Kulturkampf

In the history of Germany, the Kulturkampf (Cultural Struggle) was the seven-year political conflict (1871–1878) between the Catholic Church in Germany, led by Pope Pius IX, and the Kingdom of Prussia, led by chancellor Otto von Bismarck. The Prussian church-and-state political conflict was about the Church's direct control over both education and ecclesiastical appointments in the Prussian kingdom as a Roman Catholic nation and country. Moreover, when compared to other church-and-state conflicts about political culture, the German Kulturkampf of Prussia also featured anti-Polish bigotry fueled by "racist anxieties" in Germany "about the Polish portions of the Prussian East."^[1]

In modern political usage, the German term Kulturkampf describes any conflict (political, ideological, social) between the secular government and the religious authorities of a society. The term also describes the great and small culture wars among political factions who hold deeply opposing values and beliefs within a nation, a community, and a cultural group.^[2]