Caesura (history)

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In historical studies, a caesura denotes a marked cut, i.e. the boundary between two epochs .

At other levels of historical development, noticeable cuts caused by events that noticeably influenced further development are also called caesura. For example, one speaks of a turning point in the history of the city, in a company's history or a turning point in a person's career.

Caesuras are always subsequent constructs, since the significance of events that may have appeared revolutionary to contemporaries often appear less drastic in retrospect. The historian Martin Sabrow differentiates between subsequent interpretative caesura and contemporary experience or order caesura. Both could well be in tension with one another.

Examples

Examples of turning points for modern society are the October Revolution in  1917 and the end of the First World War in  1918, the end of the Second World War in  1945, the atomic bombs being dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in  1945, the turning point in 1989 in the GDR , which led to German reunification. It is controversial whether the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 also represented a turning point.

An example in antiquity was Sulla's dictatorship from 82 BC. Further examples of turning points in modern times are the end of the Thirty Years' War in  1648, the French Revolution in  1789 or the Congress of Vienna in  1815, which led to the reorganization of Europe after the Napoleonic era.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Manfred Berg : September 11, 2001 - a historic turning point? . In: Zeithistorische Forschungen / Studies in Contemporary History , online edition, 8 (2011), issue 3, p. 463 (accessed on December 23, 2019).
  2. ↑ Martin Sabrow: Caesuras in Contemporary History , Version: 1.0. In: Docupedia-Zeitgeschichte , June 3, 2013, accessed December 23, 2019.
  3. ↑ Manfred Berg: September 11, 2001 - a historic turning point? . In: Zeithistorische Forschungen | Zeithistorische Forschungen / Studies in Contemporary History , online edition, 8 (2011), issue 3, p. 463 (accessed December 23, 2019).