Introduction: Aftershocks: Violence in Dissolving Empires after the First World War

Abstract

This special issue deals with the phenomenon of the emergence of radical violence in what might be called 'shatter zones' of empires after the end of the First World War. It argues that the emergence of violence was due to the absence of functioning state control and facilitated by the effects of experiencing mass violence during the First World War. In the multi-ethnic regions of the former empires, the rising wave of nationalism directed this violent potential against ethnic and religious minorities.The collapse of multi-ethnic empires towards the end of the First World War ushered in a new wave of conflicts. During the period 1917-23, the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman and Russian empires was often accompanied by violent attempts to forge new nation-states or to consolidate revolutionary gains through force. Hundreds of thousands of people, mostly civilians, were caught up in this wave of violence. Typically, the violence was concentrated in ethnically or religiously diverse regions or areas, mostly former imperial borderlands, as these culturally heterogeneous 'shatter zones' of multi-ethnic empires often posed a threat, either real or perceived, to the project of realigning territories as parts of an integral nation-state. 1 This special issue will analyse this wave of violence in its broader European context.

Taming Transylvania: Paramilitaries Building State and Peace after World War I

“…The power vacuum left behind by the defunct empires functioned as a catalyst for violence. 2 One of the consequences of this process was the emergence of paramilitary troops. They were autonomous in relation to the centralized military apparatus of the state, and also less centralized than regular military troops.…”

“Completely Forgotten and Totally Ignored”: Czechoslovak Veterans of the Austro-Hungarian Army and the Transitions of 1918-1919

“…In his recent study of uniformed and paramilitary violence in post-war Central Europe, Rudolf Kučera has set out to compare a "culture of defeat" at the core of paramilitary violence in post-war Austria with a "culture of victory" which propelled the uniformed violence in Czechoslovakia at the same time (Kučera 2016;Konrád and Kučera, 2018). The culture of defeat is often seen as a complex phenomenon which saw the overwhelming humiliation of military defeat to cause many of the war returnees in countries like Germany, Austria, or Hungary to be unable to cope with the way the war ended, turning them to various forms of often politicized violence instead, be it perpetrated by rightwing or left-wing groups (Schievelbusch 2003;Gerwarth and Horne, eds., 2012;or Eichenberg and Newman 2010). In his article, Kučera argues that in post-war Czechoslovakia, a specific culture of victory emerged leading to similar-albeit not as extreme-forms of collective violence perpetrated mostly by ex-Czechoslovak legionaries.…”