The Bamberger Myth: The Poznanian Bambergers, the Construction of Nationalism, and the Mythologization of History in Poznania, 1871-1918
Open AccessThis project analyzes the impact of the Poznanian Bambergers on the history of Central Europe and on the development of German nationalist discourse on Poznania. Published in 1882, Max Bär’s Die Bamberger bei Posen simplified and mythologized the history of the Bambergers (Bambrzy in Polish), alleging that elementary education in Polish led to the assimilation of the Bambrzy by Polish nationalism. Through the Bamberger Myth, Bär employed nationalist, imperialist, and liberal arguments to advocate for the necessity of a harsher policy of ‘Germanization’ in Prussia’s eastern provinces. The myth significantly influenced German nationalists writing on Poznania during the fin de siècle, who conjured up the myth to warn of the dangers of the ‘civilizing’ and Germanizing mission in the Prussian East. Their use of the myth underscores the ways that nationalists simplified and molded history in their efforts nationalize people and space. Misrepresenting or misunderstanding the central issues involved in Poznanian Bamberger identity transformation, German nationalists employed the Bamberger Myth to argue for more stringent Germanization, the very policies that had led many Bambrzy to identify with Polish nationalism.German nationalists connected the Bamberger Myth to a wide range of fears and anxieties about Poznania. In response, German nationalists created a vast web of nationalist myth and tropes to argue for the necessity of German hegemony in Central Europe. This process accelerated the development of colonial ideas and policies about Prussia’s eastern provinces and Eastern Europe. Increasingly, German nationalism viewed Poznania as an inner colonial project and the Poznanian Bambergers as Germans who had ‘gone native.’The Bambrzy were nationally indifferent and nationally amphibious for much of the period from 1720-1871, developing nuanced identities that fit their time, place, and circumstances. Beginning in 1871, with the Unification of Germany and the subsequent Kulturkampf, the identity of the German state solidified around an idea of loyalist Protestant German nationalism. As a result, many Bambergers began to identify as Polish, because of the community and support that Polish Catholicism could provide Catholics in the Prussian East.
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