‘The first of the small nations’: the significance of central European small states in Irish nationalist political rhetoric, 1918–22

2020 ◽  
Vol 44 (165) ◽  
pp. 25-40
Author(s):  
Lili Zách
Keyword(s):  
Political Rhetoric ◽  
First World War ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
Small States ◽  
World War ◽  
Central European ◽  
The First World War ◽  
The Right ◽  
First World ◽  
Scholarly Attention

AbstractOffering new insights into Irish links with the wider world, this article explores and contextualises Irish nationalist perceptions of and links with central European small states in the immediate aftermath of the First World War. The belief that any small nation like Ireland, oppressed by a dominant neighbour, had the right to self-determination was of key importance in nationalist political rhetoric during the revolutionary years. Given the similarity of circumstances among newly independent small states, Irish commentators were aware of the struggles Ireland shared with the successors of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Personal encounters on the continent, as well as news regarding small nations in central Europe, shaped Irish opinions of the region. Certainly, the images presented by Irish commentators reflected their own political agendas and were therefore often deliberately idealistic. Nonetheless, they served a specific purpose as they were meant to further Ireland's interest on the international stage. Looking beyond Ireland for lessons and examples to follow became a frequent part of Irish nationalist political rhetoric. By directing scholarly attention to a hitherto less explored aspect of Irish historiography, this article aims to highlight the complexity of Ireland's connection with the continent within the framework of small nations, from a transnational perspective.

scholarly journals A Few Observations Regarding Woodrow Wilson’s Principle of National Self-Determination and its Application

2008 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-20
Author(s):  
Vladas Sirutavičius
Keyword(s):  
First World War ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
National Consciousness ◽  
World War ◽  
Woodrow Wilson ◽  
The First World War ◽  
Form Of Government ◽  
The Right ◽  
First World

This article briefly discusses traditional interpretations of the principle of national self-determination declared by President Woodrow Wilson. It is believed that the principle of national self-determination cannot be interpreted in isolation from specific historical conditions under which it was declared and implemented. Until the First World War the self-determination of nations was perceived more like the right to choose their (democratic) form of government (‘internal self-determination’). During the war years the ‘external’ aspect of self-determination gained dominance, i.e. the right of a nation to be free from any ‘alien’ rule. Thus, technically the principle of self-determination of nations was supposed to mean both consolidation of national consciousness and democratization of society. However, implementation of the principle demonstrated that national self-determination might become a threat to democracy.

scholarly journals Social, economic and population processes in Transylvania in the hundred years after Trianon

2020 ◽  
Vol 14 ◽  
pp. 27-48
Author(s):  
Elekes Tibor
Keyword(s):  
Birth Rate ◽  
Social Economic ◽  
First World War ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
World War ◽  
The First World War ◽  
The Right ◽  
Second World ◽  
First World

Of all losers of the first World War Hungary had been the most penalized. That included the losing of over two third of its territory and nearly as much of its population. Albeit paying lip service to the right of self-determination, the victors delegated 5,5 million people into a minority position (whilst for some this meant no change, yet brought difficulties). It was only 5,2 million about whom it could be claimed on ethnic grounds – in part with reservations – that their fate as that of a community improved. In the areas annexed by Romania, the socio-economic processes of the wider region prevailed in the studied period. The greatest change took place during Communism’s four decades. The main objective of the centrally managed economy was industrialization, and soon the national-communist leadership aimed at creating a „homogenized society”. Population growth of four decades after the second World War came to a halt due to mass emigration and decline in birth rate in the early 1990s; the number of population falling by nearly 4 million to date. In proportional terms the loss of the 16,8 million strong Romanians (2011) and the 1,2 million strong Hungarians was near identical during the 2002–2011 period. By 2011, the number of Transylvanian Germans counting 600 000 prior to the second World War had been reduced to 36 000. The number of the half a million strong in 1930 Jews had fallen to a few hundred. At the same time, the number of Romani increased to 621 000. The Hungarian indigenous minority in Transylvania see the survival of their community in the realization of autonomy in Székelyland, and in Northwestern Transylvania.

