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The collapse of the Habsburg Monarchy at the end of World War I ushered in a period of radical change for East-Central European political structures and national identities. Yet this transformed landscape inevitably still bore the traces of its imperial past. Breaking with traditional histories that take 1918 as a strict line of demarcation, this collection focuses on the complexities that attended the transition from the Habsburg Empire to its successor states. In so doing, it produces new and more nuanced insights into the persistence and effectiveness of imperial institutions, as well as the sources of instability in the newly formed nation-states.
Recent research has revised earlier views about the role of veterans of World War One in paramilitary formations, radical nationalism and political extremism in inter-war Europe, yet there remain considerable gaps in our understanding of the role they played in the ‘successor states’ of the Habsburg Empire. Vanquished and Victorious provides an innovative comparative investigation of veterans in Austria and Czechoslovakia, two states whose wider political development was of crucial importance to the question of stability in Central Europe after 1918. While differing in terms of how successfully veterans reintegrated into post-war society, this volume shows that both countries incorporated elements of ‘cultures of victory and defeat’.
A EuropeNow Editor’s Pick A Choice Outstanding Academic Title of the Year “Pieter M. Judson’s book informs and stimulates. If his account of Habsburg achievements, especially in the 18th century, is rather starry-eyed, it is a welcome corrective to the black legend usually presented. Lucid, elegant, full of surprising and illuminating details, it can be warmly recommended to anyone with an interest in modern European history.” —Tim Blanning, Wall Street Journal “This is an engaging reappraisal of the empire whose legacy, a century after its collapse in 1918, still resonates across the nation-states that replaced it in central Europe. Judson rejects conventional depictions of the ...
This book considers competing memory politics in European border towns after the First and Second World Wars. In the twentieth century Europe’s borders shifted dramatically in the wake of war, and towns were often moved from one state to another despite their physical locations remaining unchanged. Urban spaces adapted to incorporate new place names, monuments, and requirements, overlaid onto the cultural heritage of previous settlers. This book investigates how the memories of different ethnic groups compete and sometimes contest with each other in the town’s space, using the case studies of Vyborg/Viipuri in present-day Russia, Klaipėda/Memel in Lithuania, Szczecin/Stettin in Poland, Flensburg in Germany, Trieste in Italy, and Rijeka/Fiume in Croatia. The book considers how public memories are built and how old traditions are moulded to new forms in urban settings. Drawing on perspectives from across borderland, urban, and memory studies, this book will be an important resource for researchers with an interest in Europe, and in how urban memories are constructed and contested.
How the demise of the Habsburg Empire, postwar sovereignty, and new diplomatic frontiers shaped the nature of citizenship, identity, and belonging across Europe This book is a collective portrait of twenty-one key statesmen who came of age during the Habsburg Empire. They include the cofounder of Austro-Marxism and the Austrian republic's first foreign minister, the cofounder of the European Union after the Second World War, the founder of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, and Mussolini's ambassador to Vienna. Some survived the First World War and the resulting geographical divisions in their homelands, and some went on to serve in politics and governments throughout Europe. Taken toget...
This book presents a multi-layered analysis of the situation in Central Europe after the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The new geopolitics emerging from the Versailles order, and at the same time ongoing fights for borders, considerable war damage, social and economic problems and replacement of administrative staff as well as leaders, all contributed to the fact that unlike Western Europe, Central Europe faced challenges and dilemmas on an unprecedented scale. The editors of this book have invited authors from over a dozen academic institutions to answer the question of to what extent the solutions applied in the Habsburg Monarchy were still practiced in the newly created nation ...
The root of all inequality is the process of othering – and its solution is the practice of belonging We all yearn for connection and community, but we live in a time when calls for further division along the well-wrought lines of religion, race, ethnicity, caste, and sexuality are pervasive. This ubiquitous yet elusive problem feeds on fears – created, inherited – of the "other." While the much-touted diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives are undeniably failing, and activists narrowly focus on specific and sometimes conflicting communities, Belonging without Othering prescribes a new approach that encourages us to turn toward one another in unprecedented and radical ways. The p...
A pioneering regional approach to the study of international order in Central Europe following the dissolution of the Habsburg Empire, and the subsequent creation of the League of Nations.
On the eve of the First World War, the German Social Democratic Party (SPD) was the largest and most powerful socialist party in the world. German Social Democracy through British Eyes examines the SPD's rise using British diplomatic reports from Saxony, the third-largest federal state in Imperial Germany and the cradle of the socialist movement in that country. Rather than focusing on the Anglo-German antagonism leading to the First World War, the book peers into the everyday struggles of German workers to build a political movement and emancipate themselves from the worst features of a modern capitalist system: exploitation, poverty, and injustice. The archival documents, most of which hav...
This is a study of the early writings of Virginio Gayda (1885-1944), a talented but amoral Italian journalist whose career spanned two world wars. A keen observer, prolific writer and propagandist during his stint as the newspaper La Stampa’s special correspondent in Habsburg Vienna, Gayda lent his considerable skills to promote an aggressive foreign policy. No one did more than he to poison relations between the Italian and Yugoslav peoples. His is the story of a respected journalist who chose an ultranationalist path to fascism and international fame. Not uninfluenced by rank careerism and material reward he forsook his roots to embrace the antisemitic “race” laws of 1938 and Italy’s disastrous partnership with Nazi Germany.