Weber on Serrier, 'Entre Allemagne Et Pologne: Nations Et Identités Frontalières, 1848-1914'

H-German Weber on Serrier, 'Entre Allemagne et Pologne: Nations et identités frontalières, 1848-1914'

Review published on Wednesday, June 1, 2005

Thomas Serrier. Entre Allemagne et Pologne: Nations et identités frontalières, 1848-1914. Paris: Belin, 2002. 351 S. EUR 19.60 (broschiert), ISBN 978-2-7011-3022-4.

Reviewed by Pierre-Frdric Weber (Department of German Studies, Sorbonne University) Published on H-German (June, 2005)

Posen in the Nineteenth Century: National Conflict and

This is the book version of Thomas Serrier's doctoral thesis submitted in 2000 at Paris VIII University, entitled La Prusse polonaise en qute d'identit. Posnanie, Ostmark, Wielkopolska du milieu du XIXme sicle la Premire Guerre mondiale and supervised by Professor Jacques Le Rider.[1]

The place forming the context for Serrier's study is the German-Polish border region of Posen/Poznan after the successive partitions of Poland among its three neighbors in 1772, 1793, and 1795, finally resulting in the erasure of the Polish kingdom from the map, as Russia would occupy 82 percent, Austria 10 percent, and Prussia the remaining 8 percent of the Polish territory by 1918. This new Prussian territory, which largely corresponded to the former Wielkopolska, was called first Great Duchy of Posnania, then Province of Posen. The main thesis of the book is that the tremendous changes that affected the German-Polish border during the twentieth century cannot be accounted for only by Germany's total defeat in 1945; the return of Poland on the Oder-Neisse boundary has to be seen as the final result of a process rooted in the nineteenth century: with the emergence of modern nationalism on the European continent, the administration of this border region started to be a source of problems and conflict between the Prussian state and its Polish citizens.

Serrier insists on the fact that until now tackling this problem has often led either to strictly geopolitical analyses (as for example in diplomatic history) or to studies focusing mostly on social and cultural aspects of the German and Polish populations living in this border region (such as socio- demographic explanations or many publications on collective identities). Yet, he claims that in order to understand the whole process, external and internal factors have to be considered together. This position leads him to relate both the construction of national identities and the (mental) representations of the territory at the regional level. He tries to show the evolution of collective identities in the multicultural region of Posen in times of national disruption (p. 19). Besides (and as presented later: between) Germans and Poles, the Jewish community played an important role that also constitutes a particular aspect of Serrier's work.

During his presentation of the selected period (1848-1914), the author justifies his decision to begin in 1848 by the fact that after the revolution, the middle of the nineteenth century marks the moment when, under the pressure of a slow democratization and the extension of the state's territory, the relations between "homeland" (which Serrier calls "petite patrie" to account for the specifically German "Heimat") and "fatherland" ("grande patrie"/"Vaterland") were modified and had to be

Citation: H-Net Reviews. Weber on Serrier, 'Entre Allemagne et Pologne: Nations et identités frontalières, 1848-1914'. H-German. 09-30-2014. https://networks.h-net.org/node/35008/reviews/44221/weber-serrier-entre-allemagne-et-pologne-nations-et-identit%C3%A9s Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. 1 H-German reconsidered. Another reason behind the national conflict was a geopolitical one. While Prussia expanded along a west-east axis, Poland, before disappearing as a state, developed along the south- north corridor of the Vistula; as both axes intersected, this caused a conflict between two logics, so that Prussia and Poland gradually came to see each other as a threat to their respective reasons of state (p. 121).

The first section of the book presents the policy of the Prussian (and later German) state concerning the administration of the new eastern province mainly populated by Poles (more than 60 percent). Serrier shows that before 1848 it did not aim at germanizing the Polish population, but only tried to have the Poles become loyal Prussian subjects, which implied making Prussian administration bearable and thus led to important social reforms (e.g. in 1816, 1823, 1825, and 1831). To a certain extent, Prussian rule was seen as a path to modernity. After 1848, and even more when Bismarck became chancellor, the Prussian state acted far more aggressively against the Polish element and started both a germanizing policy, through the Kulturkampf (against the Catholic Church as one of the main bearers of Polish identity), and a policy aimed at extending the acreage owned by Germans. The rest of the section analyzes the attitudes and reactions of the different actors: Poles, bearing up against this policy through great efforts to defend and promote their culture (pp. 63-69); Germans, moving from passivity toward a growing support of active Germanization, partly through the openly nationalistic Deutscher Ostmarkenverein, also known as "Hakata" (pp. 78-82); and the Jews who considered the change from a merely Jewish identity to a Jewish-Prussian or Jewish-German one as an improvement of their status among the different national elements present in Central Europe (p. 108).

