Alsatianness

plural Alsatiannesses

1. uncountableusuallyThe quality of being Alsatian.

   At the same time the play celebrates Alsatianness in terms that are neither German nor French yet incorporates French and German elements—an Alsatianness transcending the Franco-German dichotomy, symbolized by the coiffe.

   2008, Detmar Klein, “Becoming Alsatian: Anti-German and Pro-French Cultural Propaganda in Alsace, 1898–1914”, in French Music, Culture, and National Identity, 1870–1939, University of Rochester Press, page 227

   2 more examples

   Two interlocutors did not wish to emphasize their Alsatianness over and above their Frenchness: ‘I am French, born in Alsace. I am not chauvinistic’, ‘We were born here. I spent the war years here. I would have liked to have been born somewhere else, especially because of some people with limited intelligence who think we are not true French people’. It appears, here, that an unwillingess to perceive being Alsatian as important is linked to a fear of being considered anti-French.

   2000, J. Broadbridge, “Alsatian-speakers in Southern Alsace”, in German Minorities in Europe, page 58

   Indeed, this book has suggested that one impact of crisis is that it squeezed identities and their articulation, with the result that existing social structures were reinforced and Alsatians took refuge in their Alsatianness.

   2018, Alison Carrol, The Return of Alsace to France, 1918–1939, page 206