This is an excellent collection of research essays. The three editors, Jochen Böhler, Ota Konrád, and Rudolf Kučera did an impressive job of assembling nine high-quality essays. The volume analyzes the uses and perceptions of physical violence in east central Europe between 1917 and 1923. The focus is on the successor states of Austria-Hungary and the violence that accompanied the dissolution of its empire. The chapters are thematically quite diverse, and all are based on original research. Each chapter is followed by a short but instructive bibliography. The articles are framed by an introduction penned by the three editors and an afterword by Boris Barth. The book is completed by an index.
In the first chapter, Matthias Voigtmann uses the concept of Gewaltgemeinschaften or “communities of violence” to analyze the activities of the paramilitary German Free Corps in the Baltics. He shows that the reasons that motivated “Baltikumer,” the name they gave themselves, to join the Free Corps varied greatly, ranging from the hope of receiving land for later settlement to adherence to a strongly nationalist ideology to a love of adventure. Voigtmann argues convincingly that many “Baltikumer” saw an “opportunity to live out a fantasy of a romanticized military life” (21). Even after the Free Corps was dissolved, the collective violence bound the group together. In the following chapter, Christopher Gilley scrutinizes the war lords of the Ukrainian civil war. These military commanders constructed their identities from a combination of different ideologies. Gilley views the violent acts committed by war lords and their soldiers as a “means of forming new identities” (41). He uses the concept of Gewaltraum (space of violence) to describe the place where these identities were forged.
In Chapters 3 and 4, Béla Bodó and Emily R. Gioielli look at specific aspects of the “white terror” after the fall of the Soviet Hungarian Republic. Both authors discuss the widely publicized case of Mrs. Hamburger but from different perspectives. Mrs. Hamburger was captured by members of the notorious Prónaj battalion, was tortured and forced to witness the torture of friends. Bodó presents the case of Mrs. Hamburger as one of two examples of sexual and gendered violence during the Hungarian civil war and uses the interactional theory of violence to analyze his two case studies. He describes how perpetrators and Jewish victims interacted during the pogrom in Diszel and how the Jewish village elders misjudged the situation, as did the mayor and the village secretary who distributed weapons to militia members who then participated in the pogrom. Bodó also shows how the interactions between perpetrators and victims influenced the extent and way in which violence was applied. While the interaction theory is useful to explain the course that violence can take and the processes of radicalization, it does not—as Bodó rightly states—explain why specific groups become victims and what motivates the violence.
Gioielli focuses on the dissemination of Mrs. Hamburger's story internationally and takes it as an example of how sexualized violence was discussed in post-war European societies. The story of the capture and torture of Mrs. Hamburger was used by the international labor movement to contest the legitimacy of the new right-wing Hungarian government and to criticize the Entente that had tolerated the violence accompanying the fall of Soviet Hungary.
Winson Chu looks at Joseph Roth's writings about the Polish fight for independence in 1920 and 1921. While Roth had some sympathies for Soviet Russia, he questioned Poland's chances of surviving as an independent state. In his critical view of Poland, Roth's approach did not differ fundamentally from German nationalist narratives and the public opinion prevalent in Germany at the time.
Hannes Leidinger considers the discourses on suicide in Austria within the wider international context after the First World War and in the 1920s. These discourses were sited within debates on “mental weakness” and how to deal with shell shock after the war. Maciej Górny's essay covers a similar topic. He describes how war neuroses in Austria-Hungary and its successor states were “ethicized.” Austrian discourses emphasized the mental strength of German soldiers, transferring ideas of “weakness” to “Slavic” soldiers. This is in stark contrast to other parts of the former Austrian-Hungarian empire where “war neurosis” was not forced into ethnic categories.
The two final chapters go slightly beyond the scope of the volume. Ondřej Matějka analyzes the role of the North American YMCA in lifting the spirit of the Czechoslovak Army and instilling the belief in its soldiers that they had been victorious in the Great War, which had ended with the creation of an independent democratic Czechoslovakia. The activities of YMCA emissaries also furthered US interests in Czechoslovakia, whose geographic location and democratic government made it a potentially important ally in Europe. Cătălin Parfene writes about football in Romania and how after the war the Romanian national team consisted of players from ethnic minorities. Austria-Hungary had had a strong footballing tradition, but creating a multi-ethnic national football team also aimed to reconcile ethnic minorities with their new nationality as Romanian citizens. The high percentage of minority players, however, kindled resentments among ethnic Romanians. The essay also looks at the role of the crown prince, later king, Karol in the development of football in Romania.
The essays make use of a range of theoretical concepts, with the authors attempting to apply them to their respective case studies. They draw conclusions about the viability of these concepts that go beyond the scope of the essays. The volume provides insights into various forms of violence and ways of dealing with violence in the aftermath of the First World War in east central Europe and will be very useful for historians of the history of violence in east central Europe.
