Publication
Title
Questioning the Wilsonian moment : the role of ethnicity and nationalism in the dissolution of European empires from the Belle Époque through the First World War
Author
Abstract
This dossier aims to problematize the widespread understanding of ethnic cleavages as the hard core undergirding national conflict. As such it questions the rise of ethnic nationalism during the late nineteenth century as the direct cause of the dawn of Europe's 'oppressed peoples' after 1918. The different contributions evaluate the status of the First World War as the breakthrough moment of Wilsonian self-determination within the multi-ethnic states and empires in Europe. In this respect they investigate the recent powerful thesis propounded by scholars of national indifference in Central Europe that it was the unprecedented disruption of the Great War that politicized ethnicity as never before and made it into a marker of groupness rather than a mere social category, to use Rogers Brubaker's terms. The articles in this dossier also contribute to recent investigations that focus on how European empires tried to accommodate nationalism and how nationalist movements in and outside of Europe used the disruption of the war and Wilson's plea for self-determination to ask for independence. These articles demonstrate how the specific developments of war and revolution produced particular understandings of the general idea of self-determination. The Wilsonian discourse as such had a breakthrough in 1918 when the destruction of Austria-Hungary generally became accepted as an Allied post-war goal. Movements world-wide adopted self-determination as a goal and standard, but as this dossier demonstrates, all kinds of actors used Wilson's words for their many purposes, such that one cannot speak of a coherent and meaningful Wilsonian moment.
Language
English
Source (journal)
European review of history. - Abingdon
Publication
Abingdon : Routledge journals, taylor & francis ltd , 2019
ISSN
1350-7486
DOI
10.1080/13507486.2019.1633276
Volume/pages
26 :5 , p. 747-756
ISI
000475050300001
Full text (Publisher's DOI)
Full text (open access)
UAntwerpen
Faculty/Department
Research group
Project info
East vs. West? A radically comparative approach to nations and nationalism in European history (19th-20th C.).
Publication type
Subject
Affiliation
Publications with a UAntwerp address
External links
Web of Science
Record
Identifier
Creation 01.08.2019
Last edited 25.11.2024
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