Pan-German or Pan-Saxon? Framing Transylvanian-Saxon Particularism on Both Sides of the Atlantic

Abstract

From the mid-19th century, Transylvanian Saxons were subject to attempts to frame their particularism within two overarching pan-nationalisms: pan-Germanism and pan-Saxonism. While both lacked support before the First World War, from the interwar period pan-Germanism become important in Transylvania and pan-Saxonism among the large Transylvanian-Saxon diaspora in America. This interwar success, despite the failure of both before the war, highlights pan-nationalisms’ contingency on shifting political landscapes and their utility to their supporters. Transylvanian Saxon expressions of pan-nationalisms were also highly flexible, legitimizing platforms from cultural exchange to something approaching political and territorial unification, to integrating Saxon diasporas into their new American and West German homelands. This flexibility is overlooked in the few studies of “generic” pan-nationalism that, frequently using Germany as a case study, tend to emphasize state unification and empire building. Saxon expressions of pan-nationalism were deeply rooted in Saxon particularist understandings of the communities they posited and shaped to meet their own needs.