Egy politikai diktatúra társadalmi korlátai. Jelenkortörténeti kutatások az NDK-ról
Social Limits of a Political Dictatorship. Contemporary Historical Analyses of the GDR

Summary/Abstract: The author first presents the most extensive works on GDR history by selecting from the body of works in social and political history then informs on some results of the research of rural society. His most important questions are the following: How and among which framework did the elaboration of GDR history start? What kind of theoretical knowledge, methods and sources were chosen to approach East German past? The former GDR system can generally be understood as a modern provident dictatorship in which political power faced social limits. These limits are clearly distiguishable in rural life worlds. All research approaches emphasise the prominence of the results of Alltagsgeschichte (history of everyday life). According to the author’s opinion, high-standard historical works in Germany successfully present contemporary history as history. The fact that the number of analyses that secure room for philosophising and theoretical discussions, or more accurately: for possibilities of interpretation has become impossible to survey points to a continuous demand on differentiation. Beyond methodological and theoretical concerns, the author regards the fact that it was exactly in writing of contemporary history that political and social history were connected, as most instructive, even if this sometimes resulted in traditional approaches that heavily relied on structural and economic history or concentrated on demographic change were pushed into the background. Although the importance of these researches cannot the questioned, a way of seeing and describing “from the inside” or “from below” might better serve new challenges of history writing.

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