Shattered Minds in Shatter Zones
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Keywords

gender
psychiatry
interwar period
Carinthia
trauma
migration
citizenship

How to Cite

Wernitznig, D. (2026). Shattered Minds in Shatter Zones: Psychiatry and Gender After the Great War in the Carinthian Borderlands. ACTA HISTRIAE, 34(1), 43–58. https://doi.org/10.19233/AH.2026.03

Abstract

This article contextualizes questions of citizenship at the intersections of gender, statehood, and notions of ‘normalcy’ in post-1918 Carinthia. Integral to this study is the analysis of psychiatric files of female patients in the aftermaths of the Great War as pertinent, yet generally overlooked sources for microhistorical approaches towards post-conflict nation building. For this contribution, women’s psychiatric records of the Landeskrankenanstalt (Provincial Hospital) in Klagenfurt/Celovec for the period from 1918 to 1923 are investigated. At the nexus of in/sanity, patriarchy, and patriotism, such documents can shed new light on processes of in- as well as exclusion of certain individuals, especially when of the ‘other’ sex and ‘unchaperoned’.

https://doi.org/10.19233/AH.2026.03
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