Formation of a New Literary Identity Within a New State. Hungarian Literature in Czechoslovakia

2019 ◽  
Vol 62 (4 (463)) ◽  
pp. 63-69
Author(s):  
Judit Dobry

The early 20th century was a very turbulent period of time especially for the countries of Central and Eastern Europe – the Central Powers were defeated in World War I, the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy disappeared from the maps and new states were created. After signing the Treaty of Trianon in 1920, more than one million Hungarian people found themselves living behind the borders of Czechoslovakia. For Hungarians living in minority, the establishment of specific culture was crucial. The paper deals with the process of formation and re-creation of Hungarian literature within the newly formed First Czechoslovak Republic, and also attends to introduce the struggle of this newly established ethnic literature in the first decade of its existence, as well as the attempt to define itself.

Author(s):  
James Mark ◽  
Quinn Slobodian

This chapter places Eastern Europe into a broader history of decolonization. It shows how the region’s own experience of the end of Empire after the World War I led its new states to consider their relationships with both European colonialism and those were struggling for their future liberation outside their continent. Following World War II, as Communist regimes took power in Eastern Europe, and overseas European Empires dissolved in Africa and Asia, newly powerful relationships developed. Analogies between the end of empire in Eastern Europe and the Global South, though sometimes tortured and riddled with their own blind spots, were nonetheless potent rhetorical idioms, enabling imagined solidarities and facilitating material connections in the era of the Cold War and non-alignment. After the demise of the so-called “evil empire” of the Soviet Union, analogies between the postcolonial and the postcommunist condition allowed for further novel equivalencies between these regions to develop.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-9
Author(s):  
Adam Balcer

Abstract The year of 1918 was a crucial point in the history of Europe. Its importance does not only stem from the end of World War I, but also from the establishment of new states. Eastern Europe was particularly an arena where many new states emerged after the dissolution of tsarist Russia. The abovementioned process was correlated with the outcome of World War I (the defeat of the Central Powers on the Western Front and their victory on the Eastern Front against the tsarist Russia resulting in imposing their protectorate over Eastern Europe) but simultaneously it was influenced by the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution originating from a structural crisis of Russia. The legacy of nation-building processes, taking place in the period of 1917–1921 in the European part of the tsarist Russia— even when some of the states did not manage to survive— occupies a key role in the historical memories of those countries. The importance of this legacy originates from the fact that these states often constituted the most progressive nation-building efforts in the world. The wider context of these developments and the important interlinkages existing between them are very often unfamiliar to many Europeans today. Despite that, the state-building attempts, undertaken in Eastern Europe between 1917 and 1921, had a huge impact on the trajectory of European history. Contextualising this particular academic enquiry with the events of 1918 and benefiting from methodological advantages of process tracing, our project represents an attempt to restore (or, if necessary, build from scratch) a communicational system for sending a historical message to a wider Europe. A century after, while celebrating the Finnish, Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian and Polish truly big anniversaries in 2017–2018, Europeans have already forgotten how interconnected and interlinked the 1918-bound events had been and by how much those events had affected the entire European continent as well as the international system.


2019 ◽  
Vol 62 (4 (463)) ◽  
pp. 111-133
Author(s):  
Włodzimierz Borodziej ◽  
Maciej Górny

The article discusses the issue of the political involvement of people of science and culture in Central and Eastern Europe during World War I and in the immediate aftermath. In comparison with the phenomenon of the “war of the spirits” known in the historiography, so far observed mainly in France, Germany and Great Britain, the regional variation of this phenomenon was characterized by a greater informational value and a stronger relationship between journalistic writing and professional science. In particular, the representatives of such disciplines as physical (racial) anthropology and geography in the service of their national movements and governments engaged the whole arsenal of scientific means of persuasion: they used the language of a particular science, created coherent and logical, formally correct theories, argued, while maintaining the appropriate forms, with ideological opponents. These features of the discourse, among other things, contributed to the viability of their scientific theories from World War I, which – unlike analogous creations of Western European luminaries of art and science – still retain the right to exist in a professional academic and journalistic communities in Central and Eastern Europe.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 93-112
Author(s):  
Klaus Ziemer

Abstract After World War I, many borders in Europe were redrawn, especially in the northeast and southeast of Germany. Almost all political forces in Germany strived to restore the prewar German borders, especially towards Poland. Even Poland’s very existence was denied by many German political forces. The Baltic States were less important for Germany in this respect. Here the relationship with the Baltic Germans and trade relations prevailed. The independence of these states was in the eyes of German elite subordinated to the relations with Russia. The article presents this pattern of German policy until the Treaty of Rapallo in 1922.


2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 372-396
Author(s):  
Maja Spanu

International Relations scholarship disconnects the history of the so-called expansion of international society from the presence of hierarchies within it. In contrast, this article argues that these developments may in fact be premised on hierarchical arrangements whereby new states are subject to international tutelage as the price of acceptance to international society. It shows that hierarchies within international society are deeply entrenched with the politics of self-determination as international society expands. I substantiate this argument with primary and secondary material on the Minority Treaty provisions imposed on the new states in Central, Eastern and Southern Europe admitted to the League of Nations after World War I. The implications of this claim for International Relations scholarship are twofold. First, my argument contributes to debates on the making of the international system of states by showing that the process of expansion of international society is premised on hierarchy, among and within states. Second, it speaks to the growing body of scholarship on hierarchy in world politics by historicising where hierarchies come from, examining how diverse hierarchies are nested and intersect, and revealing how different actors navigate these hierarchies.


2008 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan Germen Janmaat

One of the greatest challenges currently facing the new states in Central and Eastern Europe is educational reform. After obtaining independence in the early 1990s, these states were confronted with the immense task of transforming an outdated centralized education system, which was aimed at delivering a loyal communist workforce, into a modern system that would be much more responsive to consumer demands and would recognize and further individual talent. The immensity of the undertaking lies in the fact that three discourses make simultaneous demands on the education system: nation building, democratization and globalization.


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