Heidi Hein-Kircher Discussant
Heidi Hein-Kircher Discussant
A State of Disappointment. Democratization in Interwar Poland
When reading about the post-WWI new East Central European states, it is quite common to find retrospective application of classical term “democracy” for the period in question. In my understanding, this is erroneous practice with a pre-programmed answer of failure. The question to ask is: how can something fail, when it did not exist in the first place, when there was no such tradition? If one considers the multitude of elements that the term contains, the time period and the historical context, the post-1918 “failure of democratic systems” could be seen in quite a different light.
This presentation, therefore, will attempt to discuss these issues using Lithuanian case during the first decade of its independence as an example. I argue, that the first ten years was the time, when the evolution of what I call a “border(line) democracy” – primarily aiming at the geographical and psychological perspectives – manifested at its clearest. Just as the prominent scholar of the European radical-right, Roger Griffin, put forward the argument about the multitude of “fascisms” in interwar Europe, the same can be said about the multitude of “democracies”. Unless governed by any form of radical regime, one should look at the specifics of each individual state and society, where higher or lower level of democratisation was taking place. From this point of view Lithuania was no different: the conjuncture of traditionalism, nationalism, clericalism, military conflicts, variety of national minorities, political power struggle on the national and international scenes, and so on – all this had impact on the development of the “Lithuanian-kind-of-democracy”. Another argument to support this hypothesis is that Lithuania was one of the few interwar East Central European states to suppress its radical movements (both left and right). Conservative nationalism and traditional clericalism was to great extent favoured by the majority of inhabitants, who, after the violent years of WWI and the wars of independence, were looking for stability and peace.
Arguably, at least three major “democratic” projects can be distinguished in interwar Lithuania: 1) the “clerical conservative national democracy” (represented by the Christian Democratic Party; in power from 1920 until spring 1926); 2) the “national social democracy” (the Social Democratic Party, other leftist groups (except for the communists) and national minorities; in power from May/June until the coup of 17 December 1926), and 3) the “’authoritative’ national(-ist) democracy” (Tautininkai party; in power from 1927 until 1940).
Institute for Lithuanian History
The Moment of a Democratic Nation State – the Aster Revolution in Hungary 1918
On October 31, 1918, at the end of World War I, the Hungarian Democratic Republic was created. It came about following a revolution that had started in Budapest after the dissolution and break-up of Austria-Hungary. The revolution had triumphed swiftly and painlessly.
A new cabinet was formed by Count Karolyi, its members drawn from the new National Council, composed of representatives of the Party of Independence, the Social Democratic Party, and a group of bourgeois radicals. After suing for a separate peace, the new government dissolved the existing parliament, pronounced Hungary an independent republic with Karolyi as provisional president, and proclaimed universal suffrage and freedom of the press and assembly. But this government, a gathering of eminent intellectuals such Oszkár Jászi and leaders of the Hungarian labor movement, who had worked for a decade to create a modern, democratic Hungary, failed within a few months. In its place, a radical new government created by the Hungarian Communist Party rose to power.
In the context of these developments, this paper intends to introduce and analyze the reasons behind this political failure. It also argues that the shared experience and memory of this failure negatively influenced public opinion for decades to come – despite the democratic achievements that had taken place – making the Hungarian people more “sensitive” and sympathetic towards a “stable”, authoritarian style of government.
Herder-Institute for Historical Research on East Central Europe
Democratization in Finland after the Civil War
Finland became independent in 1917 immediately after the Bolshevik revolution. The February revolution had already hastened workers’ demands for democratization and, after the parliament was declared to be highest authority in Finland instead of the Emperor of Russia, democratic communal laws and an eight-hour working day were decreed. Soon after this, however, Finland entered into a bitter civil war. After the war, the democratization process continued, although not without some obstacles. This paper analyses why democratization continued both at a local and a state level in Finland and asks if the communal democratic reforms were the key to Finland’s success in the democratization process compared to many other countries.
University of Helsinki
A State of Disappointment. Democratization in Interwar Poland
Interwar Poland integrated territories with significantly different political traditions into a single state organism. These territories reached from a largely autocratic Russia to the (conditionally) parliamentarian cultures of Germany and Austria. It had also amassed a great deal of experience from the First World War, which led both to attempts to centralize the state through militarization and to establish a bottom-up democratization. The last years of this conflict saw a steep rise in social activism throughout East Central Europe. Women’s rights activists, peasants, workers and ethnic groups publicly expressed their needs, putting pressure on the state to apply progressive politics, at least in the initial phase of their movements.
In my paper I will characterize the main agents of democratic change in the first years of independent Poland. Furthermore, I will follow their history into the 1920s when their visions of a democratic state clashed with the political and social reality of this time. Such an approach requires a combination of socially informed political history together with an investigation of the history of ideas, based on archival and published sources from the period.
Polish Academy of Science
Politics of nationalization collided after the “Great War” with politics of
democratization in Europe's post-imperial states. Both politics were
inspired by US-President Woodrow Wilson's fourteen points. However,
democratic principles were in the interwar period gradually supplanted by
nationalist ones. In our analysis we show for three disputed border regions
(Upper Silesia, Teschen and Orava) on a broad source basis (central state
and regional authorities as well as journalism) how this already became
apparent in the first postwar years. Against the background of the
demographic constellation of national majorities and minorities in these
regions, we evaluate empirical material on processes and events, in which
the collision of these principles becomes particularly clear: in the
council movement of 1918/19, the censuses, plebiscites on border issues as
well as in the first democratic elections. We outline how the contradiction
between democratizing and nationalizing measures in these regions already
at the beginning of the 1920s stoked distrust of the new order and provided
fertile ground for anti-democratic forces.
Sebastian Paul, Steffen Kailitz
Hannah-Arendt-Institute for Totalitarism Studies at the University of Dresden
Hannah-Arendt-Institute for Totalitarism Studies at the University of Dresden
Matthäus Wehowski
Hannah-Arendt-Institute for Totalitarism Studies at the University of Dresden
Nations, regions and citizenship in East Central Europe: The challenges of democratization after 1918
Category
Paper Panel
Description
June 21
4:00 PM - 5:45 PM
2.A.01
Abstract: Today’s fights for new forms of sovereignty – or the restoration of old ones – might look surprising to those who thought the days of nationalism or even the concept of national sovereignty were over, however, beneath the present-day conflicts we can observe deeply rooted and repeating historical patterns. The heyday of these struggles was after the “Great War” in Europe, when new questions arose concerning who, in fact, “the people” were, who (in the border regions) wanted to be a citizen of which nation, who constituted the “majority” and who now counted – suddenly – as part of a minority. Modern statehood in East Central Europe started, in the first instance, with the collapse of the empires. All post-imperial states had to cope with a double transformation from ruling monarchy to democracy and from Empire to nation-state (which were multi-ethnic in character). Democratizing and nationalizing politics were two tightly interwoven parts of all post-imperial state building processes. The simultaneous implementation of the nation-state and democracy was hard to organize at a national level, but it was even harder at the regional and local levels. In particular, the implementation of democratic ideas at the regional and local level ended in failure. Furthermore, the citizens' affection toward the new nation-states depended highly on the “nation” of the citizen. The panel aims to discuss if, and how, processes of nationalization contributed to the failure of almost all democratization processes in East Central Europe after the “Great War”.
Disciplines: History
Political Science
Substantive Tags: Central Europe, Northern Europe, Political History
Research Networks: None of the Above