Ester Nelly Abuter Ananías - Fachbereich Philosophie und ...

Robert Nelson ( University of Windsor, History, Canada )
Seeing Poland in Manitoba : Max Sering, Inner Colonization, and the Journey of
a Concept
In 1883 the young agrarian scientist Max Sering was sent by the Prussian government
on a six month research trip to North America to discover why farming there was
so effi cient, and additionally what was so att ractive that thousands of Germans
continued to emigrate from the Eastern reaches of the German Empire and sett le
in the American Midwest and the Canadian Prairies. Aft er studying farming and
sett ling techniques, and especially the results of the American Homestead Act of 1862,
Sering claimed that, while standing in the Great Plains of North America, he saw
Germany’s future in Eastern Europe. Upon his return home his ideas were received
with great interest and in 1886 Chancellor Bismarck began the Prussian program of
inner colonization, the buying of Polish land and providing it to incoming German
colonists. Th e slow transformation of Eastern Europe into a German colonial empire
had begun. Inner colonization is sett lement colonialism within a nation’s borders,
usually at the edge, the borderlands. Such colonization is oft en a project of nation
building and is used either to claim ‘empty’ land for the metropole, or to att empt to
outnumber those living in the disputed region who are not members of the national
community. Th e practitioners of inner colonization saw this project as directly linked
to, and a part of, worldwide overseas colonization, and there existed a global transfer
of knowledge among ‘inner colonizers’, with specialists in England, the u sa, Russia
and Germany all exchanging ideas as to how best to sett le farmers and strengthen the
nation.
Email rnelson@uwindsor.ca
Section Travel and Science : Measuring, Collecting, Imagining the World
Panel 19
Date July 28
Time 15 :00
Location k l 29/111