Following the collapse of empires and the subsequent founding of self-determined nation-states, East Central Europe experienced a turning point after World War I. The new states had to transform themselves from branches of a multi-ethnic empire to independent nation-states, as well as from a system of monarchy to democracy at the same time. We argue that one cannot really understand why democracy failed in almost all East Central European states after World War I if one does not take into account the extreme challenges of this “double transformation” consisting of the interactions of the two tightly interwoven processes of nation formation and democratization. Therefore, we deem it necessary to develop a broader research program that addresses the complex interlacement of these two fundamental transformations of politics and society.
The article focuses on the interaction of knowledge transfer and urbanization in the emerging cities of East and Central Europe 1880-1945. Doing so, the article is arguing that in the East European borderlands, this interaction can be understood as reception and creative development of impulses transformed by local socioeconomic and cultural factors, such as multiethnicity, multiconfessionalisation, and nationalizing processes, which are specific for these regions. Due to this, the article offers the concept of “emerging cities” on the specific model of urbanization with a focus on knowledge transfer and circulation in this historical and geographical region beyond the center–periphery scheme.
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