Books by Claudia Christiane Gatzka
(= Beiträge zur Geschichte des Parlamentarismus und der politischen Parteien Bd. 179 / Parlament und Öffentlichkeit Bd. 9), 2019
Wie fanden Deutsche und Italiener nach Krieg und Diktatur einen Draht zur repräsentativen Demokra... more Wie fanden Deutsche und Italiener nach Krieg und Diktatur einen Draht zur repräsentativen Demokratie? Das Buch untersucht diese Frage erstmals aus einer stadtgeschichtlichen Perspektive, die Wähler und Gewählte in direkter Begegnung einfängt. Es rekonstruiert, wie Bürger und Parteien in Zeiten des Kalten Krieges über die Demokratie debattierten, politische Konflikte ausfochten, Nähe zueinander herstellten und Distanzen produzierten. So analysiert es die parlamentarische Demokratie als ein fortwährendes Beziehungsgespräch, dessen Fortune davon abhing, wie ‚Volk‘ und Volksvertreter sich selbst im Wandel der sozialen und medialen Bedingungen entwarfen, und was sie dabei jeweils unter Politik, Demokratie und einer guten Ordnung verstanden.
Articles by Claudia Christiane Gatzka
Public History Weekly 9.3, 2021
Lars Lüdicke (Hg.), Deutsche Demokratiegeschichte. Eine Aufgabe der Vermittlungsarbeit, Berlin: bebra Verlag, pp 31-44, 2021
Die Geschichte der modernen Demokratie ist eine transnationale Geschichte. Beobachtungen und Insp... more Die Geschichte der modernen Demokratie ist eine transnationale Geschichte. Beobachtungen und Inspirationen, Nachahmungen und Weiterentwicklungen, Zirkulationen und Übersetzungen über Grenzen hinweg waren ihr Motor. Und doch war für das deutsche Demokratieverständnis der Blick ins Ausland noch einmal maßgeblicher als für andere Länder. Der folgende Beitrag legt die Ursachen dafür dar und fragt, von einem Standpunkt der akademischen Geschichtsschreibung aus, was der Blick ins Ausland für die gegenwärtige Erforschung und forschungsnahe Vermittlung von Demokratiegeschichte leisten kannund was nicht.
Maurizio Cau/ Christoph Cornelißen (Hg.), I media nei processi elettorali. Modelli ed esperienze tra età moderna e contemporanea, Bologna: Il Mulino, pp 285–305, 2020
European Review of History: Revue européenne d'histoire, 2022
This article analyses electoral politics as a field of citizenship education in a post-fascist de... more This article analyses electoral politics as a field of citizenship education in a post-fascist democracy. Considering the rivalry between Communists and Catholics in Cold War Italy, made famous by the novels of Don Camillo e Peppone, it asks how they competed for the education of voters by approaching them directly through the media and face-to-face communication. It thereby dissects the different notions of democracy that informed their practices, while simultaneously emphasizing the commonalities which emerged from mutual observation and communication between these two ostensibly isolated ‘subcultures’. This look at pedagogical endeavours during election campaigns, which also targeted their own members, reveals how these two camps defined and spread the norms and values that shaped a vital civil society in post-fascist Italy. Driven by a shared sense of mission as moral agents of a new democratic order, Communists and Catholics through their competition established ‘democratic’ values and rules of conduct among their voters. The article also considers the difficulties that arose from this specific relationship between parties and voters as teachers and pupils of democracy.
Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte 38/2020
Moral Iconographies. Bild und Moral in der Moderne, https://moralicons.hypotheses.org/1002, 2019
Archiv für Sozialgeschichte, 2018
in: Marie-Luise Recker/ Andreas Schulz (Hg.), Parlamentarismuskritik und Antiparlamentarismus in Europa, Düsseldorf: Droste 2018, 167-184., 2018
in: Stefano Cavazza/ Filippo Triola (Hg.), Parole sovrane. Comunicazione politica e storia contemporanea in Italia e Germania, Bologna: Il Mulino 2017, 183-205.
