Barefoot historian
A hobby historian who is not scientifically trained is called a barefoot historian.
activity
In addition to the established historians, people all over Germany volunteer (mostly without academic training) to deal with the history of their hometown or related topics. The results of this work are often published in writings, books and on the Internet. They are also recognized by professional historians and used for academic work when necessary.
An increased occurrence of these "laypeople" was recorded as a result of the cultural and political changes of the 1968 movement . Due to a lack of preoccupation with National Socialism in German historical studies , many people began to investigate their family environment or the history of their neighborhood. Up to now completely neglected topics came to the fore. If academic history, albeit hesitantly, examined the bourgeois resistance to the Nazi regime, other aspects quickly came to the fore due to the research fields of barefoot historians, for example resistance from the labor movement . Barefoot historians were thus able to contribute to the development of history from below .
People who are not scientifically trained as historians can certainly work in professional research. One example is the mathematician and GDR civil rights activist Thomas Klein , who worked at the Center for Contemporary History Research until the end of 2009 and held teaching positions at the University of Potsdam .
Concept development
The term barefoot historian was first used in the 1980s. The name is based on the partly non-scientific and unconventional methods of the participating scientists and lay people. It was used in the German press as early as 1984.
In the 1980s, so-called history workshops were also set up in Germany , in which such historically interested laypeople often dealt with local history. This happened on a level that differed from that of university historical research. The focus was the story from below , an area that had not been adequately dealt with until then. This movement made a political-emancipatory claim with a focus away from political history and towards everyday history of the broader population, without tying into the already established economic and social history.
In 1989 , the Essen historian Ernst Schmidt , who died in December 2009 , called on all those interested in history in Essen for a constant exchange of views. Here he used the word “barefoot historian” as a loving synonym for cooperation between laypeople and professionals.
Similar terms
Similarities can be found in the term barefoot doctor , which is known from Maoist China. These people filled gaps in the country's medical care without having received relevant training.
Analogous correspondences with regard to the facts can be found in the terms history from below , citizen science , history workshop and local researcher .
Individual evidence
- ↑ cf. Krijn Thijs, Three stories, one city: the Berlin city anniversaries in 1937 and 1987, Cologne, Weimar 2008, p. 113 at google books
- ↑ a b Felix Philipp Lutz: Historical Consciousness. In: Werner Weidenfeld, Karl-Rudolf Korte (ed.): Handbook on German Unity. 1949-1989-1999. Campus Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1999, ISBN 3-593-36240-6 , pp. 392-402, here: p. 399.
- ↑ Volker Ullrich : Traces in everyday life. “Barefoot historians” - where they come from and what they want. In: Die Zeit (45) of November 2, 1984
