{"id":29952,"date":"2022-02-11T22:53:07","date_gmt":"2022-02-11T22:53:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/historiografija.hr\/?p=29952"},"modified":"2022-02-11T22:53:07","modified_gmt":"2022-02-11T22:53:07","slug":"cfp-discourses-of-transition-in-post-habsburg-east-central-europe-1917-1941","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/?p=29952","title":{"rendered":"CfP: Discourses of Transition in (post-)Habsburg East Central Europe, 1917\u20131941"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

4th<\/sup> annual conference of the ERC Nepostrans \u2013 Negotiating post-imperial transitions: from remobilization to nation-state consolidation. A comparative study of local and regional transitions in post-Habsburg East and Central Europe 1917-1930<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the political institutions, social ties, cultural traditions, and economic links of the Habsburg Empire were pulled apart at the end of the First World War, a change in the mental lives of its inhabitants also took place. When it became apparent that they would no longer live within Austria-Hungary, how did individuals think through the transition out of Empire and into whatever came after? Reflecting on one consequence of this historical rupture, the Hungarian economist El\u00e9mer Hantos wrote that<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[t]he old world in the middle of Europe has disappeared. What has taken its place bears\u2014easily recognizable\u2014the stamp of the provisional, the unbalanced, and the unsatisfactory. But it is precisely this feeling of incompleteness which ought to inspire us to create new things, to prompt us to prepare ourselves mentally and spiritually <\/em>(seelisch und geistig) for the work of reconstruction<\/em>.[1]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

At first glance, one may date this text to the months and years immediately following the functional collapse of the Empire in late autumn 1918. But these words were rather published in 1933\u2014part of the introduction to Hantos\u2019s Der Weg zum neuen Mitteleuropa<\/em>\u2014in the middle of the democratic, fascist, and authoritarian experiments in statehood that were taking place across the former territories of the Habsburg Empire. Hantos envisioned a new economic unit in the middle of Europe, one founded on the Empire\u2019s old economic ties, but without the revision of the region\u2019s political boundaries to the pre-1918 status quo ante<\/em>. It was an unrealized alternative, but fully informed by a sense that with the loss of the old order, something new\u2014perhaps something more just\u2014could take its place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Newness in and of itself was not a guarantee of harmony in the international system, however, nor was it a promise of coexistence at home, in the localities distant from cosmopolitan metropolises. Visions of post-imperial social, political, and economic orders were myriad. Discourses of transition in post-Habsburg East Central Europe took numerous forms and reflected quite different interpretations of the dynamic changes that had taken place. The scale of these processes operated globally as much as they did within a single household. Indeed, the temporality of these processes mattered a great deal as well: a social change that had become inert at one level could well have remained in action within another spatial horizon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Co-organized by the Institute of History of the Slovak Academy of Sciences<\/em><\/a>, the Faculty of Law of Comenius University<\/em><\/a>, and the Institute of Political History in Budapest<\/em><\/a>, the Fourth Annual Conference of the ERC Consolidator Grant Project \u201cNegotiating post-imperial transitions\u201d (NEPOSTRANS)<\/a> will be a forum to present recent research on the theme \u201cDiscourses of Transition in (post-)Habsburg East Central Europe, 1917\u20131941.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under this broad heading, we invite papers to reflect on and interpret the mental phenomena (ideas, discourses, concepts, and theories, for example) which took postimperial transition as its object. While papers are welcome to treat the entire span of the interwar period in post-Habsburg East Central Europe (~1917\u20131941), we are particularly interested in research which is temporally centered on the immediate aftermath of the First World War, the early period of postimperial transition, and the beginning of the consolidation of post-Habsburg successor states, that is, focused on the late 1910s through the 1920s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The conference will take place in Bratislava, Slovakia, between May 24\u201325, 2022. The submission deadline<\/u> is Friday, March 1, 2022, and responses will be given on April 1, 2022.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Abstract submissions should be no longer than 400 words and should include a brief biographical note of no more than 150 words. In your email submission, please also indicate the extent of your financial need (full, partial, none); the conference organizers are pooling resources to assist in covering the travel and accommodation costs of the attendees. Please send your complete submission to: nepostrans@phistory.hu<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The range of possible themes treated by \u201cdiscourses of transition\u201d within post-Habsburg space is vast, and while the following list is in no way exhaustive, we would like to suggest the submission of research topics which center on discourses related to:<\/p>\n\n\n\n