Habsburg Successor States as Nationalizing States: Between Ideology and Pragmatism

Session Submission Type: Panel

Brief Description

Without exception, the successor states to the Habsburg Empire defined themselves as nation-states. As such, they aimed to include all members of the nation and no one else. Reality, however, did not conform to nationalist ideals; the populations of the successor states were far from homogeneous. As a result, and in violation of international treaties, all successor states pursued various policies aimed at assimilating or otherwise eliminating their minorities. Furthermore, they attempted to nationalize their economies, educational systems, cultural institutions, etc. The papers in this panel examine these attempts in four successor states of the Habsburg Empire: Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Italy, and Yugoslavia.

Sub Unit

• History: 1900-1945

Chair

• Pieter M. Judson, European U Institute (Italy)

Papers

• The Czechification of Feldsberg/Valtice - Kathryn E. Densford, U of Texas at Rio Grande Valley

• Marriage of Convenience and Moral Economy of Favors?: Post-WWI Economic Nationalizing and Austro-Hungarian Capital in Romania and Czechoslovakia - Gábor Egry, Inst of Political History HAS (Hungary)

• National Citizens from the International Peace in the Adriatic Borderlands, 1921-1926 - Maura Hametz, James Madison U

• Nationalizing the Slovene Part of Yugoslavia after the First World War - Rok Stergar, U of Ljubljana (Slovenia)

Discussant

• Anna Adorjáni