The second section deals with the peculiar situation of Posen both as a border region and point of contact between Prussia and Russia and as a peripheral Prussian (German) province. Serrier points out, in particular, that the situation depended on Berlin's policy. He also perspicaciously emphasizes the identity complex hiding behind the demographic, religious and national issues at stake in the province of Posen. From German specialists who became alarmed by statistics showing a growth of the Polish population and dramatically appealed for an "internal colonization" by German settlers, to promoters of German culture who attempted to gather examples of famous Germans (especially writers) who had spent some time in Posen, the reader makes a step-by-step discovery of the paradoxes of the official germanizing policy (p. 149). Conscious of their own fragile position as representatives of the ruling national minority in this province, Germans in Posen experienced powerlessness when facing the intractable cross-border "problem" of Polish cultural vitality based upon a historically stronger position in the region. Even the efforts of nationalistic authors contributing to a specific literature of the "Ostmark" were not able to fill the lack of cultural legitimacy characterizing the Prussian/German presence in Posen.[2] Lacking other means, the affirmation of Germanness more and more commonly led to the repression and criticism of the Polish camp (as in the issue of the term "polnische Wirtschaft," discussed on pp. 154-157).

The strategic use of the past in historiography constitutes the tenor of the third section. German historians in Posen mostly concentrated on seeking elements of the German past of the region, so as to enforce the legitimacy of the German presence. Serrier highlights the activities of the Historische Gesellschaft fr die Provinz Posen created for that purpose. Historical research in architecture, folklore, etc. was intended to enable the symbolical appropriation of the territory through history.[3] Attention was paid, primarily, to the study of the Middle Ages, stressing the important role of the

German settlers in those times in the context of the Ostkolonisation. The political implications of this kind of work appeared clearly through the fact that many studies were provided by specialized members of the Prussian administration.

An extension of these reflections finally can be found in the last section, which insists on the role of geographical names. "The power of toponymics revealed itself a growing temptation for the German authority as a mental tool contributing to the appropriation of the Polish province" (p. 278). However, the German names (Inowrazlaw, Lissa, etc.) never came to replace the Polish ones: it was only a juxtaposition, as Germans, Poles and Jews never managed, in any case, to agree on a common toponymy (p. 286).

To sum up, contrary to other German provinces in Poland (like Silesia or Eastern Prussia), the Provinz Posen always remained an uncertain territory. Neither the Prussian nor the German administration managed to (re)create, through their policies, what was structurally and historically lacking in this province, namely, a strong German element. Serrier suggests that in the long run the negation of the Polish identity was unbearable and unsustainable. This denial was close to what psychoanalysts, since Lacan, have been calling "forclusion": the symbolic abolishment of a reality (here, the Polish element) that should have been symbolized. By losing Posen, Germans lost in fact what they never really possessed.

One of the main qualities of this contribution to the history of German-Polish relations is undoubtedly its double perspective. Serrier always tries to focus both on internal and external factors, convincingly showing how they were related and where they led. Last, but not least, the curious reader will appreciate the numerous biographical sketches placing important local actors within context (such as Otto Hoetzsch, Friedrich Ratzel, or Karl Emil Franzos). Though this book supposes solid knowledge of the analyzed period on the reader's part, it may also provide a larger public with valuable information in various fields (including the political role of arts and literature) about this thrilling portion of European history.

Notes

[1]. Among other titles by J. Le Rider:Transnationale Gedchtnisorte in Zentraleuropa (Innsbruck: Studienverlag, 2002); Modernit viennoise et crises de l'identit (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1990); with Fridun Rinner, Les littratures de langue allemande en Europe centrale (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1998); La Mitteleuropa (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1996).

[2]. Returning to the term "Ostmark" in his conclusion, Serrier reminds us that it was "reinvented" in order to build a link with the Middle Ages and particularly to refer to the process of German colonization in Central Europe (p. 290). He speaks about the "mythical eastbound push" of Germany, which refers to the notorious "Drang nach Osten." It is important to note, however, that this expression, though in German, was not invented by Germans, but must have appeared first in panslavistic Russian historiography. See Wolfgang Wippermann, Der deutsche "Drang nach Osten": Ideologie und Wirklichkeit eines politischen Schlagwortes (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1981).

[3]. The appropriation of the past in Central-European interspaces in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries ("Wiedergewonnene Geschichte. Zur Aneignung von Vergangenheit in den Zwischenrumen Mitteleuropas, 19.-20. Jahrhundert") was the theme of a conference organized in Lbeck (October 29-31, 2004) by Christian Pletzing (Academia Baltica, Lbeck), Peter Oliver Loew (Deutsches Polen- Institut, Darmstadt) and Thomas Serrier (Centre Interdisciplinaire de Recherches Centre- Europennes, Sorbonne University-Paris IV).

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Citation: Pierre-Frdric Weber. Review of Serrier, Thomas, Entre Allemagne et Pologne: Nations et identités frontalières, 1848-1914. H-German, H-Net Reviews. June, 2005.URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=10626

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