Revolution and Political Violence in Central Europe: The Deluge of 1919 [Hardcover]

Examines how narratives of the 1919 Central European revolutions promoted a violent counterrevolutionary culture in interwar Germany and Hungary.Eliza Ablovatksi offers an innovative comparative and transnational study of revolution and counterrevolution in Central Europe in 1919. She employs the experiences of Munich and Budapest to analyze how revolutionary scripts and narratives, framed by antisemitism and gender stereotypes, shaped political events and violence.Eliza Ablovatksi offers an innovative comparative and transnational study of revolution and counterrevolution in Central Europe in 1919. She employs the experiences of Munich and Budapest to analyze how revolutionary scripts and narratives, framed by antisemitism and gender stereotypes, shaped political events and violence.In the wake of the First World War and Russian Revolutions, Central Europeans in 1919 faced a world of possibilities, threats, and extreme contrasts. Dramatic events since the end of the world war seemed poised to transform the world, but the form of that transformation was unclear and violently contested in the streets and societies of Munich and Budapest in 1919. The political perceptions of contemporaries, framed by gender stereotypes and antisemitism, reveal the sense of living history, of 'fighting the world revolution', which was shared by residents of the two cities. In 1919, both revolutionaries and counterrevolutionaries were focused on shaping the emerging new order according to their own worldview. By examining the narratives of these Central European revolutions in their transnational context, Eliza Ablovatski helps answer the question of why so many Germans and Hungarians chose to use their new political power for violence and repression.Introduction; 1. Central European roots of revolution; 2. World war and world revolution; 3. Rumor and terror: revolutionary script and political violence; 4. Revolution on trial; 5. Seeing red: dangerous women and Jewish Bolshevism; 6. Rl3B