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This set of essays introduces readers to new historical research on the creation of the new order in East-Central Europe in the period immediately following 1918.
The book offers insights into the political, diplomatic, military, economic and cultural conditions out of which the New Europe was born. Experts from various countries take into account three perspectives. They give equal attention to both the Western and Eastern fronts; they recognise that on 11 November 1918, the War ended only on the Western front and violence continued in multiple forms over the next five years; and they show how state-building after 1918 in Central and Eastern Europe was marked by a mixture of innovation and instability. Thus, the volume focuses on three kinds of narratives: those related to conflicts and violence, those related to the recasting of civil life in new structures and institutions, and those related to remembrance and representations of these years in the public sphere.
Taking a step towards writing a fully European history of the Great War and its aftermath, the volume offers an original approach to this decisive period in 20th-century European history.
List of contents
Introduction Part 1: Patterns of Violence 1. Imperial Collapse, State-Building and Attempts at Stabilisation: East Central Europe after the Great War 2. An Age of Revolutions: East Central Europe at the End of the First World War 3. Violence and the New Europe: The War that Didn't End 4. After the Peace Settlement: Frustrations and Possibilities 5. The Collapse of the Versailles System during the Interwar Period Part 2: Recasting Public Life: Ideas and institutions 6. Economic Revival in East Central Europe after the Great War 7. Boundaries of Imagination. Geographers and Territories in East Central Europe 8. To 'acquire the right place among the nations'. Cultural Diplomacy and the New Order in East Central Europe 9. Minorities at the Death of the Continental European Empires, 1918-1923 10. New Cities in New States 11. Doctors and Diplomats: Health Services in the New Europe, 1918-1923 12. The International Committee of the Red Cross and the Reconstruction of New Europe, 1918-1923 Part 3: The New Europe in Memory and History 13. Political and Cultural Aspects of the Aftermath of the Great War in East Central Europe 14. Wars Over War Memory: East Central Europe, 1918-1989 15. The Modernist Turn: The New Europe and the Arts, 1918-1923 16. The Future of the Past in the New Europe
About the author
Bartosz Dziewanowski-Stefańczyk is Deputy Head of the Academic Department at the Institute of European Network Remembrance and Solidarity and Researcher at the History Institute of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw, Poland. His fields of research include Polish-German relations, Polish foreign politics of memory and cultural diplomacy. He is currently writing a book on history as a tool of Polish diplomacy towards Germany, 1918‒1939.
Jay Winter is Charles J. Stille Professor of History Emeritus at Yale University and Honorary Professor at the Australian National University. His fields of research include the First World War in history and memory, and the Armenian Genocide of 1915. He is currently writing a history of the Treaty of Lausanne of 1923 and a book on the cultural history of modern war.
Summary
This book introduces readers to new historical research on the creation of the new order in East-Central Europe in the period immediately following 1918. Taking a step towards writing a fully European history of the Great War and its aftermath, the volume offers an original approach to this decisive period in 20th century European history.
