Borderland
Borderland is an umbrella term for several types of border areas between human societies . They can show clear differences in culture or worldview , in the form of state organization or in other aspects that make each other foreign . Societies that live in these rooms are called Frontier Society .
definition
Grenzland (English Frontier ) can be defined as "a special kind of contact situation in which two collectives of different origins and cultural orientations enter into exchange processes in which conflict and cooperation mix in different circumstances". As originally thought by Frederick Jackson Turner , the collectives do not have to be societies that are at different "stages of development". Frontiers can be places of annihilation as well as places of regeneration or both at the same time.
Politically determined border region in Germany
With the establishment of the first German nation-state in 1871, the German Empire as a small German solution , there were not only German- speaking minorities outside the nation-state in the Habsburg monarchy, but also in the areas bordering the Prussian Eastern Marches (see German-Baltic States ) lived or threatened to be dominated by the Prussian Polish residents (see Kulturkampf ). At the same time, some areas of the empire - for example in the area around Posen or in Lusatia - did not have a German-speaking majority of the population.
With the " Pan-German Association " founded in 1891 and the German Ostmarkenverein founded in 1894 , a borderland discussion was continued that had important precursors in Friedrich List , Paul de Lagarde and Constantin Frantz . It aimed to bring together all German-speaking people in a state that, for List, was to be a German-Hungarian empire with borders on the Black Sea, for Lagarde to be called "Germania" and, according to Frantz, to be a Central European federation under German leadership. The first chairman of the Pan-Germans and Reichstag delegates, Ernst Hasse , published a paper in 1895 ( Greater Germany and Central Europe around 1950 ) in which he recommended " border colonization " in the east and southeast as the most suitable form of colonization for the Germans, which he did with his book German border policy (Munich 1906) deepened. When, after the First World War, even more German-speaking minorities lived outside the narrower national borders, the term “Grenzland” learned in the Völkische Movement and in institutions such as the one founded in 1925 by Karl Christian von Loesch together with the popular politician and publicist Max Hildebert Boehm in Berlin. Institute for Border and Foreign Studies ”(IGA) a propaganda upgrade, which then led to the expansionist efforts of National Socialism . Up until 1945 there was talk of “borderland work”, borderland Germanism , “borderland deployment”, “borderland politics”, “borderland research”, (pseudo-) scientific “border institutes” and “borderland universities”.
The Institute for Historical Regional Studies of the Rhineland , IGL, which was created to ward off the Versailles Treaty , even spoke of "borderland distress". 1928–1929 the “Grenzlandforschung” was officially linked to the IGL, whose “Grenzlandnot department” had the task of defining the “purely German” or “Germanic” character of French-conquered or disputed territories such as Alsace-Lorraine , the Saar and the Rhineland but should also work on eastern territories.
In a new sense, the term “borderland” was to be used after the Second World War : until the fall of the “ Iron Curtain ” in 1989, a broad strip of political borderland ran through the middle of Europe (see also: Zonal border area in the Federal Republic of Germany) because the former relations of neighboring countries were largely interrupted. The former " Dead Frontier " has since dissolved.
Bavaria calls the new universities founded in Bamberg and Bayreuth in the vicinity of the Czech Republic "borderland universities ".
The German-speaking residents of Northern Schleswig ( Denmark ) also use the term “Grenzland” when they mean their living space near Germany.
Politically determined border region in Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union
Avi Primor wrote on September 3, 2008 in the Frankfurter Rundschau about the new Russian nationalism :
“Today Moscow's language is reminiscent of the dark ages of absolute nationalism. One speaks of lost territories, of 80 million Russians who have to live outside of Russian borders. So should those 80 million people also belong to Russia? In reality, Russia has not lost any territories, but had to grant independence to the peoples it ruled, just as the Western colonial powers had to give up their colonies .
Also outside of Russia there are not necessarily 80 million Russians to be found. Around 17 million Russian-speaking people live in the former Soviet republics to the south and north-west of Russia, and not all of them necessarily want to be Russian. Many in South Ossetia and Abkhazia take Russian passports for political reasons without being Russian-speaking. "
It should be emphasized, however, that the former colonial powers lost territories overseas that were separate from the motherland, whereas the Russian expansion took place as a continental border colonization in the sense of advancing the "frontier" as in the USA.
Culturally determined borderland
Where a border between companies runs with permanent residence and their nomadic neighbors, often a wide strip of "borderland" is created (Engl. Frontier ).
Large differences and thus conflicting interests between a farming culture and the neighbors who mostly live as hunters and gatherers or from cattle breeding often lead to conflicts . Current examples of this can be found in central Africa (see pastoral or nomadic peoples, Tutsi , etc.).
The more nature- loving “savages” often use guerrilla tactics in the resulting armed conflicts over land and domination , whereby they can withdraw into the impenetrable Maquis , as they are more familiar with the terrain than their opponents. These, in turn, are usually better armed and more numerous. In the long term, more and more land will come into the possession of the arable farmers, and indigenous culture will be pushed back.
