Mapping their State: The Establishment of the Czechoslovak Boundary Commission with Austria after WWI

• In Event: Creating Their States: Local Involvement in Border Changes after WWI

Abstract

Using the example of the town of Gmünd/Cmunt along the border of Czechoslovakia and Austria, this paper argues that the drawing of borders, while carried out by the delimitation commissions, also relied on participation by locals living along the border. Whether it was organizing large demonstrations to disrupt the work of the delimitation commissions, working in the factory in Gmünd to construct the boundary stones that demarcated the border, or requests from the delimitation commissions for the population to dig trenches to mark the land border, ordinary people were essential participants in the delimitation process after the First World War.

Author

• Tess Megginson, UNC at Chapel Hill