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This book examines patterns of national integration and the mobilization of the peasantry across two historical regions, Central and Eastern Europe, over a long historical timeframe, spanning from the 1848 Revolution to the outbreak of World War II. It discusses how national elites in these regions interacted with the peasantry during the process of building modern nation-states and democratic political systems, and how political integration occurred by transforming peasants from subjects of various public actors into active citizens. The authors focus on the mechanisms employed by nation-states to achieve the socio-political integration of the peasantry, including land redistribution, universal suffrage, state-sponsored education, taxation, and military conscription, and on diverse channels of communicating the state’s agenda of modernization, such as the church, the press, political parties, and other types of intermediaries.This book promotes interdisciplinary and comparative approaches to the question of the social and political integration of peasants within the various societies of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the emerging nation-states of Central and Eastern Europe.
Sorin Radu is Professor at the Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu in Romania. He has also been the Convenor for Romania of ICHRPI since 2013. He specializes in the history of Romania during the 19th and 20th centuries.
Constantin Iordachi is Professor at the Central European University in Vienna, Austria and President of the International Association for Comparative Fascist Studies. He is also Co-editor-in-Chief of East Central Europe, and Consultant Editor of Fascism: Journal of Comparative Fascist Studies.
Andrei Florin Sora is Associate Professor in the Faculty of History of the University of Bucharest in Romania. His research focuses on the relationship between the continuities of social structures and the dynamics of moments of historical change.
Ovidiu Buruianăis Associate Professor in the Faculty of History at the Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iasi in Romania. His research explores the history of political groups during the interwar period, the history of political and economic ideas in modern Romania, as well as the relations between majorities and minorities after the year 1918.
List of contents
.- 1. Introduction; Sorin Radu, Ovidiu Buruiană, Andrei Sora.- 2. Reforming the Land and the Peasant after 1800: How to Make National Peasantries; Eric Vanhaute.- 3. Peasants in Romania’s First Capitalist Modernity: A Comparative Political Economy Perspective; Cornel Ban.- 4. Peasants' Migration, Social Mobility, and National Identity in a Post-Serfdom Society: Upper Silesia between the 1850s and 1930s; Andrzej Michalczyk.- 5. How Peasants Went to the Bank: An Introduction to the 'Educational' Activities of the Peasants’ Land Bank in the Late Russian Empire; Arina Fedorova.- 6. Vote Masaryk! High Politics and a Reversal at the Municipal Level: The Case of Zlín in the Early Twentieth Century; Milan Řepa.- 7. Peasants, Mobilization, and Ethnic Politics in the Hungarian-Romanian Borderlands; Anders Blomqvist.- 8. The 'Peasant Class' and the 'Agricultural Estate': Agrarian Populism and its Social Subjects in Interwar Galicia and Bohemia; Lucian George.- 9. Having it Both Ways: Preserving an Idyllic Rural Universe and Overcoming Backwardness by the ‛Right’ School-Education; Wilfried Göttlicher.- 10. Disability in the Interwar Romanian Village: Peasants, Teachers, Priests, and Miracles; Maria Bucur.- 11. "The Silent World": The Romanian State and the Political Integration of Peasants during the Interwar Period; Radu, Buruiană, Sora.- 12. Degrees of Crisis: The Romanian Countryside during the Great Depression; Anca Mândru.- 13. The Peasant Sociology of Ferenc Erdei; Nigel Swain.- 14. Conclusion; Constantin Iordachi.
About the author
Sorin Radu is Professor at the Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu in Romania. He has also been the Convenor for Romania of ICHRPI since 2013. He specializes in the history of Romania during the 19th and 20th centuries.
Constantin Iordachi is Professor at the Central European University in Vienna, Austria and President of the International Association for Comparative Fascist Studies. He is also Co-editor-in-Chief of East Central Europe, and Consultant Editor of Fascism: Journal of Comparative Fascist Studies.
Andrei Florin Sorais Associate Professor in the Faculty of History of the University of Bucharest in Romania. His research focuses on the relationship between the continuities of social structures and the dynamics of moments of historical change.
Ovidiu Buruiană is Associate Professor in the Faculty of History at the Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iasi in Romania. His research explores the history of political groups during the interwar period, the history of political and economic ideas in modern Romania, as well as the relations between majorities and minorities after the year 1918.
Summary
This book examines patterns of national integration and the mobilization of the peasantry across two historical regions, Central and Eastern Europe, over a long historical timeframe, spanning from the 1848 Revolution to the outbreak of World War II. It discusses how national elites in these regions interacted with the peasantry during the process of building modern nation-states and democratic political systems, and how political integration occurred by transforming peasants from subjects of various public actors into active citizens. The authors focus on the mechanisms employed by nation-states to achieve the socio-political integration of the peasantry, including land redistribution, universal suffrage, state-sponsored education, taxation, and military conscription, and on diverse channels of communicating the state’s agenda of modernization, such as the church, the press, political parties, and other types of intermediaries.This book promotes interdisciplinary and comparative approaches to the question of the social and political integration of peasants within the various societies of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the emerging nation-states of Central and Eastern Europe.
