East Prussia and the Revolution of 1848

Because German historiography long derided 1848 as “das tolle Jahr,” studies of the impact of this crucial period on Prussia's eastern provinces have been relatively scanty. Professional historians, as well as the amateurs and antiquarians who wrote local history, preferred to treat revered and...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Central European history 1980-12, Vol.13 (4), p.303-331
Main Author: Orr, William J.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Cities
City politics
Government
Liberalism
Monarchy
Parliaments
Peasant class
Political revolutions
Towns
Workforce
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Because German historiography long derided 1848 as “das tolle Jahr,” studies of the impact of this crucial period on Prussia's eastern provinces have been relatively scanty. Professional historians, as well as the amateurs and antiquarians who wrote local history, preferred to treat revered and glamorous epochs like the Reformation, the deeds of the most famous Hohenzollern kings, the Wars of Liberation, or the like rather than events which in retrospect were deplored as one of the more shameful episodes of national history. This neglect, to be sure, has been rectified somewhat since the Second World War after the democratization of West Germany and the socialization of the East lent new interest and respectability to the Revolution of 1848. Then too, the loss of much of the old Prussian heartland to Poland has resulted in a number of often valuable studies of this region by Polish scholars who, however, have for understandable reasons tended to focus rather heavily on nationality problems.
ISSN:0008-9389
1569-1616
DOI:10.1017/S0008938900009900