Legacies Of Violence Eastern Europe S First World War

The First World War began in the Balkans, and it was fought as fiercely in the East as it was in the West. Fighting persisted in the East for almost a decade, radically transforming the political and social order of the entire continent. The specifics of the Eastern war such as mass deportations, ethnic cleansing, and the radicalization of military, paramilitary and revolutionary violence have only recently become the focus of historical research. This volume situates the ‘Long First World War’ on the Eastern Front (1912–1923) in the hundred years from the mid-19th to the mid-20th century and explores the legacies of violence within this context. Content Jochen Böhler/Włodzimierz Borodziej/Joachim von Puttkamer: Introduction I. A World in Transition Joachim von Puttkamer: Collapse and Restoration. Politics and the Strains of War in Eastern Europe Mark Biondich: Eastern Borderlands and Prospective Shatter Zones. Identity and Conflict in East Central and Southeastern Europe on the Eve of the First World War Jochen Böhler: Generals and Warlords, Revolutionaries and Nation-State Builders. The First World War and its Aftermath in Central and Eastern Europe II. Occupation Jonathan E. Gumz: Losing Control. The Norm of Occupation in Eastern Europe during the First World War Stephan Lehnstaedt: Fluctuating between ‘Utilisation’ and Exploitation. Occupied East Central Europe during the First World War Robert L. Nelson: Utopias of Open Space. Forced Population Transfer Fantasies during the First World War III. Radicalization Maciej Górny: War on Paper? Physical Anthropology in the Service of States and Nations Piotr J. Wróbel: Foreshadowing the Holocaust. The Wars of 1914–1921 and Anti-Jewish Violence in Central and Eastern Europe Robert Gerwarth: Fighting the Red Beast. Counter-Revolutionary Violence in the Defeated States of Central Europe IV. Aftermath Julia Eichenberg: Consent, Coercion and Endurance in Eastern Europe. Poland and the Fluidity of War Experiences Philipp Ther: Pre-negotiated Violence. Ethnic Cleansing in the ‘Long’ First World War Dietrich Beyrau: The Long Shadow of the Revolution. Violence in War and Peace in the Soviet Union Commentary Jörn Leonhard: Legacies of Violence: Eastern Europe’s First World War – A Commentary from a Comparative Perspective

The volume focuses on the years following the First World War (1918–1923), when political, military, cultural, social and economic developments consolidated to a high degree in Eastern Europe. This period was shaped, on the one hand, by the efforts to establish an international structure for peace and to set previously oppressed nations on the road to emancipation. On the other hand, it was also defined by political revisionism and territorial claims, as well as a level of political violence that was effectively a continuation of the war in many places, albeit under modified conditions. Political decision-makers sought to protect the emerging nation states from radical political utopias but simultaneously had to rise to the challenges of a social and economic crisis, manage the reconstruction of the many extensively devastated landscapes and provide for the social care and support of victims of war.

Civil War in Central Europe argues that Polish independence after the First World War was forged in the fires of the post-war conflicts which should be collectively referred to as the Central European Civil War (1918-1921). The ensuing violence forced those living in European border regions to decide on their national identity - German or Polish.

The First World War did not end in Central Europe in November 1918. The armistices marked the creation of the Second Polish Republic and the first shot of the Central European Civil War which raged from 1918 to 1921. The fallen German, Russian, and Austrian Empires left in their wake lands with peoples of mixed nationalities and ethnicities. These lands soon became battle grounds and the ethno-political violence that ensued forced those living within them to decide on their national identity. Civil War in Central Europe seeks to challenge previous notions that such conflicts which occurred between the First and Second World Wars were isolated incidents and argues that they should be considered as part of a European war; a war which transformed Poland into a nation.

