scholarly journals War Veterans, Fascism, and Para-Fascist Departures in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, 1918–1941

Fascism ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 42-74
Author(s):  
John Paul Newman

This article discusses the role played by war veterans in the various fascist and para-fascist groups present in Yugoslavia in the interwar period. The article finds that significant numbers of veterans and the nationalist associations to which they belonged contributed to proposed or actual departures from the democratic norm in interwar Yugoslavia, and were especially supportive of King Aleksandar Karadjordjevic’s dictatorship of 1929–1934. In this respect, they could be termed ‘para-fascist’. The article also notes that whilst the two groups typically identified in the literature as ‘fascist’, the Croatian Ustashe and Serbian/Yugoslav Zbor, fit into the ‘second-wave’ of 1930s fascist forces not usually marked by a strong presence of First World War veterans, their membership and ideological organisation were nevertheless significantly influenced by both the traditions of the war and the men who fought in it.

2019 ◽  
Vol 54 (4) ◽  
pp. 716-736
Author(s):  
John Paul Newman

Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia were two successor states of the Austro-Hungarian empire at great pains in the interwar period to portray themselves, both domestically and internationally, as ‘victor states’ of the First World War, even though both states inherited societies that were deeply fractured by the experience of war. The symbol of the pro-Entente war volunteer was an important part of both states’ interwar cultures of victory. Such volunteers represented just a fraction of war veterans in both countries, but they were given great prominence in their respective state-forming cultures. This article is a study of the origins and the nature of this important entanglement. It begins by defining the problematic nature of the ‘culture of victory’ in the region, before going on to explore the common origins of the volunteer movements in the wartime pro-Entente émigré groups. It then moves on to a discussion of consequences of the privileging of volunteer veterans in the institutional, political, and commemorative cultures of the two states.


2021 ◽  
pp. 141-162
Author(s):  
Mircea-Gheorghe Abrudan ◽  
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A prolific historian, a professor of the Andreian Seminary in Sibiu, parish priest of Săliștea and an archpriest of Mărginimea Sibiului, a professor of the ‘King Ferdinand I’ University in Cluj, a titular member of the Romanian Academy, a talented publicist, a co-founder of the Institute of National History in Cluj, a deputy in the Parliament of Greater Romania, a minister in the Averescu and Goga-Cuza governments, a patriot and victim of the Bolshevik regime in the 1950s’ Romania, Ioan Lupaș is a scholar with the aura of a saint. Fr. Lupaș is part of the admirable generation of those who committed themselves with all their power and selflessness to the national movement of the Transylvanian Romanians, those who achieved the Union of Transylvania, Banat, Crișana and Maramureș with the Kingdom of Romania on 1 December 1918 and then fought for the consolidation of national unity during the interwar period. Lupaș is part of the leading gallery of the makers of Greater Romania, and one of the few historians-participants who later wrote relevant pages about the astral event in which they were active participants. The study provides a brief biography of Ioan Lupaș, focusing on the activity of the archpriest at the time of the First World War, his involvement in the organization of the Great National Assembly of Alba Iulia, and the way in which he subsequently remembered the events and feelings experienced in the year of the ‘fortunate fulfilling of long-awaited goals’ and of ‘thoroughly well-deserved triumph’.


2018 ◽  
Vol 66 (2) ◽  
pp. 294-298
Author(s):  
Thomas Raithel

Abstract The interwar period was a phase of the formation of new states and of democratic awakening, but also a time of crises and the failure of democracies as well as the establishment of authoritarian and dictatorial systems. Until recently, it was largely overlooked by research and the general public. Given the recent increase of right-wing populist currents and authoritarian tendencies in Europe, interest has once again grown. The second “Contemporary History Podium” is thus dedicated to the question of how akin we are to the interwar period. How is it perceived in different countries which constituted themselves as democracies at the end of the First World War after the fall of the Romanov, Habsburg and Hohenzollern Empires? Also what is the relevance of this history for the present? Ota Konrád (Charles University Prague), Ekaterina Makhotina (University of Bonn), Anton Pelinka (Central European University Budapest), Thomas Raithel (Institute for Contemporary History Munich-Berlin) und Krzysztof Ruchniewicz (Willy Brandt Center, Wrocław University) look into these questions utilising the examples of Czechoslovakia, Lithuania, Austria, Germany and Poland.


Author(s):  
Guy Miron

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....


2020 ◽  
pp. 73-84
Author(s):  
Izabela Olszewska

‟Wir Deutschjuden”: The Image of Germans and Westjuden in the German-Language Jewish Press of the First World War and the Interwar PeriodThe interwar period was a highly special time in reference to defining and constructing all kinds of cultural identities in Europe. One of the groups building their identity at the time were the so-called Westjuden, a Jewish community culturally defined as Ashkenazi assimilated under the influence of the Jewish Enlightenment (the Haskalah). In German territory, Westjuden considered themselves German citizens of the Jewish faith, thus separating themselves from the remaining groups of Ashkenazi Jews, i.e. the Ostjuden. Also describing themselves as Germans in the German-language Jewish press, Westjuden frequently characterized, analyzed, and searched for confirmation of their belonging to the German cultural circle.The aim of the article is to reconstruct the image of Germans and  Westjuden themselves in the German-language Jewish press at the time of the First World War and in the interwar period. „Wir Deutschjuden”: obraz Niemców oraz Westjuden w niemieckojęzycznej prasie żydowskiej z okresu pierwszej wojny światowej oraz dwudziestolecia międzywojennegoOkres pierwszej wojny światowej oraz dwudziestolecia międzywojennego był czasem niezwykle specyficznym, jeśli chodzi o określanie i konstruowanie wszelkich ku lturowych tożsamości w Europie. Jedną z takich grup byli Deutschjuden, tj. zasymilowani pod wpływem oświecenia żydowskiego (Haskali) Żydzi niemieccy. Deutschjuden deklarowali się jako „obywatele niemieccy wyznania mojżeszowego”, separując się tym ostentacyjnie od migrujących do Niemiec Żydów z Europy wschodniej – Ostjuden. Na łamach swojej prasy niemieckojęzycznej Żydzi wielokrotnie charakteryzowali, analizowali, szukali potwierdzenia przynależności do niemieckiego kręgu kulturowego, opisując przy tym siebie, jak i Niemców.Celem artykułu jest rekonstrukcja kulturowego obrazu Deutschjuden oraz pośrednio Niemców ze szczególnym uwzględnieniem dyskursu odnoszącego się do języka, religii, kultury historycznej czy tradycji Deutschjuden.


Author(s):  
Edward Juler

Born of the sociocultural effervescence that swept through Europe in the years following the First World War, Surrealism represented a profound disillusionment towards the established intellectual order that it held responsible for the dehumanising and violent depths to which civilisation had so recently sunk. Decrying the inadequacy of postwar philosophies and politics to deal with the new, brutalised world of the interwar period, the Surrealists loudly championed a revolution of perception by replacing the certainties of prewar thought with the unpredictable discontinuities of non-Euclidean geometry, the base materialism of Georges Bataille and, most especially, the dark visions of the human psyche that emerged through Freudian psychoanalysis.


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