Life conditions of Turkish prisoners on nargin island during the first world war

2021 ◽  
Vol 69 (08) ◽  
pp. 7-14
Author(s):  
Джамиля Яшар гызы Рустамова ◽  
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Caspian Sea ◽  
First World War ◽  
Prisoners Of War ◽  
World War ◽  
The Caspian Sea ◽  
The Caucasus ◽  
The First World War ◽  
The Right ◽  
First World

The article is dedicated to the matter of Turkish prisoners on the Nargin Island in the Caspian Sea during the First World War. According to approximate computations, there were about 50-60 thousand people of Turkish captives in Russia. Some of them were sent to Baku because of the close location to the Caucasus Front and from there they were sent to the Nargin Island in the Caspian Sea. As time showed it was not the right choise. The Island had no decent conditions for living and turned the life of prisoners into the hell camp. Hastily built barracks contravene meet elementary standards, were poorly heated and by the end of the war they were not heated at all, water supply was unsatisfactory, sometimes water was not brought to the prisoner's several days. Bread was given in 100 grams per person per day, and then this rate redused by half. Knowing the plight of the prisoners, many citizens of Baku as well as the Baku Muslim Charitable Society and other charitable societies provided moral and material support to prisoners, they often went to the camp, brought food, clothes, medicines Key words: World War I, prisoners of war, Nargin Island, refugees, incarceration conditions, starvation, charity

scholarly journals British Right-Wing Anti-semitism, 1918-1930.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Oliver Brown
Keyword(s):  
First World War ◽  
Primary Sources ◽  
Comparative Approach ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
World War ◽  
Anti Semitism ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The First World War ◽  
The Right ◽  
First World

This thesis investigates the prevalence of anti-Semitism in the British right-wing between the years of 1918 and 1930. It aims to redress the imbalance of studies on interwar British right-wing anti-Semitism that are skewed towards the 1930s, Oswald Mosley and the British Union of Fascists. This thesis is the first to focus exclusively on the immediate aftermath of the First World War and the rest of the 1920s, to demonstrate how interwar British right-wing anti-Semitism was not an isolated product of the 1930s. This work shows that anti-Semitism was endemic throughout much of the right-wing in early interwar Britain but became pushed further away from the mainstream as the decade progressed. This thesis adopts a comparative approach of comparing the actions and ideology of different sections of the British right-wing. The three sections that it is investigating are the “mainstream”, the “anti-alien/anti-Bolshevik” right and the “Jewish-obsessive” fringe. This comparative approach illustrates the types of anti-Semitism that were widespread throughout the British right-wing. Furthermore, it demonstrates which variants of anti-Semitism remained on the fringes. This thesis will steer away from only focusing on the virulently anti-Semitic, fringe organisations. The overemphasis on peripheral figures and openly fascistic groups when historians have glanced back at the 1920s helped lead to an exaggerated view that Britain was a tolerant haven in historiographical pieces, at least up until the 1980s. This thesis is using a wide range of primary sources, that are representative of the different sections of the British right-wing.

Between Poland and Hungary

2019 ◽  
pp. 61-82
Author(s):  
Guy Miron
Keyword(s):  
Interwar Period ◽  
External Force ◽  
First World War ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
World War ◽  
Habsburg Empire ◽  
The First World War ◽  
Independent States ◽  
Anti Jewish ◽  
First World

IN THE WAKE of the First World War Poland and Hungary became independent states. Poland, which for some 130 years had been partitioned between its neighbouring empires—Russia, Austria, and Prussia—now gained independence, including in its territory some predominantly Ukrainian and Belarusian areas which had been part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Hungary, which had enjoyed extensive autonomy since the Ausgleich (Austro-Hungarian Compromise) of 1867, was now severed from the defunct Habsburg empire and became independent, but its boundaries were dramatically reduced as a result of the Treaty of Trianon. The two states, whose independence was part of a new European order based on the principle of national self-determination, were supposed to function as democracies and respect the rights of their minorities. In the immediate aftermath of 'the war to end all wars', there was reason to hope that the recognition of the Jews as equal citizens would lead to a golden age of Jewish integration. In practice, the reality was different. Both Poland and Hungary were established as independent states amidst violent internal and external conflicts over their boundaries and the nature of their regimes. In both states, these struggles, which continued throughout the whole interwar period, increasingly led to the dominance of an exclusionary nationalism. Jews were the central, although not the only, minority targeted by this policy of exclusion. Of course, the anti-Jewish violence that occurred during the struggles for the independence of both Poland and Hungary and the anti-Jewish policies and legislation of the 1920s and especially the 1930s should not be regarded as foreshadowing the Nazi catastrophe—which was primarily the result of actions by an external force—however, there is no doubt that in both countries Jewish integration was seriously endangered during the interwar period....