"Frontier" in the USA
A typical borderland situation existed on the North American Frontier between 1620 and 1890, in which the indigenous Indian tribes were pushed further and further west from around 1620 (landing of the Pilgrim Fathers ) to 1890 (dissolution of the Indian territory ). The “ Wild West ” began around 1700 near the Atlantic coast ( James Fenimore Cooper's leather stockings are partly set in Pennsylvania ), and around 1800 the settlement boundary was already west of the Mississippi River . In 1890, the American Census Bureau officially declared the frontier era to be over, as the entire land between the two oceans was populated, "civilized", and accessible by roads and railways in a short period of time (a large part of it within just five decades) was; Areas uninhabited by immigrants practically no longer existed outside of the Indian reservations. The frontier experience, the feeling of being on your own and not being able to survive and become successful through the guidance of an authority but only through one's own abilities, has since been considered by many historians to be the most important pillar of the American social system and American democracy alongside puritanism . The vastness of the continent (as recently as 1809, Thomas Jefferson had predicted that the United States would keep the frontier in the west for centuries ) channeled the social tensions: New settlers from Europe found sufficient fertile farmland, and so the country was able to take in millions of immigrants at the same time, driven by pioneering and inventive spirit and the expansion of the railway network, industrialization is being advanced. The emergence of a revolutionary socialist workers' movement was also prevented at the end of the 19th century. The slogan of the Manifest Destiny , coined by President Andrew Jackson , the determination of the American people to subjugate the continent and to bring freedom, progress and civilization to other peoples, has remained a national sense of mission and part of American identity to this day.
With the United States Census 1890 , the director of the US Census Bureau declared that there was no longer a boundary line. The USA is populated everywhere, there are no more open spaces for new land. Soon after the end of free territories in their own country, to which Frederick Jackson Turner responded with his frontier thesis, the United States turned against Spain in the age of imperialism . In 1898 the Spanish-American War broke out over Cuba , Puerto Rico , Guam and the Philippines , where an attempt at liberation against the new colonial power failed in 1899–1902 .
In the 1960 election campaign, John F. Kennedy announced the New Frontier's government program : The New Frontier's goal was to combat poverty, prejudice and war. In addition, the United States, as the most technologically advanced nation in the world, should take up the fight for supremacy in space in the face of the Cold War and Sputnik shock , which is why the young president announced the first moon landing , which became a reality in 1969.
The concept of a borderland between “civilization” and “wilderness”, which was shaped by the American experience, was taken up again in science fiction , where the borderland between inhabited and uninhabited regions of space is referred to as the frontier . Even in real space travel and the urge to colonize new worlds, space is seen as a new frontier , as is cyberspace ( electronic frontier ).
“Pohraničí” in the Czech Republic
In the Czech Republic , the term border area (Czech pohraničí or pohraniční území , pohraniční pásmo ) has been naturalized for the areas formerly populated by German Bohemians and German Moravians , i.e. the former Sudetenland . To this day, this area has to struggle with specific problems such as an economic structure that is particularly subject to structural change, structural weakness, decades of neglect and particularly high population fluctuations and rural exodus.
Another borderland
Similar cultural boundaries have persisted in Australia to this day. The Aborigines were almost completely pushed back, their dealings with nature were even laughed at until a few decades ago - although on the other hand they were extremely welcome guides for many expeditions. Only with a certain degree of autonomy has mutual acceptance increased again. Interest in animistic culture has also been on the rise since then. However, tourism in the central dry countries must be critically examined.
In the intellectual area, too , one sometimes speaks of the "borderland" or of intellectual border crossers .
See also
- Administrative community Grenzland
- Western research , for Germany
- Ostforschung , for Germany
literature
- Matthias Waechter: The Invention of the American West. The history of the Frontier debate. Rombach, Freiburg im Breisgau 1996, ISBN 3-7930-9124-4 .
- Eva-Maria Stolberg: Siberia: Russia's "Wild East". Myth and Social Reality in the 19th and 20th Centuries. Steiner, Stuttgart 2009, ISBN 978-3-515-09248-7 .
- Dominik Nagl: "No Part of the Mother Country, but Distinct Dominions" - Legal Transfer, State Building and Governance in England, Massachusetts and South Carolina, 1630–1769. Lit, Berlin 2013, pp. 17–19, ISBN 978-3-643-11817-2 (At the same time revised version of the dissertation at the Free University of Berlin , = Studies on the History, Politics and Society of North America , Volume 33).
Individual evidence
- ↑ Jürgen Osterhammel: The transformation of the world. A story of the 19th century. CH Beck. 2nd edition of the 2016 special edition. ISBN 978-3-406-61481-1 . P. 513f
- ↑ Jürgen Osterhammel: The transformation of the world. A story of the 19th century. CH Beck. 2nd edition of the 2016 special edition. ISBN 978-3-406-61481-1 . P. 531
- ↑ see below the links under "See also"
- ↑ See Bamberg ( page no longer accessible , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF file; 122 kB) and Bayreuth ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 58 kB).
- ↑ Cf. Wolfgang Reinhard : Brief history of colonialism (= Kröner's pocket edition . Volume 475). Kröner, Stuttgart 1996, ISBN 3-520-47501-4 , p. 155.
- ↑ online, 791 pages
