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Résultats 3 ressources
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The fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 allowed the Cold War historiography to renew itself: social and cultural dimensions are acknowledged and the outlook on the cultural material emanating from USSR can be analyzed with more scientific objectivity and an appeased perspective. In 1967, a new magazine appeared in many Western cities: the Sputnik Digest. Its name referred both to the Soviet satellite that fascinated the world ten years earlier and the Reader’s Digest, the famous American magazine specialized in content aggregating, the most read and sold internationally at the time. The Sputnik Digest, published on a monthly basis, even though looking similar to its American counterpart at first sight, contained texts directly extracted from official Soviet newspapers in USSR. Without doubt a propaganda tool, like its American counterpart, the magazine however offered a fresh insight of the USSR during the Cold War: from the Sputnik Digest point of view, the Soviet Union was a peaceful country, culturally rich and a great place to live in. The magazine prioritized the valorisation of the USSR as opposed to criticizing the capitalist Western powers and the United States. From that standpoint it radically diverged from the aggressive ideological tone of the Reader’s Digest. This master’s thesis, through this new perspective, will study the Sputnik Digest as a historical and cultural object between the years 1968 and 1988. By looking both at its format and content, it will examine the origins of this monthly journal, its targeted readership and the most covered themes, revealing the message of Soviet peace and goodwill that the magazine tried to spread worldwide during the Cold War.
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This master’s thesis analyzes the dynamics between the German Democratic Republic and its citizens through complaint letters that East Germans sent to the State between 1953 and 1967 regarding housing problems. It argues that the complainants adopted “socialist values” throughout their discourses as a way of justifying the legitimacy of their complaints. In other words, they used the discourse and principles of the state against it in order to demand action and a resolution to their problems or concerns. This thesis not only highlight these various strategies, utilizing a “history from below” approach, but it also investigates the state’s reaction to the complaints of its citizens. It argues that the state responded overall better in the 1960s as it did in the 1950s, showing evolution in the relationship between state and society as well as a shift in the state’s way to understand socialism. By the 1960s the East German government had had time to slowly adapt its domestic politics towards the population’s needs. The analysis of these letters is at the crossroads of two methods: First I employ a discursive analysis that allows me to identify the recurring strategies by which the state and its citizens sought to influence each other. Second, I use a statistical analysis of the State’s responses coupled with an examination of domestic politics that allows me to capture the changing attitude of the government towards its population.
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Ab Herbst 1944 wurden schätzungsweise 12 Millionen Deutsche aus den östlichen Provinzen des Reiches oder aus verschiedenen zentral- und osteuropäischen Ländern Flüchtlinge oder Vertriebene. Dennoch fand die Behandlung dieser Personen nach ihrer Ankunft in den Westzonen in der Historiographie außerhalb Deutschlands bisher kaum Beachtung. Anhand der Untersuchung eines Flüchtlingslagers im oberfränkischen Bamberg, widmet sich diese Masterarbeit dem Ziel, die verschiedenen Gruppen innerhalb der Flüchtlingsbevölkerung zu identifizieren und die komplexen Entscheidungsprozesse der Stadt, der Diözese und der deutschen Hilfsorganisationen bezüglich der Integration der Neuankömmlinge zu analysieren. Vor dem Hintergrund der prekären Wohnungsnot, dem Fehlen von Basisgütern und der Politisierung der humanitären Hilfen, hebt diese Studie die Unterschiede, sowie die Bevorzugung einzelner Flüchtlingsgruppen zum Nachteil anderer hervor. Diese Arbeit widmet sich in besonderem Maße der Geschlechter- und Sozialgeschichte, um die in der traditionellen Geschichtsschreibung häufig vernachlässigten historischen Analysekategorien miteinzubeziehen. Weiterhin liegt der Fokus auf den deutschen Nachkriegsdebatten zur Entwicklung einer neuen Ordnung von Politik, Ökonomie, Gesellschaft und Geschlecht. Ich werde daher versuchen, im Kontext der aufkommenden Viktimisierung im Zuge der Gestaltung einer westdeutschen Identität und Erinnerungskultur, zu verstehen wie und warum manche Gruppen eher Zugang zu Nahrung, Wohnraum, Arbeit und medizinischer Versorgung erhielten als andere.