The Nationalization of the Masses

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roger D. Markwick ◽  
Nicholas Doumanis
Keyword(s):  
First World War ◽  
Russian Revolution ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
World War ◽  
Nation States ◽  
The First World War ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Masses ◽  
First World

Europe was a continent of nation states by the mid-twentieth century. But it was not always thus. The patchwork quilt of nation states and the nationalism that coloured them in were forged by massive social and political shifts that had been gathering momentum since the late nineteenth century. Viewing nations and nationalism as constructs of modern, global capitalism, often legitimated by national mythologies old and new, this chapter surveys the forces at work: from above and below, from centre and periphery. The First World War raised nationalism to white heat, and as multi-ethnic empires faltered, myriad subaltern nationalisms erupted, demanding ‘self-determination’, the watchword of the post-war peace settlements. But the war also unleashed internationalist class challenges to belligerent nationalism, culminating in the 1917 Russian Revolution. Thereafter, European nationalism assumed its most truculent guise: fascism and military dictatorships warring against class in the name of ethnic, national, and biological purity.

Institutional reversals and economic growth: Palestine 1516–1948

2011 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 119-141 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANDREW SCHEIN
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Private Property ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
First World War ◽  
World War ◽  
The People ◽  
The First World War ◽  
The Right ◽  
The 19Th Century ◽  
First World

Abstract:This study examines the type and quality of institutions in Palestine and the correlation between the institutions and economic growth in Palestine from 1516 to 1948. Initially in the 16th century, with the Ottoman conquest of the area, institutions in Palestine involved de facto private user-rights. The level of expropriation by elites was low, and this enabled the people to develop the lands that they had acquired the right to cultivate. In the 17th and 18th centuries, with the exception of the Galilee in the middle of the 18th century, institutions became extractive due to tax farming, rapacious governors and Bedouin raids. From the middle of the 19th century until 1948, there was a second reversal back to private property institutions, first slowly until the First World War, and then more rapidly under the British Mandate after the First World War. When there were private property institutions the economy prospered, while when there were extractive institutions, the economy stagnated.

scholarly journals De glans van het verleden, het recht op het heden. Over het eerste eeuwfeest van Conscience

2014 ◽  
Vol 73 (2) ◽  
pp. 130-151
Author(s):  
Jo Tollebeek ◽  
Germa Greving
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
First World War ◽  
100Th Anniversary ◽  
World War ◽  
The Past ◽  
Gekenmerkt Door ◽  
The First World War ◽  
The Right ◽  
First World

In de zomer van 1912 werd met veel enthousiasme de honderdste geboortedag van Hendrik Conscience gevierd. Het eeuwfeest, dat vooral in Antwerpen veel publiek trok, illustreerde hoezeer ook nog aan de vooravond van de Eerste Wereldoorlog dergelijke herinneringsfeesten werden gekenmerkt door een ouder, romantisch idioom. In een traditionele, negentiendeeeuwse praalstoet en een door Emmanuel De Bom opgezette tentoonstelling werd de geschiedenis tot iets heiligs gemaakt, iets dat blijvende trouw afdwong. Maar tegelijk kreeg het eeuwfeest ook een actuele betekenis en werd Conscience niet alleen een erflater, maar ook een opdrachtgever. Tijdens twee ‘plechtige feestzittingen’ presenteerden René De Clercq en Pol De Mont Conscience als vader, die op gepaste wijze moest worden herdacht. Maar zij benadrukten ook dat het Woord van de schrijver tot Daden moest leiden. Dat maakte van het eeuwfeest van 1912 meer dan een romantisch herinneringsfeest: het ging ook om een politieke manifestatie, met een strijdbaar karakter en eigentijdse eisen (‘onze Vlaamsche Hoogeschool’). Dit sloot niet uit dat ernaar werd gestreefd de herinnering aan Conscience te musealiseren. De blik op de verdere Vlaamse ontvoogding vereiste blijkbaar ook een terugblik. Daarmee werden verleden en heden wederzijds op elkaar betrokken.________The splendour of the past, the right to the present. About Conscience’s centenary celebration. The 100th anniversary of the birth of Hendrik Conscience was celebrated with great enthusiasm in the summer of 1912. The centenary celebration, which drew a lot of public in Antwerp in particular, illustrated to which extent such memorial celebrations were characterised by an older, romantic idiom even on the eve of the First World War. A traditional nineteenth century pageant and an exhibition created by Emmanuel De Bom turned history into something holy, that enforced enduring loyalty. At the same time, however, the centenary celebration also acquired a present-day significance and thus Conscience became not only a testator but also an initiator. During two ‘formal festive sessions’ René De Clercq and Pol De Mont presented Conscience as the father who deserved to be remembered in a fitting manner. However, they also emphasized that the Words of the author needed to be translated into Actions. This meant that the 1912 century celebration was more than a romantic commemoration: it was also a political manifestation that was militant in nature and with contemporary demands. (‘Our Flemish University’). This did not exclude that it was attempted to musealize the memory of Conscience. The prospect of a continued Flemish emancipation apparently also required retrospection. Thus the past and the present were interlinked.

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