“Where our commonality is necessary…”: Rethinking the End of the Habsburg Monarchy

Abstract

As the hundredth anniversary of November 1918 approaches, this article suggests some ways in which historians might rethink dominant narratives about the character of the Habsburg monarchy in its final years, the reasons for its collapse, and its complex legacies to the postwar world. Currently, most accounts that narrate the fall of the empire are still shaped to some extent by outcomes whose character was defined at the time by the nationalist architects of the states that replaced the monarchy. Even accounting for a sensible revisionism of their versions of events over the past century, their general reasoning, their ideological claims, and their worldviews frame the predominant explanations for why the monarchy fell when it did. Concomitantly, they continue to influence our understanding of the character of the regimes that replaced the monarchy after its fall.

‘One of the oldest states in Europe has never suppressed any nation’. The minority treaty, nationalist indignation and the foundations of interwar ethnic democracy in Poland

“…The conjuncture analysed above, composed of international pressure, accommodation, benchmarking and backlash, is a poignant illustration of ‘eventful’ causality in history. While the emerging nation states were, in fact, small empires failingly accommodating cultural diversity, in the Polish case one can hardly speak of a single reversal or refraction of the imperial past (Judson, 2017). Previous legacies of three empires, war‐time alliances in Poland and abroad, strategic calculations beyond the immediate outcomes and tactical manoeuvres aimed at discrediting the opponents all contributed to this critical juncture.…”

Fascist ideas, practices and networks of ‘Empire’: Rethinking Interwar Italy as post-Habsburg history (1918–1938)

“…On the one hand, the Great War led to the annexation of the territories that the propaganda of the neo- Risorgimento called the ‘Irredenta lands’, the South Tyrol and the Adriatic Littoral, then Trentino-Alto Adige and Venezia Giulia; on the other hand, the Empire left a variety of legacies in the form of administrative practices and bodies, political and legal traditions, economic and commercial activities, and transport infrastructures such as ports and railroads that survived at the local level and continued to influence the post-Habsburg lands between the two World Wars. These legacies had ambivalent meanings and impacts: They created challenges and conflicts between and within the successor states and regions of Austria-Hungary (like in the case of inherited customs and tariffs, codes and laws), but they also offered new opportunities for local, regional and even global (re)integration (Judson 2017: 1-21; Miller and Morelon 2018; Egry 2020; Bresciani 2018: 56-80).…”

Historyka Studia Metodologiczne

“…Innymi słowy, zdrada -zarówno jako złamanie obietnicy, jak i nadanie komuś piętna zdrajcy -była powszechnym działaniem politycznym. Aby wytłumaczyć ten fenomen, chciałbym wskazać na artykuł Pietera M. Judsona, w którym autor stwierdził, że państwa powstałe po rozpadzie Austro-Węgier (w co można wliczyć również Polskę ze względu na odzyskanie przez nią niepodległości w tym samym momencie, także z powodu klęski mocarstw) starały się funkcjonować -wbrew współczesnym wyobrażeniom -nie jak dwudziestowieczne państwa narodowe, lecz jak imperia, ponieważ to były wzorce, z których wyrastały 54 .…”