Research project
Completed
Securitization and discourses on the rights of minorities and majorities in East Central Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries
Sub-project A06 in the Collaborative Research Center/Transregio 138 “Dynamics of Security”
Duration
2014 - 2025
Building on the findings of subprojects A 06 and B 03 (religious minorities) from the first and second funding phases, this subproject now focuses on the interactions between security concepts and language policy programs and measures during a period of dynamic industrialization and urbanization. Using the example of three East Central European industrial cities (Pilsen, Drohobycz, Lodz), it asks how and by whom urban linguistic diversity was securitized between 1860 and 1918. In doing so, A06 examines debates on language rights and language justice at the local level and aims to contribute to the understanding of the interactions between cultural differentiation and the intersectionality of social categories in the process of securitization and their contribution to identity formation.
Postcard: View of the Civic Brewery in Pilsen, around 1913. Bildarchiv Herder-Institut, Inv.-Nr. 136782, Rechte vorbehalten - freier Zugang
Industrialization, language issues, and security processes in Pilsen, 1860–1914
Edited by Kajetan Stobiecki, M.A.
In Bohemia, a high degree of bilingualism in everyday contact situations in the first half of the 19th century led to the emergence of two almost entirely clearly definable national collectives. Under these circumstances, language issues increasingly became a point of reference in all areas of politics. Against this backdrop, the subproject, which is being worked on jointly by Peter Haslinger and Kajetan Stobiecki, focuses on the industrial city of Pilsen, the second largest city in the crown land of Bohemia. Pilsen already had an established urban society, but its linguistic composition changed significantly due to immigration from the surrounding area. This city therefore provides an ideal basis for investigating how speech regulation is negotiated between the municipality, the political district, the crown land, and the state as a whole with reference to security.
The question of whether and by whom language policy was understood as an instrument for creating security for certain groups will also be addressed. Problems in language regulation will therefore be examined comparatively with regard to legislation and case law to determine how the connection between language and security was negotiated between the different levels. The project will also focus on the regulation of socio-political issues that arose in connection with industrial and urban growth.
Postcard: Drohobycz Rynek, before 1945. Bildarchiv Herder-Institut, Inv.-Nr. 66689, Rechte vorbehalten - freier Zugang
Förderung von Identitäten in einer mehrsprachigen Erdöl-Boom Town durch Versicherheitlichung: Strategien und lokale Politik in Drohobycz vor 1918
Edited by Aaron Blüm, M.A.
Since the late 1860s, Polish actors at the provincial and municipal levels had resolved the language issue as they understood it. The practices associated with the enforcement of the language issue at the local and provincial levels were presented as essential security issues for the respective ethnic groups. This research project aims to focus on the resonance of Galician security discourses related to the language issue in the Galician oil boom town of Drohobycz, examining the relationship between securitization and nationalizing policies at the local level. As an industrial city in the Habsburg crown land of Galicia and Lodomeria, Drohobycz occupied a unique position in the comparatively less industrialized Galicia, while its predominantly Jewish population was not unusual for the cities of eastern Galicia. As in numerous other industrial cities, the population grew rapidly due to the rural-urban exodus of poorer, uneducated classes, making the social question an urgent problem, especially due to the influence of modern political parties. The project therefore examines the interactions between linguistic, national, and social issues and focuses on the respective strategies and policies, in particular those aimed at securing the linguistic question.
Doctoral project at Justus Liebig University Giessen
Postcard: Lodz - Vue totale, before 1945. Bildarchiv Herder-Institut, Inv.-Nr. 191536, Rechte vorbehalten - freier Zugang
Safety in the “evil city”: The multilingual textile metropolis of Lodz 1860-1918 at the center of social and national conflicts
Edited by Lukas Pohl, M.A.
In the rapidly growing textile city of Lodz, where the population increased almost twentyfold between the 1860s and 1914 (from 32,000 to over 600,000 inhabitants), security issues became particularly acute: The city was shaken by uprisings and mass strikes in 1863, 1892, and 1905/06, to which entrepreneurs responded with mass lockouts and the state with the deployment of troops. How could security be established in this quadrilingual city, where Germans, Poles, Jews, and Russians lived together and social tensions were running high?
The project examines concepts of Russian administration, which ranged from military repression and close police control to the granting of linguistic and cultural autonomy, as well as parallel concepts of city administration and the demands of the emerging Łódź parties. What were everyday life and security practices like, and how did the administration and multilingual entrepreneurs seek to ensure security? What did this mean for the living conditions and emotions of the population? What changed with the introduction of a multilingual school system after 1905/06?
