Syllabus
1. Introduction – society, economy, politics and culture in the twentieth century (sources, methods, approaches).
2. European society in Great Wars: Social transformations in the war time (situation of various social groups), experiences of disrespect and violence (forms of adoption), resistance and collaboration.
3. Social stratification: principles of defining it, social hierarchies and inequalities in twentieth-century Europe – elites, middle class, working classes, rural population – social mobility.
4. Migration, transfers: Transfers of people, goods, ideas, institutions, cultures – forms of interaction and adaptations – examples of the twentieth century: migration.
5. Radical social movements (Fascism and Nazism): roots of the movements, forms of organization, stages in development, forms of dictatorships. Example in historiography: “Der Historikerstreit”.
6. Stalinism as Civilization: social dynamics of repression, urbanization and industrialization, everyday life in Stalinist Russia.
7. Civil society: Conception, relation to state in twentieth-century Europe, political institutions and democratic participation of citizens, media in the modern society.
8. New social movements: Forms of organizations and agency, values and goals, protest groups and collective identities – examples of NSM – students’, ecology, peace, feminist.
9. Consumerism: free time, fashion, sport and recreation, travelling, cultural industry in the twentieth-century Europe.
10. Social consensus in Post-Stalinism and late socialism: Dictatorship as a social practice (adoption of the structures of domination), everyday life in late socialism, erosion of legitimacy of socialist dictatorships.
11. Conclusion – main trends in social history of 20th century Europe.
Annotation
The course offers interpretations of crucial transformations of European societies in the twentieth century, promoting understanding of the order of dictatorship and democracy, the bases of social consent, and the roots of popular discontent. Thus, the course focuses predominantly on social preconditions of the destabilization and stabilization of important political and economic hierarchies in twentieth-century Europe, both West and East, and provides conceptual tools to analyze and explain major shifts and transformations.
In addition to providing general concepts and analytical tools, the course introduces various case studies—stabilization or collapse of socialist dictatorships, old and new social movements, among others—and tries to depict the significance of everyday-life expectations for explaining the major social and political transformations of modern European societies.