Practices of Humiliation, Rites of Violence, and Emotional Memory in Modern State- and Nation-Building
The Forced Removal of Germans from Eastern Europe in 1945
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 10155728 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Alexey Tikhomirov (Bielefeld University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2024 |
| Volume | 96 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 362-401 |
| Publication date | 2024-06-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The Journal of Modern History (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0022-2801 • E-ISSN: 1537-5358 |
| Publisher | University of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1086/730014 |
| OpenAlex | W4399986402 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 39 |
This article explores practices of humiliating Germans during their forced removal from Eastern Europe in 1945. Despite decades of historical studies of expulsion and violence in modern states and colonial settings, this area of inquiry has not received much attention. Drawing on ego-documents written by displaced persons and official documents from local contexts, I argue that practices of humiliation directed against Germans became an integral part of the rebirth of nation-states shortly before and just after the end of the war on the Eastern front. Accepting popular rites of violence, including acts of humiliation, enabled the authorities to manage the widespread desire for revenge. This toleration simultaneously allowed ordinary people not only to participate in violence during the liminal phase of the transition from war to peace but also to engage in state- and nation-building from below. The state monopoly on violence was thus consolidated by integrating rites of violence and elements of popular justice—vengeance—into the official jurisdiction and institutional procedures for dealing with Nazi crimes. For East European societies, practices of humiliation directed against a hated enemy were perceived as legitimate justice: they redefined the sacral boundaries of national communities by giving ordinary people the feeling that they were protecting their purity and restoring their damaged honor. To explain the longevity and polycentrism of the European culture of violence, I also address the capacity of “deep” emotional memory to reactivate practices of violence across time and space through internalized rituals
Archaeology · Criminology · Forced migration · Humiliation · Refugee · Sociology · State (computer science) · Communism, Protests, Social Movements · European history and politics · History · Italian Fascism and Post-war Society · Psychology · Social Psychology
Redrawing Nations
Purity and Danger
A People’s History of Riots, Protest and the Law
The Navigation of Feeling
Worrying about Emotions in History
For the Sake of Simple Folk
Faith In Nation
The Work of the Dead
Occupying Power
Ritual in Early Modern Europe
Questioning Dehumanization
Reframing Sexual Violence as a Weapon and Strategy of War
Between Sacrament, Sin and Crime
Gewalt auf der Straße
The Regime of Forced Trust
Defenestration as Ritual Punishment
The Dark Side of Democracy
Early Modern Violence and the Honour Code
Violence and the State in the Twentieth Century
The Rites of Violence
Peitschen im Reichstag oder über den Zusammenhang von materieller und politischer Kultur. Koloniale Debatten um 1900
Are Emotions a Kind of Practice (And Is That What Makes Them Have a History)? A Bourdieuian Approach to Understanding Emotion
The Pure and Disciplined Body
The Moral Economy of the English Crowd in the Eighteenth Century
| Highly cited | No |
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