The project examines concepts of Russian administration, which ranged from military repression and close police control to the granting of linguistic and cultural autonomy, as well as parallel concepts of city administration and the demands of the emerging Łódź parties. What were everyday life and security practices like, and how did the administration and multilingual entrepreneurs seek to ensure security? What did this mean for the living conditions and emotions of the population? What changed with the introduction of a multilingual school system after 1905/06?
Finally, the working-class city of Lodz attracted particular attention in Central and Eastern European journalism, as well as in administrative, public, and European security discourses, as the “red Lodz,” but also as a cultureless, violent “evil city.” The European labor movement in particular often referred to Lodz. Which security actors can be identified and what strategies did they pursue? Were measures developed elsewhere tried out here, or did practices emerge that spread from central Poland to the entire empire or to Europe?
Projects in the second funding phase
$de=Ethnographische Karte von Österreich-Ungarn, [ca. 1910]§en=Ethnographic map of Austria-Hungary, [ca. 1910]. Kartensammlung Herder-Institut, Signatur: K 20 III B 1, Rechte vorbehalten - freier Zugang
Regional self-government and the dynamics of the politicization of legal concepts in western Hungary (1867–1918)
Editor: Tamás Székely M.A.
In Hungary, regional authorities (the counties) traditionally served as a refuge for Hungarian positions vis-à-vis the Habsburg kings and therefore represented an important arena for political opinion-forming. With the Austro-Hungarian Compromise (1867) and the modernization of the state structure, the counties found themselves on the defensive against the centralization and unification policies of their own Hungarian governments. After 1870, they lost more and more legal and administrative powers to the central authorities in Budapest, but the county assemblies retained their function as a forum for articulation and understanding among the politically dominant high and middle nobility.
This research project will examine the attitudes and behavior of security elites (local administration, representatives of the state executive, the local nobility, representatives of minorities) in relation to language and nationality issues and the ambivalence of security against the backdrop of Hungarian national state-building. The project combines methods of historical discourse analysis with approaches from nationalism, microhistory, and regional history. In particular, it asks which concepts of security prevailed during the dualistic period (1867-1918) with regard to the multi-ethnic counties of western Hungary (Vas, Sopron, and Moson) and which security heuristics the competing elites developed in each case.
This research project will examine the attitudes and behavior of security elites (local administration, representatives of the state executive, the local nobility, representatives of minorities) in relation to language and nationality issues and the ambivalence of security against the backdrop of Hungarian national state-building. The project combines methods of historical discourse analysis with approaches from nationalism, microhistory, and regional history. In particular, it asks which concepts of security prevailed during the dualistic period (1867-1918) with regard to the multi-ethnic counties of western Hungary (Vas, Sopron, and Moson) and which security heuristics the competing elites developed in each case.
It will also examine the ad hoc debates in city councils on language use, patriotism, and the political representation of social groups. The focus here is on the so-called royal free cities of western Hungary: Sopron (Ödenburg), Kőszeg (Güns), Kismarton (Eisenstadt), and Ruszt (Rust). In addition, little research has been done at the regional level to determine whether and how the local media addressed the issue of nationality and whether there was any independent dramatization of security issues.
Securing a nation - Nationality Question and Language Policy in Southern Hungary 1860-1890
Editor: Szilveszter Csernus-Lukács M.A.
After entering the era of nationalism, the Kingdom of Hungary was home to multiple communities, building their nations in different places. The main security conflicts of the nationality question could both be coped on a national (state) and a regional level. The most plausible target to examine this national policy of the latter is the municipalities and communes of Southern Hungary, as this was the most diversified area of the Kingdom of Hungary (and of Europe) and this heterogeneity premised security-related political conflicts closing to the age of nationalism. The examination of the former required research on what spheres did the non-Hungarian elite want to secure in matters of language usage, recognition as a nation, national assemblies and symbols etc. and which of these were perceived as a threat to the Hungarian elite’s conception of the integrity of the state. The 1865-1868 legislatures regulated these matters, which provide an assessment on why the compromise attempt failed. On the local level the language usage of the administration and the individuals was the theme where security the security interests collided.
