(How) Could One Be French in Banat (1770–1920)?

Abstract

This article engages with discourses about a Lorrainian/Alsatian-Lorrainian/French presence in Banat throughout the nineteenth century and up until the end of World War 1. It contextualizes these discourses within the broader context of Franco-German entanglements and shows that such entanglements had reverberations in the east of Europe. It links them with larger processes of identity construction with respect to the Banat Swabians—eighteenth-century settlers in Banat and their descendants. The analysis shows that the Banat instantiation of the distinction between a voluntaristic French identity and a descent-based German identity was extremely porous. Frenchness in Banat was essentially understood as being based on descent, while Germanness appeared not only as descent-based, but also as an identity one could assimilate into. In the early aftermath of World War 1, ideas about descent as an identity-endowing element were drawn on in attempts to cast France in the role of a kin-state for Banat Swabians.