Earlier this month, historian Tara Zahra, a professor at the University of Chicago, received the Laura Shannon Prize from the Nanovic Institute for her book KIDNAPPED SOULS: NATIONAL INDIFFERENCE AND THE BATTLE FOR THE CHILDREN IN THE BOHEMIAN, 1900-1948.  This award is presented annually to an author within the humanities who contributed significantly to the literature of European studies.  It is given to a published work that “transcends a focus on any one country, state, or people to stimulate new ways of thinking about contemporary Europe as a whole.”

Zahra said, “It’s an incredible honor and a thrill, especially since the prize is awarded by my peers.”  Moreover, this award recognizes her efforts to “get away from narrow national histories and create a book that says something about Europe as a whole.”

KIDNAPPED SOULS, which received many additional awards, is the product of more than ten years of hard work, beginning as her dissertation and later becoming her first book.  Zahra spent a year and a half in Europe, researching in German, Czech, French, and Polish.  In the Czech-German borderlands, it was common for working-class parents to raise their children to be bilingual. This parental indifference to fostering strong national ties caused pro-German and pro-Czech activists to fear the children would be “kidnapped” from the national community.

In her book, Zahra examines “policies toward children and schooling in a border region of Bohemia in which partisans of Czech and German identity competed for allegiance.” She also explores the effects of the nationalists in the Bohemian lands as they worked to “forge political cultures in which kids belonged more rightfully to the national collective than to their parents.”  The jury that selected Zahra as winner of the Laura Shannon Prize notes that KIDNAPPED SOULS introduces “interesting lessons for the future of multilingualism in European educational systems.”

Zahra has no ties to Eastern Europe – in fact, Zahra had not even been to Europe until graduate school.  Her passion for this area of history was sparked by a particularly engaging undergraduate teacher at Swarthmore College, historian Piter Judson.  Zahra was inspired by Judson’s love of teaching and learning, and now exhibits the same feeling in her work, stating that she is “lucky to have a job I love.”

Zahra said she plans to use the $10,000 prize for more research.  “It’s expensive to go to Europe and difficult to find funding in the current economy, particularly for the humanities and social sciences,” she explained.  Currently, Zahra is researching the effects on Europe of the millions of people emigrating from Eastern Europe in the time frame ranging from the late nineteenth century to the end of the Cold War.

If you are interested in reading more from Zahra, last spring she published another book, THE LOST CHILDREN: RECONSTRUCTING EUROPE’S FAMILIES AFTER WWII.

Ellen is a freshman majoring in business and English; her love of fall foliage demonstrates her ENFJ personality type.  Email her at eroof@nd.edu.