Imagined Noncommunities: National Indifference as a Category of Analysis

Since the birth of mass political movements, European nationalists have lamented the failure of their constituents to respond to the siren song of national awakening. This article explores the potential of national indifference as a category of analysis in the history of modern central and eastern Europe. Tara Zahra defines indifference, explores how forms of national indifference changed over time, probes the methodological challenges associated with historicizing indifference, and examines the intersections between national indifference and transnational history. Making indifference visible enables historians to better understand the limits of nationalization and thereby helps to challenge the nationalist narratives and categories that have traditionally dominated the historiography of eastern Europe.

[1]  Daniel Rodrigues.  Alsace to the Alsatians? Visions and Divisions of Alsatian Regionalism, 1870–1939 by Christopher J. Fischer , 2011 .

[2]  Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius.  The German Myth of the East , 2009 .

[3]  Tara Zahra.  Lost Children: Displacement, Family, and Nation in Postwar Europe* , 2009, The Journal of modern history.

[4]  O. Bartov.  Eastern Europe as the Site of Genocide , 2008, The Journal of modern history.

[5]  Tara Zahra.  The ‘Minority Problem’ and National Classification in the French and Czechoslovak Borderlands , 2008, Contemporary European History.

[6]  Theodora K. Dragostinova.  Speaking National: Nationalizing the Greeks of Bulgaria, 1900-1939 , 2008, Slavic Review: Interdisciplinary Quarterly of Russian, Eurasian, and East European Studies.

[7]  S. Fitzpatrick.  REVISIONISM IN SOVIET HISTORY , 2007 .

[8]  Pamela Ballinger.  Borders of the Nation, Borders of Citizenship: Italian Repatriation and the Redefinition of National Identity after World War II , 2007, Comparative Studies in Society and History.

[9]  Atina Grossmann.  Jews, Germans, and Allies : close encounters in occupied Germany , 2007 .

[10]  P. Seed,et al.  AHR Conversation: On Transnational History , 2006 .

[11]  J. Daughton.  An Empire Divided , 2006 .

[12]  E. Bakke.  The Making of Czechoslovakism in the First Czechoslovak Republic , 2006 .

[13]  G. Eley.  A crooked line , 2005 .

[14]  P. Clavin.  Defining Transnationalism , 2005, Contemporary European History.

[15]  S. Berger.  A Return to the National Paradigm? National History Writing in Germany, Italy, France, and Britain from 1945 to the Present* , 2005 .

[16]  U. Frevert.  Europeanizing Germany's Twentieth Century , 2005 .

[17]  Michael J. Zeps.  Absolute Destruction: Military Culture and the Practices of War in Imperial Germany , 2005 .

[18]  Tara Zahra.  Looking East: East Central European “Borderlands” in German History and Historiography , 2005 .

[19]  Philipp Ther.  Beyond the Nation: The Relational Basis of a Comparative History of Germany and Europe , 2003, Central European History.

[20]  Jürgen Kocka.  COMPARISON AND BEYOND , 2003 .

[21]  D. Schumann,et al.  Life after Death: Approaches to a Cultural and Social History of Europe During the 1940s and 1950s , 2003 .

[22]  T. Bender.  Rethinking American history in a global age , 2002 .

[23]  Terry Martin.  The Affirmative Action Empire: Nations and Nationalism in the Soviet Union, 1923-1939 , 2001 .

[24]  Thomas Siemon.  Robert Gellately, Backing Hitler. Consent and Coercion in Nazi Germany , 2001 .

[25]  Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius.  War Land on the Eastern Front: Culture, National Identity, and German Occupation in World War I , 2000 .

[26]  Laird Boswell.  From Liberation to Purge Trials in the "Mythic Provinces": Recasting French Identities in Alsace and Lorraine, 1918-1920 , 2000 .

[27]  C. Applegate.  A Europe of Regions: Reflections on the Historiography of Sub-National Places in Modern Times , 1999 .

[28]  M. Espagne.  Transferts culturels franco-allemands , 1999 .

[29]  M. Markovič.  The Rise and Fall of Yugoslavia , 1998 .

[30]  P. Lauren.  The evolution of international human rights , 1998 .

[31]  D. Bergen.  The Nazi Concept of 'Volksdeutsche' and the Exacerbation of Anti-Semitism in Eastern Europe, 1939-45 , 1994 .

[32]  Yuri Slezkine,et al.  The USSR as a Communal Apartment, or How a Socialist State Promoted Ethnic Particularism , 1994, Slavic Review.

[33]  S. Witter.  Inside Nazi Germany: conformity, opposition and racism in everyday life , 1988 .

[34]  Czesław Brzoza,et al.  "Vom Zwangsarbeiter zum heimatlosen Ausländer. Die Displaced Persons in Westdeutschland 1945-1951", Wolfgang Jacobmeyer, Göttingen 1985 : [recenzja] / Czesław Brzoza. , 1985 .

[35]  D. K. Lewis.  Anthropology and Colonialism , 1973, Current Anthropology.