The Disputed Austro-Hungarian Border: Agendas, Actors, and Practices in Western Hungary/Burgenland after World War I
Upućujemo na zbornik „The Disputed Austro-Hungarian Border“ (2025) koji će sigurno izazvati pozornost hrvatske historiografije zbog njezina interesa za Gradišće (Burgenland) i Gradišćanske Hrvate. Pritom je, kao što se može vidjeti iz „Uvoda“ Hannesa Granditsa, riječ o oslanjanju na nove pristupe kao što su, primjerice, „Etnicitet bez grupa“ Rogersa Brubakera i „Zamišljene nezajednice: nacionalna ravnodušnost kao analitička kategorija“ Tahre Zahre, koji su upravo prevedeni na hrvatski jezik u zborniku „Nadilaženje nacionalne paradigme. Od historiografskog nacionalizma do transnacionalnih pristupa“ (2025). Prilika je to da spomenemo i knjigu Aleksandra Horvata „Identiteti na periferiji. Izgradnja etničkog identiteta Bunjevaca i Šokaca u Vojvodini (1848-1941)“ (2020), koja se također nastojala osloniti na neke od razmjerno novijih pristupa u okviru studija nacionalizma. Zainteresirani za prikaze, kritičke osvrte ili polemičke priloge o tim knjigama mogu se javiti uredniku portala Historiografija.hr kako bismo pokušali osigurati recenzentske primjerke.
The Disputed Austro-Hungarian Border: Agendas, Actors, and Practices in Western Hungary/Burgenland after World War I
Edited by Hannes Grandits, Ibolya Murber, and Katharina Tyran
258 pages, 13 ills., bibliog., index
ISBN 978-1-80539-864-6 $135.00/£104.00 / Hb / Published (February 2025)
Reviews
“[T]his book is an important, significant addition to the current scholarship on empire and post-imperial breakdown and transition, and on the Habsburg/post-Habsburg history of borderlands.” • Marco Bresciani, University of Florence
“This is a very convincing edited volume on the transformation of power from the Austro-Hungarian Empire to the Austrian Republic after the First World War. Looking at one particular region, Burgenland, that was contested between two losers of the War, the book provides insight into macro- and micro-level decision making processes, changes in hierarchies and power relations between social, ethnic, political and religious groups inhabiting this border region.” • Tim Buchen, Technische Universität Dresden
Description
The collapse of the Habsburg monarchy in the aftermath of World War I marked a foundational shift in the histories of Austria and Hungary. Previously part of the Habsburg’s Austro-Hungarian Empire, this event stripped the two new states of a long-established territorial order, triggering a controversial redrawing of their borders. Whilst scholarship often focuses on the role played by state actors in Vienna and Budapest, The Disputed Austro-Hungarian Border refreshingly re-examines this event through investigating how processes of state and nation-building manifested within the contested region of Western Hungary and Burgenland. In doing so, this book innovatively resituates this border region within the larger context of post-Habsburg historical development taking place across Central Europe.
Hannes Grandits is Professor of Southeast European History at Humboldt University in Berlin.
Ibolya Murber is an Associate Professor of History at Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest-Szombathely Her research interests include the Austrian-Hungarian relations in the 20th century and the history of democracy in Central Europe, and her recent publications include, Detours: The 20th-century history of the Austro-Hungarian State Border (Kronosz, 2024).
Katharina Tyran is an Associate Professor of Slavic Philology at the University of Helsinki. Her research considers sociolinguistic topics with a focus on minoritized languages, linguistic landscape research, and writing. Her recent publications include the co-edited volume South Slavic Vienna: On the visibility and presence of South Slavic language and cultures in contemporary Vienna (Böhlau, 2022).
Contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction: The Separation of Austria and Hungary after World War I: A Borderland Perspective
Hannes Grandits
Part I: Discussing, Implementing and Explaining a New Border (Region)
Chapter 1. The Role of Bolshevism and Anti-Bolshevism in the Struggle for Western Hungary and Burgenland
Ibolya Murber
Chapter 2. The Interallied Commission for the Delimitation of the Boundary between Austria and Hungary, and the New International Order in Austria
Michael Burri
Chapter 3. Graz Geographers at the Birth of Burgenland: Robert Sieger and Marian Sidaritsch
Ferenc Jankó
Part II: Surviving during (Post-) World War I Economic Disintegration and the Polarization of Class
Chapter 4. Surviving and Resisting the Wartime Order: Black-Market Economy in the Border Region of Wiener Neustadt during and after World War I
Sabine Schmitner-Laszakovits
Chapter 5. Polarization, Persistence and Political Mobilization of Class Belongings in Western Hungary /Burgenland after World War I (1919-22)
Hannes Grandits
Part III: Evolution of a New Elite Power Balance
Chapter 6. Petite-Bourgeois Local Revolutions? Post-Habsburg Transitions, Democratization, Local Elites, and the Place of Western-Hungary/Burgenland
Gábor Egry
Chapter 7. The Birth of Burgenland and the End of the Esterházy-Estate
Melinda Harlov-Csortán
Part IV: Post-Imperial Solidification of Ethnic Categories
Chapter 8. From Mosaic to Pigeonhole: Frames, Loyalties, and Policies among the Croatian Speaking Population in Former Western Hungary/Burgenland
Katharina Tyran
Chapter 9. The Romani and Jewish Population in Burgenland at the Beginning of the Inter-War Period
Ursula K. Mindler-Steiner
Index
https://www.berghahnbooks.com/title/GranditsDisputed