“They Are of Slavic Origin”: The Slavic Mythologem in the History of One German Urban Community

DOI: 10.33876/2311-0546/2023-3/229-247

Abstract

The historiography of interactions between Slavs and Germans in the Middle Ages is enormous and complicated, first of all because this period is far distant in time from those who study it. Northern Bavaria was one of the German regions where Slavic tribes in the Middle Ages lived.  On the example of one Slavic mythologeme in relation to the Franconian city of Bamberg, I sought to show how the Slavic past of the territory was instrumentalized in 20^th century and how members of one specific professional group in Bamberg use it to construct boundaries around their group. In the late 20th – early 21st centuries, the “Slavicity” of Bamberg like other former Slavic territories of modern Germany seems to be manifested in the “imagined Slavs”, known only from written sources, fragmentary archeological finds, folklore, scientific constructions and interpretations from different historical ages.  Even after the paradigm change in historical and ethnological disciplines, the ancient Slavs remain a part of Bamberg's social memory within the boundaries of a small professional group. Together with the very image of Slavs, the urban collective memory includes the vicissitudes of historical interpretations of the Slavic past as a result of the transfer of scientific knowledge into popular culture through politics and propaganda.