At the end of the 1860s decade, after several attempts, the state level happened to provide some assurances for the Orthodox (Romanian and Serb) cultural identity’s survival, although still not as much as the respective ethnic groups/nationalities deemed necessary for a long-term security. Therefore, the Hungarian state policy was constantly viewed as a threat with fluctuant intensity by the non-Hungarian elites. We find an overlapping of a vast majority of the interests. Which could be simplified as: one party’s security was seen as a threat to the another party. This stalemate was kept through the era of the Austria-Hungarian Monarchy, however with some differences in the execution of the Nationality Act and different policies on the local (municipal and communal) levels. On the level of the municipalities, the main question is if practical changes were made in the local authorities’ language usages and policies towards the Serb, Bunjevci, German and other nationalities/national minorities.
Initial funding phase
Since the rise of competing national movements, multinational border areas of empires in Eastern Europe have been increasingly perceived as areas of insecurity since the mid-19th century: Depending on the perspective of the actors involved (authorities, political activists, expert groups), such areas came to be conceptualized as torn by conflict, inadequately administered, endangered by irredentism, and ultimately as a security risk on the front lines of World War I and after World War II.
Since the turn of the century, attempts to resolve these problems in potential conflict areas have increasingly included attempts to legalize conflicts and negotiate settlements, in addition to police and military approaches focused on control and security. The subproject aims to reveal how such discourses on legalization interacted with already established or customary procedures and practices of balancing interests at the local level, which were based equally on legal concepts and legal reality. The legal implementation of security concepts is understood as an overall communicative process that takes place at different levels (national, regional, local) and involves specific groups of actors. The focus is therefore on the intertwining perspectives between the security concepts of the state, majority and minority representatives, parties, and the media. The project also examines the conditions under which and the manner in which external legal concepts (i.e., solutions formulated by national administrations and parties, political and social forces in neighboring states, or international bodies) were received.
The subproject worked on in the first funding phase consists of two subprojects that focus on part of the eastern territories of the Second Polish Republic and Czechoslovak Carpathian Ukraine during the interwar period. The first study analyzes the intertwining of security discourses between government and regional policy, specialist science, and media discourses. The second project examines their practical implementation and local repercussions, using case studies from the regions of Pińsk (now Belarus), Stanisławów (now western Ukraine, Ivano-Frankivs'k), and Užhorod (now western Ukraine, Transcarpathia).
Since the turn of the century, attempts to resolve these problems in potential conflict areas have increasingly included attempts to legalize conflicts and negotiate settlements, in addition to police and military approaches focused on control and security. The subproject aims to reveal how such discourses on legalization interacted with already established or customary procedures and practices of balancing interests at the local level, which were based equally on legal concepts and legal reality. The legal implementation of security concepts is understood as an overall communicative process that takes place at different levels (national, regional, local) and involves specific groups of actors. The focus is therefore on the intertwining perspectives between the security concepts of the state, majority and minority representatives, parties, and the media. The project also examines the conditions under which and the manner in which external legal concepts (i.e., solutions formulated by national administrations and parties, political and social forces in neighboring states, or international bodies) were received.
The subproject worked on in the first funding phase consists of two subprojects that focus on part of the eastern territories of the Second Polish Republic and Czechoslovak Carpathian Ukraine during the interwar period. The first study analyzes the intertwining of security discourses between government and regional policy, specialist science, and media discourses. The second project examines their practical implementation and local repercussions, using case studies from the regions of Pińsk (now Belarus), Stanisławów (now western Ukraine, Ivano-Frankivs'k), and Užhorod (now western Ukraine, Transcarpathia).
Projects in the initial funding phase
Sebastian Ramisch-Paul: Foreign Periphery – Periphery of Uncertainty? Security Discourses on the Czechoslovak Province of Podkarpatská Rus (1918–1938), Studies on East Central European Research 53, Marburg 2021. Verlag Herder-Institut, CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
Foreign periphery – periphery of uncertainty? Podkarpatská Rus from the perspective of central government actors (1918–38/39)
Editor: Sebastian Ramisch-Paul M.A.
The first subproject will examine the extent to which state and non-state actors and groups of actors in Czechoslovakia in the interwar period engaged in discourse at the central state level with Podkarpatská Rus as the easternmost periphery of the state from the perspective of security concepts, and how these discourses were intertwined. The selected area is a territory that the Czechoslovak state had appropriated after the First World War in the course of military conflicts and whose domestic and foreign policy situation was considered precarious. This border area, described by the center as backward and with a population that was considered largely disloyal, was perceived as potentially conflict-prone. This part of the country was also subject to irredentist and revisionist tendencies, which posed an existential security problem for the state as a whole and were addressed by the central government with various courses of action.
