Displaced Persons as a Stand-Alone Research Topic? Cover Image

Displaced Persons jako samostatné badatelské téma?
Displaced Persons as a Stand-Alone Research Topic?

On Current Issues and Trends in Displaced Persons Research

Author(s): Jana Kasíková
Subject(s): History, Ethnohistory, Political history, Social history, WW II and following years (1940 - 1949), Post-War period (1950 - 1989), History of Communism, Fascism, Nazism and WW II, History of the Holocaust, Cold-War History
Published by: AV ČR - Akademie věd České republiky - Ústav pro soudobé dějiny
Keywords: Displaced Persons;Second World War;Cold War;exile;Jews;Czechoslovakia;Munich;historical conferences

Summary/Abstract: Displaced Persons as a result of the Second World War have been the subject of long-term research, which has gradually developed into a stand-alone discipline. The author reflects on its development, current trends and future prospects. Using the examples of several thematic conferences abroad and the panel discussion at the Congress of Czech Historians in Ústí nad Labem in September 2022, she illustrates the specific areas of interest, the proclaimed challenges of the field, and possible interconnections with other topics. She finds the publishing and popularization activities of scholars studying the issue of displaced persons to be abundant while the occasional claims that Displaced Persons represent a new and still understudied topic sound somewhat contradictory today. According to the author, the main limitation to studying Displaced Persons as a stand-alone topic is that, in pursuit of a deeper understanding of the concept, Displaced Persons are often artificially sought where the category no longer fits and where an interdisciplinary or polythematic approach is preferable.

  • Issue Year: XXX/2023
  • Issue No: 2
  • Page Range: 567-578
  • Page Count: 12
  • Language: Czech