Intergenerational Transmission, Discourse, and the Recent Past

Abstract

Last year, I heard a report on the radio about a study of Czech deer that still avoided the Iron Curtain a quarter of a century after the end of the Cold War.¹ Tracking 300 deer showed that the animals maintained the boundary even though the electric fences dividing the Czech-German border had been taken down. Despite the fact that the land is now a forested part of a national park with no barriers, the deer continue to stay on “their side” of the border. Since the life expectancy of deer is about 15 years, none of the deer now living would have encountered the physical barrier. How do they learn these boundaries? The scientists involved in the study believe that the fawns learn these boundaries and movement patterns by following their mothers. Thus, the territory remains the same for new generations, because of the reproduction of embodied practices. The story is a metaphor for the main goals of this book. I seek to reveal how intergenerational transmission of recent history occurs and how, in this process, youth construct a historical identity.