1. Home
  2. Issues
2020
No. Nr (13), Oral History - Emotions 2019
No. (12), Public History 2018
No. (11), Cultural History of Knowledge 2017
No. (10), Anthropology – Folklore – History 2016
No. (9), Cultural Heritage 2015
No. (8), Anthropology and History 2014
No. 1 (6), Semiotics of History No. 2 (7), History and Gender 2013
No. 1 (4), On Representation No. 2 (5), Genealogies of Culture 2012
No. 2 (3), Readings of the Past No. 1 (2), Anthropology / history of the Contemporary World 2011
No. 1-2 (1), Preliminaries
ISSN 2084–1418
The paper edition of the Anthropology of History Yearbook is the definitive version

2014, No. 2 (7), History and Gender

Marcin Jarząbek
“Insulting the state”, or everyday reality before the court: a micro-historical view on the Silesian identity of the 1930s

PDF version
Keywords: Upper Silesia in the 20th century, micro-history, everyday life, identity, state

Abstract:
The article discusses the subject of the identity of the inhabitants of Polish Upper Silesia from the perspective of micro-history and the history of everyday. By analysing selected court files concerning contempt of the state and Polish nation from the 1930s in the city of Katowice, I show how everyday life at the time was undergoing nationalisation and politicisation. In the face of the rivalry between Polish and German nationalism, family and neighbourly disputes may be interpreted in national categories, and the feeling of bitterness caused by living conditions may be treated as contempt of the state. The identity and political interpretation of seemingly unrelated cases becomes a tool in the hands of the Polish authorities, but the Upper Silesians themselves also use it for their own purposes.

About Author:
JARZĄBEK MARCIN – historian, Assistant Professor in the Institute of History of the Jagiellonian University.

References
Go back