Migration and the Formation of Central European Societies: A Birdseye¨s View onthe Last 150 Years of History

Konkrétní podoba přednášky se mění v závislosti na osobě hostujícího odborníka. Výuka probíhá v anglickém jazyce. LS 2024: Migration and the Formation of Central European Societies: A Birdseye's View on the last 150 years of History (prof. dr. Philipp Strobl, Universität Wien) COURSE SUMMARY During the past 150 years, Central European societies have experienced different caesurae, transformations and changes. Many of them were the result of highly mobile populations. Migrants left a considerable footprint in Central Europe, in Germany, Austria, as well as Hungary, the Czech Republic or Slovakia. The region is among the most heterogenic parts of Europe and, for centuries, intense migration, mobility and exchange had made Central Europe a multicultural space of exchange. The rise of culture and art in fin-de-si?cle Vienna or Budapest has frequently been explained by the metropolises' roles as melting pots of different cultures and ethnicities. The creation of nation states after the end of the First world War, on the other hand, has led to an enormous wave of oppression resulting in the displacement of millions with the illusion of creating homogenous nation states. This development has characterized developments in the area over the following decades. Central Europe, unlike many other areas in Europe, has experienced particularly different crucial migrations (labor migration, forced migration, expulsion and displacement) during the past 150 years. These caesurae influenced and transformed the region's societies. The influx of millions of Displaced Persons (DPs) and ethnic-German expellees, for example, triggered the creation of a new German society out of the ashes, pain, and destruction of the Second World War. Since narratives in Contemporary History, however, have been dominated by political perspectives, migrations in Central Europe and their societal consequences rarely found entrance into historiographic depictions. Even in states such as Austria, or Germany that have become widely known as countries of immigration, not much is known about their own migration history. This course will rethink and revise European Modern History through a migration perspective. Students will experience and understand history by focusing on crucial migration caesurae, such as labor migration between Eastern and Central Europe, refugee migration from and to different countries, as well as migration regimes during the Cold War and within the European Union. The course will emphasise the question of how migration has affected, altered and changed societies in Central Europe between the 19th and the 21st century.