Volunteering in Local Communities between Late Socialism and Liberal Capitalism: The History of Volunteer Fire Departments in Germany and East Central Europe, 1980-2000

自19世纪以来，为了当地社区的共同利益，有组织的自愿参与一直是现代社会的一个特征，而且在非常多样化的政治制度中也是如此。这一当代历史上的比较项目利用受人尊敬的自愿消防部门(VFD)机构，旨在探索志愿服务在国家社会主义后期以及在德国和东欧的中小城市及其周边农村地区(区镇)向民主和市场经济转型期间的实践和相关性。讨论了以下问题：1)志愿服务在社会主义后期的作用是什么？2)志愿服务及其所有传统和连续性如何与/1991年前后的政治破裂和社会变革相互作用？在这些过程中，志愿消防员如何看待自己，以及其他当地行为者如何看待他们？在急剧变化的时代，VFD作为地方社交的核心是否有助于维持和稳定社区的凝聚力和认同感，包括性别、种族和阶级等差异的社会标记，以及它们本身又如何受到这些变化的影响？4)在1989-91年变化之前、期间和之后，VFD组织如何参与社区间的基层合作，包括国际合作？历史比较和研究领域由两个共同点界定：(1)VFD作为市政自治的一部分，自19世纪下半叶以来几乎不间断地建立和存在，这在德国和哈布斯堡帝国是典型的。(2)它们在1944/1945年后被共产主义统治，并在20世纪80年代末和90年代初经历了侵蚀和最终崩溃，随后--无论多么多样化--向自由资本主义转变的过程。(东)德国、捷克共和国、斯洛文尼亚和伏伊伏丁那(塞尔维亚)的当地案例研究将提供经验数据，并在国家一级更大的体制和政治背景下确定。研究将以档案记录为基础，包括广泛使用口述历史访谈。区域讲习班、一次国际专家研讨会和一次国际会议，并辅之以在国家和国际会议上的发言，将成为该项目工作方案的重要里程碑。项目成果将包括一本全面的项目卷，两篇博士论文的两部专著，以及在国际和国内同行评议期刊上发表的四篇文章。为了实现这一研究方案，在DFG和FWF的D-A-CH合作范围内，申请了由托马斯·林登伯格、ZZF波茨坦和Philipp Ther指导的一个由一名博士后研究员和两名博士后候选人组成的团队的资金。

Organized voluntary engagement for the common good of the local community was and is a constant feature in modern societies since the 19th century, and across very diverse political regimes. Using the venerable institution of Voluntary Fire Departments (VFD), this comparative project in contemporary history aims at exploring the practice, and relevance of volunteering during late state socialism and the transformation to democracies and market economies in small medium sized cities and their surrounding rural areas (district towns) in Germany and East Central Europe. The following questions are addressed: 1) What was the role of VFD under late socialism? 2) How did VFD with all their traditions and continuities of voluntary service interact with the political ruptures and societal transformations around 1989/1991)? How did voluntary firefighters perceive themselves and how were they perceived by other local actors in these processes? Did VFD as nuclei of local sociability contribute to maintain and stabilise the cohesion and identity of communities, including social markers of difference such as gender, ethnicity, and class, in a time of radical change, and how were they in turn affected by these changes themselves? 4) How did VFD organisations get involved in inter-communal, including international, cooperation on the grass root level before, during and after the changes of 1989-91? The historical comparison and the areas of investigation are defined by two commonalities: (1) VFD were established and existed almost uninterruptedly as part of municipal self-governance since the 2nd half of the 19th century, as it was typical for Germany and the Habsburg Empire. (2) They came under communist rule after 1944/45 and experienced its erosion and final breakdown during the late 1980s and early 1990s, followed by - however highly diverse - processes of transformation towards liberal capitalism. Local case studies in (East) Germany, Czech Republic, Slovenia and Vojvodina (Serbia) will provide empirical data and be set within the larger institutional and political contexts on the national level. Research will be based on archival records and include the extensive use of oral history interviews. Regional workshops, one international expert seminar, and one international conference, complemented with presentations at national and international conferences, will serve as seminal milestones of the project's work programme. Project results will include a comprehensive project volume, two monographs ensuing from two PhD theses, and four articles in international and national peer-reviewed journals. To realize the research programme the funding of a team of one postdoc researcher and two doctoral candidates directed by Thomas Lindenberger, ZZF Potsdam, and Philipp Ther, Unversity of Vienna is applied for within the D-A-CH cooperation of DFG and FWF.