Place-names and objectivity in historiography : the case of Silesia in the 19th and 20th centuries
Abstract
On the basis of an introductory analysis of the intimate bond established between territory and the nation/nation-state, the author points out that the main instrument of this bonding is the naming of places in the national language. When writing about the past of an area, deciding to use this or that language to render place-names is not an innocent choice. This is especially true of the 19th and 20th centuries when nationalism became the only globally accepted ideology. Such a choice may amount to repossessing the past of a territory in the interest of this or that nation/nation-state.
Citation
Kamusella , T 2004 , ' Place-names and objectivity in historiography : the case of Silesia in the 19th and 20th centuries ' , Spaces of Identity , vol. 4 , no. 1 , pp. 35-57 . https://doi.org/10.25071/1496-6778.8012
Publication
Spaces of Identity
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
1496-6778Type
Journal article
Rights
Copyright © 2004 by the author. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 Canada (CC BY-NC-ND 2.5 CA) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/ca/).
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