Heimatliteratur, the Thirty Years' War, and German Nation Building 1880-1899
In this presentation, Emily Sieg Barthold will discuss how historical fictions of the Thirty Years’ War in the German Kaiserreich addressed the layering of regional, confessional, and national identities. Notably, this research prioritizes historical fiction that doubled as
Heimatliteratur - that is, historical fiction that recounts the legacies of the war within a specific geographic location for a presumably local audience. Contrary to the commonly held interpretation that the Thirty Years’ War was a religious war fought between Protestants and Catholics, most historical fiction from the German Kaiserreich foregrounds the war in starkly national terms: German Protestants and Catholics had to unite to drive French and Swedish armies out of their homeland.
Emily Barthold is completing her dissertation, which is tentatively titled
The Thirty Years’ War as Unifying Heritage? How Fiction Writers in Imperial Germany Portrayed Religion, Machtpolitik, and Nation, at Georgetown University. Through a survey of historical fiction about the Thirty Years’ War from 1871 to 1920, Emily analyzes literary perspectives that complicate standing assumptions about confessional antagonism in Imperial Germany and shed light on the instrumentalization of the legacy of the war in the nation-building project. Emily’s research aims to show how nineteenth century historical fiction was capable of, if not always willing to, reflect on, dissect, and reject overtly religious interpretations of the Thirty Years’ War.
Please RSVP by March 25 to:
americangoethesociety.dc@gmail.com
Co-sponsored by the American Goethe Society of Washington, DC, and the Goethe-Institut Washington.
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