Creating Their States: Local Involvement in Border Changes after WWI

Session Submission Type: Panel

Brief Description

After the First World War, the map of Europe changed dramatically. Empires that had previously covered the continent were replaced by smaller nation-states, creating new divisions of people across central and eastern Europe. But while these new borders were first presented in meeting rooms in Paris, they were negotiated and drawn locally. Mapmakers and delimitation commissions worked with locals to draw the borders between new states, while plebiscites and autonomy movements gave locals a voice to debate the decisions made in Paris. This panel examines local involvement in border changes in the former Russian, German, and Habsburg Empires after the First World War, showing how even after the signing of the post-war treaties, local actors perceived borders as negotiable and flexible into the 1920s.

Sub Unit

• History: 1900-1945

Chair

• Catherine Gibson, U of Tartu (Estonia)

Papers

• Mapping their State: The Establishment of the Czechoslovak Boundary Commission with Austria after WWI - Tess Megginson, UNC at Chapel Hill

• 'We Vigorously Protest!': Upper Silesian Border Petitions to the League of Nations - Allison Rodriguez, Trinity College

• Autonomy, Protectorate, or Back to Germany?: Local Initiatives in Memel between 1918-1924 - Veronika Homolová, Charles U in Prague (Czech Republic)

• Redrawing Russia's Southern Border, 1918-1920 - Anatol Shmelev, Hoover Institution

Discussant

• Catherine Gibson, U of Tartu (Estonia)