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Laddar... Forgotten Land: Journeys Among the Ghosts of East Prussia (2011)av Max Egremont
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Gå med i LibraryThing för att få reda på om du skulle tycka om den här boken. Det finns inga diskussioner på LibraryThing om den här boken. Egremont traces the experiences of a moderate sized group of East Prussians across the two 20th Century world wars. The book is a bit scattered - he jumps around between the stories rather than telling them one by one. We get little snippets and then he'll back up and give the story leading up to the snippet, with maybe a few more stories in between. It doesn't get too far out of hand though. Probably the main theme is the contrast between a kind of idyllic memory of folks from East Prussia, versus the brutal realities that are lost with that kind of air brush vision. It reminds me of how plantations in the USA south get romanticized and the cruelty of the slave holding system gets left out. I like learning big history through attention to smaller details. For sure 1914-1945 concerned a lot more than East Prussia, but East Prussia provides a reasonable vantage point from which to look at those events. And it's a pretty interesting area anyway. One tidbit stood out for me - the largest bookstore in Germany was in Konigsburg! Forgotten Land is an account of the history of German East Prussia from its beginnings through its partition and ethnic cleansing to the present day. Now divided between Lithuania, Russia, and Poland, East Prussia is in many ways a place lost to the winds; however, through this book Egremont manages to bring it back to life. Wanting to understand the land and the people who lived there, he travelled to Russian Kaliningrad, to the Lithuanian Memelland, and Polish Masuria as well as to the Königsberg Museum in Duisburg and the East Prussian Museum in Lüneburg. But it is the people he meets and the stories he recounts that truly makes the story shine. Even when it was still an integral part of Germany, East Prussia remained a place apart: still rural and semi-feudal and dominated by the Baltic and the forest. The bread-basket of Germany, it was a major center for trading with the lands to the east and a world apart from Cologne, Munich, or even Berlin. What existed there can never return, but it is good I think that people remember what once was, whether it is the hunting lodge at Rominten, Thomas Mann's seaside cottage at Nidden, or the middle class Königsberg society that produced both Kant and Käthe Kollwitz. A nostalgic history of a land that is no more and yet can be visited to this day. Highly recommended. inga recensioner | lägg till en recension
"Until the end of World War II, East Prussia was the German empire's farthest eastern redoubt, a thriving and beautiful land on the southeastern coast of the Baltic Sea. Now it lives only in history and in myth. Since 1945, the territory has been divided between Poland and Russia, stretching from the border between Russia and Lithuania in the east and south, and through Poland in the west. In Forgotten Land, Max Egremont offers a vivid account of this region and its people through the stories of individuals who were intimately involved in and transformed by its tumultuous history, as well as accounts of his own travels and interviews he conducted along the way. Forgotten Land is a story of historical identity and character, told through intimate portraits of people and places. It is a unique examination of the layers of history, of the changing perceptions and myths of homeland, of virtue and of wickedness, and of how a place can still overwhelm those who left it years before"--Provided by publisher."A history of East Prussia"--Provided by publisher. Inga biblioteksbeskrivningar kunde hittas. |
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Google Books — Laddar... GenrerMelvil Decimal System (DDC)943.8History and Geography Europe Germany and central Europe PolandKlassifikation enligt LCBetygMedelbetyg:
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As you might perhaps expect, he’s particularly interested in great landowning families (like his own), so we get to hear quite a lot about members of the Junker class who helped to enable Hitler’s rise to power and then decided that they didn’t entirely approve of his methods. As well as a few charming British adventurers of eccentric conservative views. There’s a rather token left-wing presence from Käthe Kollwitz, a Jewish musician and a Protestant pastor. But nothing about peasants and industrial workers who must have formed the great majority of the East Prussian population. Interesting as far as it goes, but rather haphazard. ( )