The collapse of the Habsburg Monarchy at the end of World War I ushered in a period of radical change for East-Central European political structures and national identities. Yet this transformed landscape inevitably still bore the traces of its imperial past. Breaking with traditional histories that take 1918 as a strict line of demarcation, this collection focuses on the complexities that attended the transition from the Habsburg Empire to its successor states. In so doing, it produces new and more nuanced insights into the persistence and effectiveness of imperial institutions, as well as the sources of instability in the newly formed nation-states.
Author(s): Paul Miller, Claire Morelon
Series: Austrian and Habsburg Studies
Publisher: Berghahn Books
Year: 2018
Language: English
Pages: 366
Embers of Empire
Copyright
Contents
Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part I. Permanence and Revolution
Chapter 1. Negotiating Post-Imperial Transitions
Chapter 2. State Legitimacy and Continuity between the Habsburg Empire and Czechoslovakia
Chapter 3. Strangers among Friends
Chapter 4. Ideology on Display
Part II The Habsburg Army’s Final Battles
Chapter 5. Reflections on the Legacy of the Imperial and Royal Army in the Successor States
Chapter 6. Imperial into National Officers
Chapter 7. Shades of Empire
Part III. Church, Dynasty, Aristocracy
Chapter 8. “All the German Princes Driven Out!”
Chapter 9. Wealthy Landowners or Weak Remnants of the Imperial Past?
Chapter 10. Sinner, Saint-or Cipher?
Part IV. History, Memory, Mentalité
Chapter 11. “What Did They Die For?”
Chapter 12. “The First Victim of the First World War”
Afterword
Index
