Syllabus
Class 1
Introduction to everyday history: the Alltagsgeschichte School; writing social history, finding the historical sources of everyday life. Professionalization in a historical perspective
Class 2
The emergence of the modern metropolis in Central Eastern Europe, and the growing need for specialists in city life
Class 3
Teachers and pupils at the crossroads of systematization and mass education before the Great War
Class 4
Petty merchants in the Habsburg Monarchy: efforts at professionalization and the challenges of inflation/shortages under the Great War
Class 5
The trends of internal migration and urbanization in the light of the First World War
Class 6
The concierges of apartment buildings in the interwar years: living standards, trade unions, employment issues and the effect of the Wall Street Crash
Class 7
The private life of Central Eastern European butchers and their professional problems
Class 8
Physicians, engineers, lawyers: the "unfree" professions until the Second World War
Class 9
The everyday practice of trust: the interwar world of insurance and banking
Class 10
Concierges and butchers in the attraction of power: social changes in the 1930s and 1940s and the agency of ordinary individuals
Class 11
A side-effect of anti-Jewish legislation: the empowerment of concierges during the Nazi reign in Budapest. Butchers and concierges among the beneficiaries of the Second World War
Class 12
How to survive a political transition? Countering the early post-war retribution: how everyday professionals could survive a change on the macro scale even if they were accomplices in the Nazi crimes
Annotation
The course will introduce students to everyday social history by following the footsteps of professional groups in Central Eastern Europe, such as butchers, concierges, physicians, engineers or lawyers. Through their eyes the course will offer a different version of 20th century history than it is usually thought in the narrative of nation states, political and military leaders.