The aggravating food shortage was the central internal crisis in Habsburg Austria during the First World War and posed a major challenge to the consolidation of the successor states. Nourishing Victory offers a fresh comparative perspective on food and the collapse and rebuilding of political legitimacy from the regional vantage point of the Bohemian Lands and Slovenia before and after 1918. Zooming in on multiple levels of society, the book explores how politicians, local officials, and grassroots protagonists navigated collapsing supply systems, relied on black markets, and sought to make sense of the chaos around them. Since this was a crisis of international proportions, the book also examines foreign food aid and the contradictions it entailed. At the same time, to emphasize the local dynamics of food supply and political legitimacy, it explores how food became a political weapon in struggles over contested borderlands such as Teschen Silesia and Prekmurje.
Arvustused
essential reading for anyone interested in the Greater War experience, post-imperial transitions, and modern European history more generally. Robert Gerwarth, Professor of Modern History, University College Dublin, and the author of The Vanquished: Why the First World War Failed to End, 1917-1923
This exciting new book examines the ways that food distribution, food policy, and food aid were used in efforts to shore up feelings of good will and to support political agendas in the Bohemian Lands and Slovenia. Mary Elisabeth Cox, Assistant Professor of International Relations, Central European University, and the author of Hunger in War and Peace: Women and Children in Germany, 1914-1924
... a lively and insightful contribution to postimperial histories of Central Europe. Maureen Healy, Lewis & Clark College, author of Vienna and the Fall of the Habsburg Empire: Total War and Everyday Life in World War I, co-editor Austrian History Yearbook
Employing a wealth of new archival research, the contributors to this interesting and useful collection offer a fresh look at post-First World War food shortages by examining the state of nutrition in some of Habsburg Central Europes victor states. Nancy M. Wingfield, recipient of the 2024 Frantisek Palacky Honorary Medal for Merit in the Historical Sciences, awarded by the Czech Academy of Sciences
a significant contribution to the growing historiography of hunger in East Central and Southeastern Europe, framing it as a quintessential post-imperial story and thus adding an important piece to this post-imperial puzzle. Friederike Kind-Kovács, research fellow at the Hannah-Arendt-Institute, Dresden, and the author of Budapest's Children: Humanitarian Relief in the Aftermath of the Great War
List of Maps, Figures and Tables
List of Abbreviations
Note on Place Names
Acknowledgements
Introduction - Václav Smidrkal and Rok Stergar
Chapter One: Breaking the State: Food, Hunger, and Power in War - Maja Godina
Golija and Václav Smidrkal
Chapter Two: Building the State: Hunger, Anger, and Postwar Consolidation -
Václav Smidrkal and Maja Godina Golija
Chapter Three: Hopes, Promises, Realities: Food Scarcity and Foreign Aid -
Dagmar Hájková and Rok Stergar
Chapter Four: Nourishing Contested Borderlands - Pavel Horák and Jernej Kosi
Epilogue - Václav Smidrkal, Rok Stergar, Maja Godina Golija, Dagmar Hájková,
Pavel Horák, and Jernej Kosi
Bibliography
Index
Rok Stergar is Professor in Modern History at the University of Ljubljana and a historian of the Habsburg Empire, the First World War, and of nationalism. He is the author of two books and numerous articles on nationalisms in the Habsburg Empire, the First World War, and post-imperial transitions. Václav Smidrkal is a researcher at the Masaryk Institute and Archives of the Czech Academy of Sciences and an assistant professor at Charles University in Prague. His research focuses on post-war transitions, war veterans, and military propaganda in twentieth-century Central Europe.
