Developing a spatial identity: Upper Franconia in the 19th and 20th centuries’

Thursday, March 28, 2019 - 18:00
Seminar Room, First Floor, Iontas Building, MU North Campus

Speaker:
Professor Dr Martin Ott (Institut für Fränkische Landesgeschichte der Universitäten Bamberg und Bayreuth)

Synopsis:
This paper focuses on how a common identity emerged in a region whose people had little in common before its formation as an administrative district in early 19th century Bavaria. Its newly created denomination ‘Upper Franconia’ – ‘Oberfranken’ – was meant to emphasise a shared heritage in a distant past. In reality, actual 19th and 20th century experiences and challenges, including proximity to threatening borders and structural transformations of the economy, may have done much more to shape Upper Franconian identity up to the present day.