European History Commons^™

De Desciptione Temporum: Revisiting C. S. Lewis' Inaugural Lecture, Jean Bethge Elshtain

Sehnsucht: The C. S. Lewis Journal

A discussion of Lewis's lecture giving a "description of the times," published in C. S. Lewis, They Asked for a Paper: Papers and Addresses (London, 1962). Excerpt: "The third and no doubt most salient point for our contemporary consideration is that the “christening of Europe,” deplored by some (like Gibbon, the “humanistic unbeliever”), seemed a unique, irreversible event. “But we have seen the opposite process,” Lewis writes. To be sure, “the un-christening of Europe in our time is not quite complete; neither was her christening in the Dark Ages,” but it proceeds apace. Consequently, while our “ancestors divided history into …

Piece Of Driftwood, A Riverboat, Or A Nazi Collaborator? Finland In World War Ii, Stephanie Wright

Liberty University Research Week

Graduate

Three Minute Thesis

Torn Between The Creeds Of The Devil: The German-Finnish Co-Belligerency In World War Ii, Stephanie Wright

Liberty University Research Week

Graduate

Textual or Investigative

Women Of War: The Role Of Female Spies In World War Ii's French Resistance, Adaline Nolley

Liberty University Research Week

Undergraduate

Textual or Investigative

Sofia Palaiologina: Matriarch Of The Russian State, Reagan Nelson

Liberty University Research Week

Undergraduate

Textual or Investigative

Knitting Together: The Knitting Army Of The First World War, Virginia Drye

Liberty University Research Week

Undergraduate

Textual or Investigative

Salzburg's Baroque Architecture: A Historical Analysis And Poetic Response, Rebecca Malzer

Honors Projects

Salzburg, Austria is a city full of history. During the Baroque era from about the mid sixteenth century to the end of the eighteenth century, the Prince-Archbishops of Salzburg designed and modeled the city with Rome, Italy in mind. Their loyalty to the Holy Roman Empire and with the Reformation in full swing, these Italian influences helped to build a pro-Roman Catholic style throughout the city. The Prince-Archbishops and their architects demonstrated Salzburg’s loyalty to Rome through the structures of Schloss Mirabell, Schloss Hellbrunn, and the Franziskannerkirche. In addition, these structures make for great inspiration for creative work, to which …

Was Ist (Nicht) Deutsch? Historische Und Aktuelle Versuche "Deutsch" Ex Negativo Zu Definieren, Mark Mckinney Smith

Foreign Languages & Literatures ETDs

In this thesis I explore the question of how a xenophobic ideology could find a receptive audience in 21st Century Germany. Given extensive postwar efforts in Germany to address the Nazi Period, this question is of particular interest. I analyze and compare racist and xenophobic ideologies in four time periods: the Napoleonic Period, the Wilhelmine Period, the National Socialist Period and the contemporary period. Historically, xenophobic ideology is deeply tied to particular social and economic conditions which leads to the following questions: What are the similarities and differences between contemporary xenophobic messaging and that of the three other time periods …

Between Faith And Nation: The Complexities Of Jewish Identity In Interwar Austria, Sarah E. Townsend

Honors College Theses

During the period between the First and Second World Wars, the people of the newly established Austrian Republic faced many changes: the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Habsburg Monarchy, economic hardships during and following the First World War, and the question of German ethnic nationalism and unification with Germany. The question of national identity was relevant to the entire Austrian population and Austrians had to make an important decision about their nationality: Austrian or German? For Austrian Jews, the dilemma was more complicated. Zionism promoted the idea of Jewish statehood and a solely Jewish identity. This thesis explores the …

Graduate, 1st Place: World War I War Front And Home Front: The Correspondence That Brought Them Together, Michelle Thole

2023 Awards for Excellence in Student Research and Creative Activity - Documents

The First World War was the first time American soldiers had participated in a war at a distance from home that did not easily facilitate home furloughs. Although the United States and Europe are physically separated by more than 3,500 miles, the relative distance between American World War I soldiers on the war front and their families on the home front was minor; the correspondence between them mitigated the physical and cognitive distance.

Historians of the First World War have explored soldiers’ contact with their families while in training camps and the US military’s intentional cultivation of a balance between …

3201g: London Cycle Link, Alec M. Gelz

Community Engaged Learning Final Projects

No abstract provided.