in: Informationen zur modernen Stadtgeschichte 2/2016
in: Sonja Levsen/ Cornelius Torp (Hg.), Wo liegt die Bundesrepublik? Vergleichende Perspektiven auf die westdeutsche Geschichte, 1945-1989, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2016, 145-165
Comparativ. Zeitschrift für Globalgeschichte und vergleichende Gesellschaftsforschung 23 (2013) 1, 64-88., 2013
After fascism, Italians and Germans proved themselves enthusiastic voters in the newly establishe... more After fascism, Italians and Germans proved themselves enthusiastic voters in the newly established democratic setting. The article seeks to explain the high voting attendance by concentrating on what voting did mean to ordinary citizens. It investigates the local practices regarding the ballot by focusing on the performative character of voting which reveals notions of the state, the local and the individual, of political parties and political conflict: notions that shaped the specific democratic cultures in Italy and Germany. Reading the voting practices through the lens of these issues, it is argued that the importance of polling in the two post-fascist societies derived from rather different social and political meanings inherent to the act of the vote and deriving from different democratic traditions in Italy and Germany. At the same time, in both countries these meanings helped to establish a democratic tradition that promoted voting attendance as a sign of belonging to the local community of ‘good democrats’.
Jahrbuch für Historische Kommunismusforschung 2015, 95-112, 2015
The article investigates notions of the feminine and the roles of women in the Italian Communist ... more The article investigates notions of the feminine and the roles of women in the Italian Communist subculture within the framework of common gender roles and traditional moral schemes in post-War Italy. It reveals the female comrade as a ‘charming assistant’ of the revolutionary male comrade and emphasizes the functionality of her symbolic value as mother, wife and bella donna for both Communists’ self-understanding as well as their public image as a genuine ‘Italian’ movement.
Furthermore, it argues that the Communists’ social conservativism regarding women’s roles, the sacredness of family and their propensity to the spatial separation of female from male action within the party was a key to success in the search for mass membership after 1945, ensuring that entering the Communist world did not necessarily challenge traditional social habits, attitudes and moralities in everyday life. This was true not only for men: female comrades themselves were deeply rooted in their traditional gender roles.
Jahrbuch für Historische Kommunismusforschung 2012, 145-157., 2012
In the course of its democratic transition toward a party of the masses, the Italian Communists h... more In the course of its democratic transition toward a party of the masses, the Italian Communists had to prove themselves both good comrades and ordinary Italians. The article analyzes this double bind as an integral part of Gramscian and Togliattian thought and discusses its problematic consequences for the idea of a ‘New Man’ which was to be created under Communist auspices. The ideal comrade as a prefiguration of the ‘New Man’ ought to be an authentic part of the masses, showing strong links to the autochthonous traditions of Italian culture, but at the same time needed to act in the realm of intellectual progressiveness and moral superiority. The resultant compromise was a comrade who did not seek to become much different, only to become much better within all his social roles. However, the masses entering the Communist Party – which ensured its strength – forced party officials to accept the moral and intellectual deficiencies of their comrades on the road to proving itself to be an all-Italian party. Hence the post-fascist Communist ideal of a ‘New Man’ as well as the roads to reach him were deeply entangled with Italian traditions and conditions.
in: Ariadne. Forum für Frauen- und Geschlechtergeschichte 61 (2012), 48-53., 2012
Eliza Bertuzzo/ Eszter B. Gantner/ Jörg Niewöhner/ Heike Oevermann (eds.), Kontrolle öffentlicher Räume. Unterstützen, Unterdrücken, Unterhalten, Unterwandern, Berlin u.a.: LIT Verlag 2013, 180-198., 2013
Papers by Claudia Christiane Gatzka
Public history weekly, 2021
Rombach Wissenschaft – ein Verlag in der Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft eBooks, 2023
The American Historical Review, Sep 1, 2021
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Books by Claudia Christiane Gatzka
Articles by Claudia Christiane Gatzka
Furthermore, it argues that the Communists’ social conservativism regarding women’s roles, the sacredness of family and their propensity to the spatial separation of female from male action within the party was a key to success in the search for mass membership after 1945, ensuring that entering the Communist world did not necessarily challenge traditional social habits, attitudes and moralities in everyday life. This was true not only for men: female comrades themselves were deeply rooted in their traditional gender roles.
Papers by Claudia Christiane Gatzka
Furthermore, it argues that the Communists’ social conservativism regarding women’s roles, the sacredness of family and their propensity to the spatial separation of female from male action within the party was a key to success in the search for mass membership after 1945, ensuring that entering the Communist world did not necessarily challenge traditional social habits, attitudes and moralities in everyday life. This was true not only for men: female comrades themselves were deeply rooted in their traditional gender roles.