Organisers:
Centre for Religious and Historical Studies in Košice
Spiš Museum in Spišská Nová Ves
Regional Museum in Prešov
State Scientific Library in Košice
Centre of Social and Psychological Sciences of the Slovak Academy of Sciences in Košice
The year 1918 marked the end of the global conflict of the First World War, which destabilised Central Europe and ultimately led to the collapse of Austria-Hungary. The nationalism of the political and intellectual elites of individual national communities, together with the geopolitical interests of the great powers, redrew borders and led to the emergence of successor ‘nation states’. Historiography has documented the impact of the Great War on victorious and defeated national communities, their capitals, regional towns and historical regions relatively well. Less attention has been paid to village history: how changes of regime affected rural populations, the extent to which their ways of life and coexistence changed, the replacement of municipal leaders and councils, and rural memories of the war and the creation of new states. Most of Slovakia's population lived in the countryside until the 1960s, so rural history should not be overlooked.
The aim of the conference Villages during the Political Upheaval is to provide a forum for a wide range of researchers of village history to present their findings to fellow historians on the anniversary of the end of the First World War and the founding of Czechoslovakia. The organisers seek to create a productive setting for exchanging knowledge and comparing shared experiences and differences in village histories during this period. The intended outcome is a collective monograph analysing individual contributions as case studies towards a broader synthesis of rural history at this turning point of the twentieth century. Conference papers should therefore address the following themes:
– War and the village: economic, administrative and demographic changes
– Villages in military operations: military missions, requisitions, mobilisation, the influence of the Bolshevik regimes of the Hungarian and Slovak Soviet Republics, villages and legionnaires
– Civic activism in support of the new state versus rural passivity
– Resistance to the new republic: spontaneous expressions of discontent, protests, assemblies, strikes, petitions and political initiatives opposing incorporation into a successor state
– Ethnic conflicts: Slovaks, Czechs, Germans, Hungarians, Rusyns and Poles; attitudes towards Jews and other village minorities
– Changes in language use in offices, churches, and public and private spaces
– Village elites: the ‘changing of the guard’ after the creation of Czechoslovakia and other successor states; continuity and discontinuity among mayors, municipal councils, clergy, nobility, traders, entrepreneurs, clubs and associations
– Political preferences of rural populations in the first post-war years
– Villages and new state or administrative borders: redirecting employment and administrative ties towards new regional centres
– Demographic changes: forced and voluntary migration resulting from the war and the creation of successor states
– Establishing Czechoslovak public administration: money, land reform, winners and losers, economic progress and decline, and the restructuring of property ownership
– Political and social upheaval in memory: local newspapers, village chronicles, memoirs and living memory
Conference venues and dates
Section 1:
Košice, 14 November 2018
State Scientific Library in Košice
Pribinova 1
Organising committee:
Zdenka Bencúrová (CEREHIS)
Veronika Szeghy-Gayer (ŠVK)
Viktor Szabó (ŠVK)
Lucia Heldáková (CEREHIS/SAV)
Ondrej Ficeri (CEREHIS/SAV)
Section 2:
Spišská Nová Ves, 15 November 2018
Spiš Museum in Spišská Nová Ves
Letná 57/50
Organising committee:
Martin Furmanik (Spiš Museum)
Miroslav Števík (Spiš Museum)
Juraj Pavlis (Spiš Museum)
Ondrej Ficeri (CEREHIS/SAV)
Zdenka Bencúrová (CEREHIS)
Section 3:
Stropkov, 16 November 2018
Regional Museum in Prešov – Stropkov Manor House
Zámocká 519/3
Organising committee
Nikoleta Lattová (Regional Museum in Prešov)
Jozef Kušnír (Regional Museum in Prešov)
Lucia Heldáková (CEREHIS/SAV)
Ondrej Ficeri (CEREHIS/SAV)