The aim of this subproject is to use the methodological approach of securitization employed in the SFB “Dynamics of Security” to examine how these security issues were perceived, discussed, and addressed through political action from the perspective of the central government. In doing so, the project draws on the knowledge of security elites (historians, lawyers, ethnologists, etc.), whose impact on government policy in Prague will be taken into account, as will the influence of media discourse, assuming an intertwining of media and academic debates and an overlap of actors and actor groups.
Local security between discourse and practice. Rights of minorities and majorities: Stanisławów, Pińsk, and Užhorod, 1919–1938
Editor: Felix Heinert M.A.
The subproject examines security discourses with regard to their practical implementation and local repercussions. This regional study focuses on medium-sized towns in the eastern border areas of the Second Polish Republic and Carpathian Ukraine, which assumed (various) central functions through their administrative role and were therefore also places of (sub)regional jurisdiction, policy-making, and administration. During the period under investigation, these towns formed part of the eastern peripheries of Poland and Czechoslovakia. In general, the subproject aims to analyze the intertwining of discourses on the legal status of “minorities” and practices of securitization and desecuritization. The subproject understands the legal implementation of security concepts as an overall communicative process that also involves specific groups of actors at different levels (national, regional, local). Against this background, the subproject examines the security and threat concepts associated with local group constellations and the corresponding discourses and practices of legalization. It also analyzes the constellations in which traditional practices of balancing interests have been maintained in the local context and the conditions under which external legal concepts have been received and in what ways. In this respect, the project is particularly interested in local actors and local representatives of the state. The working hypothesis is that it was here, and not at the “abstract” central government level, that the success and failure of state security practices and civilizing missions were decided.
In Poland in particular – and here again in Eastern Galicia and towards Jews in the 1930s – the legislative state sometimes acted repressively towards minorities, in some cases using considerable force. This scenario, which is familiar from previous research and memoirs, should be examined on the basis of bottom-up processes and, if necessary, reevaluated. At the local level, beyond the major arenas of conflict and discourse, a working hypothesis suggests that more differentiated findings and negotiation grammars can be expected.
Based on the case studies, the food market in particular, among other examples, should be examined as a site of intense interaction and communication in order to focus on corresponding negotiations, conflicts, legalization, and securitization discourses and practices, whereby questions of taxation, regulation, and the place of intense interaction and communication in order to focus on corresponding negotiations, conflicts, discourses and practices of legalization and securitization, whereby issues such as tax collection, hygiene, religious and other differences (Sunday rest, regulations for Jews, ritual slaughter/slaughter, etc.) and violence should also be negotiated.
The subproject examines security discourses with regard to their practical implementation and local repercussions. This regional study focuses on medium-sized towns in the eastern border areas of the Second Polish Republic and Carpathian Ukraine, which assumed (various) central functions through their administrative role and were therefore also places of (sub)regional jurisdiction, policy-making, and administration. During the period under investigation, these towns formed part of the eastern peripheries of Poland and Czechoslovakia. In general, the subproject aims to analyze the intertwining of discourses on the legal status of “minorities” and practices of securitization and desecuritization. The subproject understands the legal implementation of security concepts as an overall communicative process that also involves specific groups of actors at different levels (national, regional, local). Against this background, the subproject examines the security and threat concepts associated with local group constellations and the corresponding discourses and practices of legalization. It also analyzes the constellations in which traditional practices of balancing interests have been maintained in the local context and the conditions under which external legal concepts have been received and in what ways. In this respect, the project is particularly interested in local actors and local representatives of the state. The working hypothesis is that it was here, and not at the “abstract” central government level, that the success and failure of state security practices and civilizing missions were decided.
In Poland in particular – and here again in Eastern Galicia and towards Jews in the 1930s – the legislative state sometimes acted repressively towards minorities, in some cases using considerable force. This scenario, which is familiar from previous research and memoirs, should be examined on the basis of bottom-up processes and, if necessary, reevaluated. At the local level, beyond the major arenas of conflict and discourse, a working hypothesis suggests that more differentiated findings and negotiation grammars can be expected.
Based on the case studies, the food market in particular, among other examples, should be examined as a site of intense interaction and communication in order to focus on corresponding negotiations, conflicts, legalization, and securitization discourses and practices, whereby questions of taxation, regulation, and the place of intense interaction and communication in order to focus on corresponding negotiations, conflicts, discourses and practices of legalization and securitization, whereby issues such as tax collection, hygiene, religious and other differences (Sunday rest, regulations for Jews, ritual slaughter/slaughter, etc.) and violence should also be negotiated.