Raising The Iron Curtain: Healing Collective Oppression Through Literature, Alisa Chirkova-Holland

Student Works

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, by former gulag prisoner Alexander Solzhenitsyn, is a short novel that entails an ordinary day for a prisoner, Shukhov, in a Siberian gulag. Although the work is a typical skaz, a traditional Russian narrative form, the novel was well-received by Russians at the time of publishing in 1962. This paper will explore the reason for such acclamation, understanding how Solzhenitsyn’s innovations to the skaz allowed readers to connect with their past. The paper also mentions theories such as Traumatic Realism to comprehend how such a bleak novel positively impacted post-Stalinist readers. …

The Troubles On The Brink Of Recurrence: Northern Ireland In A Post-Brexit World, Emma K. Bohner

Student Publications

The Troubles were a difficult and trying time for Northern Ireland beginning in the 1960s. The subsequent decades were filled with turmoil and violence, mainly centered in Belfast amongst the Protestant and Catholic groups. In 1998, peaceful means to ending the Troubles were accomplished through the Good Friday Agreement. The accord established peace primarily through implementing a new power sharing government, ending direct rule by the British, disarming the paramilitary groups and creating a soft border between Ireland and Northern Ireland. The European Union was a critical asset in negotiating terms for peace. The aid of the European Union helped …

Die Deutsche Nationalversammlung Und Weimar: On The Creation Of Democracy In Weimar Germany, Jason Wendling

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

This paper is a historical analysis of the creation of the Weimar Republic, as well as a political analysis of the Weimar Republic’s constitution. In reviewing both Weimar’s history as well as the constitution, I hope to inspire learners to look back to the Weimar Republic, and not focus primarily on the failures that led to the rise of the Nazi Regime, but rather celebrate the successes that the drafters of the constitution were able to achieve. I review the history of the 1918 November Revolution, the history and party programs of the three important parties of the Weimar Republic, …

'The Frank Exchange': A Historical Drama Novella, Ariel Finkle

Senior Honors Projects

I am an avid fan of historical fiction books such as The Royal Diaries. But given the recent popularity of more adult royal drama series like The Great, as well as impostor true crime shows like Inventing Anna, on this project I set out to create a historical fiction drama of my own. While searching for a real-life figure to base my story on, I happened to see a quick footnote at the bottom of an article on Catherine the Great that intrigued me. At the turn of the 18th century, an ordinary young Polish woman named Eva Frank managed …

Bigger Is Better? Re-Evaluating Nato Enlargement In The Post-Cold War Period, Matthew Mccracken

Senior Honors Theses

Since the end of the Cold War, the North Atlantic Treaty Alliance has grown substantially from its pre-1990 boundary between the two Germanys to encompass 15 new members with its border pressing eastward toward the former Soviet states and up to Russia proper. At the same time, East-West relations have sunk from a high point in the 1990s to a new low unseen since the Cold War culminating in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Top-ranking officials on both sides of the Atlantic cautioned successive U.S. administrations against heedlessly seeking to admit new members into NATO for fear that it …

Eu Migration Policy: Analyzing The Coercive Responses Of Transit Countries Within The Eu’S Framework Of Externalization, Emily Swan

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This paper seeks to analyze the intersection between the EU’s increasingly securitized and externalized policies towards migration, and instances of the weaponization of migration on the EU’s external borders. Although scholars have analyzed cases in which states harness migrants as political weapons, depoliticized most depictions apply a moralistic lens that frames these cases as aberrant, decontextualized, and political events. This paper will complicate understandings of the weaponization of migration by analyzing how EU policies of externalization and securitization systematically shape the environment in which it becomes politically advantageous for leaders, such as Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Alexander Lukashenko, to resort …

The Gallant Edith Bratt: J.R.R. Tolkien’S Inspiration By Nancy Bunting And Seamus Hamill-Keays, María Fernández Portaencasa

Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature

No abstract provided.

A Country Torn Asunder: Deliberations Over The Fate Of Post-Wwii Germany, Ziv R. Y. Carmi

Student Publications

This diplomatic history examines the development of Germany’s post-WWII borders. Beginning in 1941, this thesis traces the myriad of proposals and debates about German territory, focusing particularly on the matter of division and dismemberment. This work focuses on two main topics: Allied proposals and counterproposals for a divided Germany and zones of occupation, and the relationship and interactions between the Big Three leaders and powers, focusing on how East-West tensions affected the diplomatic talks.

Blood Cries Out From The Ground: The Einsatzgruppen And The Holocaust In Ukraine, Lauren R. Letizia

Student Publications

After the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, the Wehrmacht occupied much of the western Soviet regions. The Third Reich deployed special killing squads known as the Einsatzgruppen to protect its military and ideological interests. These units were responsible for murdering over two million Jews from 1941 to 1944, primarily through mass shootings. Ukraine was one of the most afflicted countries by this “Holocaust by Bullets.” Because of the efficient genocidal techniques of Einsatzgruppen units operating in the region, one in four Jews who perished in the Holocaust was Ukrainian. The scale on which these killings …