Politics of Urban Space in the Late Habsburg Bohemian Lands

Session Submission Type: Panel

Affiliate Organization: Czechoslovak Studies Association

Brief Description

Research into the history of the late Habsburg period of Central Europe has repeatedly noted how important public, especially urban space was in shaping – sometimes literally – the nature of contemporary debates. Serving as a battleground, a routing map, or a trophy, the alleys, streets, or squares were often laden with symbolic meanings, only to be appropriated and contested by numerous interest groups. Nationalists, whether Czech, German, or other; socialist radicals as well as established local elites; citizens in spontaneous gatherings; the state and its various agencies; and many other public actors have accommodated the spatial context of their surroundings into their actions. They marked them with plenty of temporary or permanent furnishings such as flags, statues, street signs or even buildings to give them the desired function or ascribe to them the “proper” meaning. This panel will try to explore these practices, how were they implemented, and what we may learn from their study about the space itself, about the actors, or about the contemporary society at large. To do so, it puts together papers offering different approaches to specific case studies, hoping to stir a fruitful debate on the role of urban space in the late Habsburg history.

Sub Unit

• History: 1900-1945

Chair

• Hugh LeCaine Agnew, George Washington U

Papers

• 'Czech Regiments for Czech Cities, German Regiments for German Cities': Army Garrisons and Urban Security in Late Imperial Bohemia - Kevin Joseph Hoeper, UNC at Chapel Hill

• Public Order, Social Order, and the Politics of Urban Spaces in Late Habsburg Austria - Claire Morelon, U of Manchester (UK)

• Provincial Spaces of Loyalty and Contestation during the First World War - Kathryn E. Densford, U of Nevada, Reno

• Politics of Urban Space in Wartime Moravia: The Case of Olmütz/Olomouc - Jiří Hutečka, U of Hradec Králové (Czech Republic)

Discussant

• Cynthia Paces, College of New Jersey