was the primary purpose of the address in displaying collective public loyalty before authority. This emphasis on collective loyalty was important for two reasons: first, because it lessened the stress on individual agency and second, because it suggested texts should be evaluated on the basis of the loyalty of the subscribers. Claims were made on the basis of an emotionally laden language of loyalty, rather than on the grounds of rights and responsibilities which invited rational adjudication. The
, during a plenary reading of a bill, a member wishes to express a view which deviates from the party line, this has to be discussed at a prior PPG meeting (Bille 2000: 134–5). The Nordic PPGs do have whips – the British term is translated directly into the Scandinavian languages and Finnish – but they are generally relatively junior MPs and group cohesion rests essentially on sentiments of collective loyalty rather than the threat of disciplinary measures. PPGs are central parliamentary actors: they participate in the formation and policy-making of governments (Heidar
point of reference’. Every nation needs to modify its identity according to a redemptive vision of what it ought to be and Parekh set out the criteria necessary to address this paradox of national identity in the United Kingdom. It should be as inclusive as possible and open to revision, acknowledging its history not for the purpose of nostalgia but for the purpose of imagination. It should not inspire collective loyalty alone but also inspire critical reflection on that loyalty and it should encourage a solidarity which links different social groups even if this
chivalry were ordered to walk into machine-gun fire, an ancient brotherhood fell before the weapons of a new age’.61 As I continue to argue, the change after the First World War was not so stark. A new hero began to appear, but the old, knightly hero endured in popular fiction and other media if, admittedly, in terminal decline: the 1960s television series The Saint featured a protagonist named Simon Templar. The notion of duty was crucial to continuing the war, and hierarchical allegiance was instilled by the public schools. The collective loyalties instilled by team
Collective Loyalties in France: Why the French Revolution Made a Difference’, Politics & Society , 18 (1990), pp. 527–52. 18 Marnia Lazreg, Torture and the Twilight of Empire: From Algiers to Baghdad (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007), pp. 29