070097 VO Late Modern History (approx. 1800 to approx. 1914) (2011S)

Large parts of modern Europe were devastated by the malicious practice of "ethnic cleansing". At least 30 million people were permanently expelled, deported or contractually removed. The lecture deals with the causes, agents and the realization of ethnic cleansing. The focus will at first rest upon the preconditions of ethnic cleansing since the 19th century, modern nationalism, nation state formation and the deteriorating attitudes towards national minorities. The lecture will then cover all major periods of ethnic cleansing in the 20th century. In the first period between 1912 and the mid 1920s mostly South Eastern Europe was affected. The second period (1938-44) was shaped by the attempts of Nazi Germany and its allies to build a European order based on ethnic boundaries, and "Soviet Ethnic Cleansing". The third period (1944-49) resulted in even more ethnic cleansing in almost all of Central and Eastern Europe and areas ruled by the British Empire (India, Palestine). Towards the end of the semester, the lecture will analyze the ethnic cleansing in former Yugoslavia in the 1990s.