Youth Patriots, Rebels and Conformists in Wartime & Beyond: Recent Trends in the History of Youth Nationalism and National Identity in the Twentieth Century

Abstract

Recent publications focusing on youth patriotism and national identity have made significant contributions to the history of youth in the twentieth century. This essay discusses recent contributions to the history of youth by focusing on studies of youth patriotism and nationalism. Increasingly, scholars depict young people not as a monolithic group with identical attitudes towards nationalism, but as individuals and small group constellations, sometimes within larger organizations, with behaviors ranging from conformity to apathy and shades of dissent and resistance. Political regimes have faced challenges harnessing and controlling young people’s energy and enthusiasm as citizens and nationalists in times of war, cold war, peace and memory work. As scholars have argued for some time, typical sites of youth nationalism include the school classroom, the military, leisure activities and youth groups or movements. New studies in the last few years explore understudied groups and link youth responses to nationalism with commemorative ritual, symbolism, music, and travel as forms of memory work.