scholarly journals The Emergence of New States in Eastern Europe in 1918—Lessons for All of Europe

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-9
Author(s):  
Adam Balcer
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
International System ◽  
Nation Building ◽  
World War ◽  
European Continent ◽  
Eastern Front ◽  
New States ◽  
Huge Impact ◽  
Historical Memories

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.

scholarly journals The hierarchical society: the politics of self-determination and the constitution of new states after 1919

2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 372-396
Author(s):  
Maja Spanu
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
International Relations ◽  
International Society ◽  
International System ◽  
World Politics ◽  
League Of Nations ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
World War ◽  
New States ◽  
History Of

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.

Eastern Europe in the Global History of Decolonization

2018 ◽  
pp. 350-372 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Mark ◽  
Quinn Slobodian
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
World War I ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
World War ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
New States ◽  
History Of ◽  
European Colonialism ◽  
The Cold War

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.

The Rise and Decline of Arab Statehood, 1919 to 2011

2019 ◽  
pp. 19-42
Author(s):  
Ariel I. Ahram
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Arab World ◽  
International System ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
World War ◽  
Christian Communities ◽  
New States ◽  
Local Actors

Chapter 1 details how Arab states came of age in the midst of a global transformation in notions of sovereignty, self-determination, and statehood following World War I. The coupling of Wilsonian liberal norms with changes in the global balance of power afforded some local actors pronounced advantages in attaining and building statehood. New states, including Lebanon, Israel, Syria, and Iraq, owe their independence to this change. For others, though, the new rules of the international system obstructed the pursuit of sovereignty. Kurds in Syria and Iraq, Christian communities, and others tried and failed to gain statehood. Struggles in the Arab world, accordingly, became more about vertical or centripetal tendencies and less about separatism.

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
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Central And Eastern Europe ◽  
Early 20Th Century ◽  
Ethnic Literature ◽  
World War ◽  
Literary Identity ◽  
Hungarian Literature ◽  
New States ◽  
Specific Culture

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.

scholarly journals The Emergence of New States in Eastern Europe after World War I: The German Impact

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 93-112
Author(s):  
Klaus Ziemer
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
World War ◽  
Baltic States ◽  
Trade Relations ◽  
Political Forces ◽  
New States ◽  
The Baltic ◽  
Almost All ◽  
The Relationship

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.

Enemies within, Enemies without: the Ideology of a Conservative West-Russianist Newspaper During World War I (1914–1915)

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 74-103
Author(s):  
Aliaksandr Bystryk
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Nation Building ◽  
Russian Empire ◽  
Russian Society ◽  
World War ◽  
The West ◽  
The North ◽  
National Solidarity ◽  
North Western

Abstract This paper deals with the topic of conservative West-Russianist ideology and propaganda during World War I. The author analyzes the most prominent newspaper of the movement at the time – Severo-Zapadnaia Zhizn (The North-Western Life). The discourse of the newspaper is analyzed from the perspective of Belarusian nation-building, as well as from the perspective of Russian nationalism in the borderlands. The author explores the ways in which the creators of the periodical tried to use the rise of the Russian patriotic feelings to their advantage. Appealing to the heightened sense of national solidarity which took over parts of Russian society, the periodical tried to attack, delegitimize and discredit its ideological and political opponents. Besides the obvious external enemy – Germans, Severo-Zapadnaia Zhizn condemned socialists, pacifists, Jews, borderland Poles, Belarusian and Ukrainian national activists, Russian progressives and others, accusing them of disloyalty, lack of patriotism and sometimes even treason. Using nationalist loyalist rhetoric, the West-Russianist newspaper urged the imperial government to act more decisively in its campaign to end ‘alien domination’ in Russian Empire, and specifically to create conditions for domination of ‘native Russian element’ – meaning Belarusian peasantry, in the Belarusian provinces of the empire.

Nation Building, Democratization and Globalization as Competing Priorities in Ukraine's Education System*

2008 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan Germen Janmaat
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Educational Reform ◽  
Education System ◽  
Central And Eastern Europe ◽  
Nation Building ◽  
Modern System ◽  
New States ◽  
Consumer Demands ◽  
Competing Priorities ◽  
Individual Talent

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.

Da nazionalismo non dominante a nazionalismo dominante: il caso transilvano

2011 ◽  
pp. 37-61
Author(s):  
Stefano Santoro
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
Democratic Values ◽  
World War ◽  
The 19Th Century

The Rumanian nationalism of Transylvania, which developed during the 19th century to defend the rights of the Rumanian population from the Magyarization policies implemented by Budapest's government, suddenly found itself in a completely different situation at the end of World War I: from non-dominant it had become dominant. As in other areas of postwar Eastern Europe during the 1920s and 1930s,, this transition involved a reversal of the paradigms of reference of the Rumanian nationalists that changed from inclusive and democratic values into an exclusive and fundamentally totalitarian ideology.

Introduction

2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. J. W. Evans
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
World War ◽  
Habsburg Monarchy ◽  
European Continent ◽  
History Of ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Post War

The formation of Czechoslovakia introduced a remarkable novelty into the heart of the European continent after World War I. It was an unexpected creation and a completely new state, whereas its neighbours as successors to the Habsburg Monarchy either carried historic names and connections (Austria, Hungary, Poland), or were reincarnations of existing sovereign realms (Yugoslavia), or both (Rumania). Moreover, Czechoslovakia seemed uniquely to embody the ideals of the post-war settlement, as a polity with strongly western, democratic, and participatory elements. Yet Czechoslovakia was a historical construct, deeply rooted in earlier developments. It constitutes classic terrain for a study of the ‘nationalist and fascist Europe’ which emerged after 1918. This book deals with the history of Czechoslovakia and discusses Czech nationalism, along with the Czechs' relationship with Slovaks and Germans, Britain's policy towards Czechoslovakia, and gender and citizenship in the first Czechoslovak Republic.

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