This volume focuses on the consequences that the First World War had on the Jews living in the notorious Pale of Settlement within the frontiers of the Tsarist Empire. The research is entirely based on a solid documentary study, consisting of the documents of the Joint Distribution Committee and references to many historiographic works. Rather than dealing with the military aspects of war, the book focuses on the political consequences, and in particular on the economic and social changes that the conflict generated. The Jewish communities experienced a personal tragedy within the general tragedy of war, as they were particularly “damaged”, not only by violence and persecutions – suffering from the pogroms of Cossacks and local populations – but also by the evacuations and expulsions ordered by the military. It meant that a great part of the Jewish population was forced to leave their residence and, in many cases, compelled to wander for several years or even to emigrate. In addition to this, after the outbreak of World War I, the Russian Jews became “hostile elements” who were viewed as potential spies and traitors, and were subsequently targeted by a new wave of discriminatory measures that were based on two myths of contemporary antisemitism: the “stab in the back” and the conspiracy of Jewish Bolshevism. From this perspective, what happened during the Great War could be seen as an anticipation of the tragedy that affected Eastern European Jewry in the following decades.

Winner of the 2014 PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize for the Best Work of History. "If you only read one book about the First World War in this anniversary year, read The Long Shadow. David Reynolds writes superbly and his analysis is compelling and original." —Anne Chisolm, Chair of the PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize Committee, and Chair of the Royal Society of Literature. One of the most violent conflicts in the history of civilization, World War I has been strangely forgotten in American culture. It has become a ghostly war fought in a haze of memory, often seen merely as a distant preamble to World War II. In The Long Shadow critically acclaimed historian David Reynolds seeks to broaden our vision by assessing the impact of the Great War across the twentieth century. He shows how events in that turbulent century—particularly World War II, the Cold War, and the collapse of Communism—shaped and reshaped attitudes to 1914–18. By exploring big themes such as democracy and empire, nationalism and capitalism, as well as art and poetry, The Long Shadow is stunningly broad in its historical perspective. Reynolds throws light on the vast expanse of the last century and explains why 1914–18 is a conflict that America is still struggling to comprehend. Forging connections between people, places, and ideas, The Long Shadow ventures across the traditional subcultures of historical scholarship to offer a rich and layered examination not only of politics, diplomacy, and security but also of economics, art, and literature. The result is a magisterial reinterpretation of the place of the Great War in modern history.

Statehood examines the extending lines of development of nation-state systems in Eastern Europe, in particular considering why certain tendencies in state development found a different expression in this region compared to other parts of the continent. This volume discusses the differences between the social developments, political decisions, and historical experience that have influenced processes of state-building, with a focus on the structural problems of the region and the different paths taken to overcome them. The book addresses processes of building social orders and examines the contribution of state institutions to social and cultural integration and disintegration. It analyses institutional and personnel continuities that have outlasted the great political changes of the twentieth century and addresses the expansion of state activity in shaping property relations in agriculture and industry as well as in social security and family politics. Taking a comparative approach based on experiential history, allowing individual experience to be detached from specific national references, the volume delineates a transnational comparison of problems shared within the region as they have been passed down through history, providing definition to the specificity of Eastern Europe and situating the historical experience of the region within a pan-European context. The second in a four-volume set on Central and Eastern Europe in the twentieth century, it is the go-to resource for those interested in statehood and state-building in this complex region.

Over the course of the Great War, a quarter of million settlers and subjects from Algeria served in French forces. Thousands more crossed the Mediterranean to work in the war industries of metropolitan France. On the Algerian Home Front, men, women, and children of all ethnic, religious, social, and political backgrounds contributed to the imperial war effort. Mobilising Memory is the first study to explore how the mass mobilisation of Algerian society during the First World War transformed politics in the colony. It asks how actors across the colony's racial, ideological, and class divides sought to legitimise their competing visions for Algeria's future by evoking their wartime service. Without diminishing the coercive power of the colonial state, it stresses the agency of the citizens and subjects of Algeria who sought to leverage their contribution to the war to enhance their positions within colonial society. In doing so, Mobilising Memory explores the consequences, often unintended, of framing political, social, and economic demands in a language rooted in the experience of the Great War. It argues that the predominance of this shared political language - grounded in notions of loyalty to and sacrifice for France - meant that most actors in interwar Algeria sought not to break with the Empire but rather to renegotiate their place within it. While these efforts rarely proved successful, the volume demonstrates how they radically reshaped the practice of politics in the colony.