Die „innere Kolonisation“ in den preußischen Ostprovinzen um 1900 als Muster für die ostmitteleuropäischen Landreformen nach dem Ersten Weltkrieg? Plädoyer für eine transnationale Perspektive auf ein konstitutives Element der Nationalstaatsbildung

• Authors: Uwe Müller

Title variants

EN

Th e “inner colonization” in the eastern provinces of Prussia around 1900 as a model for the East-Central European land reforms after the First World War? Plea for a transnational perspective on a constitutive element of nation-building

• Languages of publication: DE

Abstracts

EN

Comparing Prussian settlement policies and the founding of “Rentengüter” by inner colonization around 1900 with the East-Central European land reforms of the interwar period initially exposes very diverse motivational structures behind both cases, which thus resulted in interactions for social, economic and political reasons with demographic and nationalist aims. In both cases, the perception of a social crisis endangering the system’s stability and the proclamation of “national interests” by the reforms’ protagonists played – albeit in diff erent ways – a crucial role in overcoming the resistance of the landowners as well as the restraint of the economic and educational elites against such a massive intervention in property rights. Th erefore, we could assume that – in addition to the unstable situation of the post-war period – long past experiences with settlement projects and/or the perception of such projects have had an infl uence on the design and implementation of land reforms. Even before the First World War, the Prussian-German inner colonization was not the only attempt to strengthen the rural middle class by parcelling large estates in Central Europe. However, it was a relatively early, relatively systematic and – from a socio-political and agricultural point of view – even relatively successful attempt. One could say that the opposing forces (Prussia/Germany and Poland) learned and copied from one another – a pattern well known from research on nationalism. But the German inner colonization had an important role model outside the German-Polish nationality struggle, too. Additional historical research about the details of this cultural transfer is certainly needed. Just for the explanation of the diff erent conceptions of East Central European land reforms, it would be important to learn more about the resonance of the Prussian settlement policy, of the debates on grain selfsufficiency or of the discussion about Germany as an agricultural or industrial state in diff erent parts of the Habsburg monarchy. Th is is especially true for the theorists and practitioners of the land reform movement in the Habsburg monarchy successor states. The adoption of these concepts certainly did not advance by only reading newspapers and books. German universities were important places of study, research facilities for national-economists and the political sciences, there were international agricultural conferences and cooperative associations. Th erefore, a transnational history of land reforms as a central element of the agrarianist ideology and politics is an important task for further historiographical research.

Keywords

EN

land reforms; colonization; agricultural policy; transnational history; East Central Europe

Discipline

• HISTORY: HISTORY

• Publisher: Masaryk's Institute and Archives, ASCR
• Journal: Střed. Časopis pro mezioborová studia Střední Evropy 19. a 20. století. / Centre. Journal for Interdisciplinary Studies of Central Europe in the 19th and 20th Centuries.
• Year: 2014
• Volume: 6
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 9-29

Contributors

author

Uwe Müller

• Masarykův ústav a Archiv AV ČR, v. v. i., Gabčíkova 2362/10, Praha 8, 182 00, Czech Republic