Europe's Last Peasant War: Violence and Revolution in Austria-Hungary and its Successors, 1917-1945

《欧洲最后一场农民战争》旨在从乡村的角度重新解读欧洲历史上最暴力的几十年。农民不仅是二战时期造成约3000万人死亡的灾难的被动受害者，他们还通过暴力和反城市的政治举措帮助塑造了这个“灾难时代”。中东欧是上个世纪欧洲大陆最不稳定的地区，是这场斗争中最重要的战场。该项目重点关注哈布斯堡帝国及其继承者的地区，因为这些土地的农民分享了第一次世界大战的共同经历，并发现自己处于新的和陷入困境的两次世界大战之间的国家。这使得该地区的农民历史既有联系又有影响；通过跨国研究将他们置于欧洲20世纪历史的中心是该项目的主要目标。PI博士Jakub Benes和Co-I教授Petra Svoljsak将对四个以前在哈布斯堡帝国的国家进行档案研究，以阐明这场‘农民战争’中的决定性事件和典型战士。在克罗地亚，我们将调查1918年秋季由奥匈军逃兵发动的农民起义，这场起义导致了当地农民共和国的建立，并使农村民粹主义成为两次世界大战期间南斯拉夫的一股主要力量。在斯洛文尼亚，该团队将重建阿方兹·萨赫的职业生涯，他是第一次世界大战期间准军事逃兵的农民领袖，后来在极端民族主义和共产主义之间摇摆，并于1943年作为游击队英雄去世。在捷克摩拉维亚和斯洛伐克，我们将考察当地国民警卫队和斯洛伐克旅的命运，斯洛伐克旅是1918年成立的一个由数千名农民逃兵组成的志愿团，以了解农民如何在战争结束后立即团结起来支持捷克斯洛伐克的事业，然后在20世纪20年代接受反国家的农村激进主义。这些基本上被遗忘的故事将通过广泛的文献查阅和研究助理(RA)的帮助，在1917-1945年间更广泛的农村叙事中得到背景介绍。RA将把他/她的努力集中在调查1918年匈牙利的农村动乱和1919年农民对匈牙利苏联共和国的反应上。一个由著名历史学家和文化遗产专家组成的顾问委员会将帮助指导该项目的研究和传播战略。该小组将与克罗地亚瓦拉兹丁、斯洛文尼亚马里博尔和斯洛伐克斯卡利卡的博物馆建立合作伙伴关系，以组织一次巡回展览，突出当地历史片段，特别是与第一次世界大战农民逃兵有关的片段，实际上是一个相互关联的重要跨国故事的一部分。这将使该项目的发现接触到非学术受众，并帮助地区博物馆馆长建立国际网络。这样的伙伴关系可能会带来更多有价值的发现。该项目的成果将发表在一本主要的专著和三篇被引用的期刊文章中：一篇由PI和Co-I合著，另一篇由PI和RA合著，第三篇由Co-I合著。经过两年的资助，《欧洲最后一次农民战争》将有：1.提供了一个新的农民视角来看待二战时代的欧洲；2.从农民的角度论证了研究‘灾难时代’的重要性；3.在城乡分化似乎定义了欧洲政治的时候，提供了关键的历史视角；4.向中东欧观众表明，他们的农村地区历史属于广阔的国际画布。

'Europe's last peasant war' aims to reinterpret the most violent decades of European history from the perspective of the countryside. Peasants were not just passive victims of the calamities in the era of World Wars that killed around 30 million people; they helped shape the 'age of catastrophe' with violence and anti-urban political initiatives. East Central Europe, the most volatile region of the continent in the last century, was the most important battleground in this struggle. The project focuses on the area of the Habsburg Empire and its successors since the peasants of these lands shared a common experience of the First World War and found themselves in new and beleaguered interwar states. This makes the peasant histories of this region both connected and consequential; placing them at the centre of Europe's twentieth-century history through transnational research is the project's main goal.The PI Dr Jakub Benes and Co-I Professor Petra Svoljsak will pursue archival research in four countries formerly in the Habsburg Empire in order to illuminate decisive episodes and paradigmatic fighters in this 'peasant war'. In Croatia, we will investigate the peasant revolt of autumn 1918 that was initiated by deserters from the Austro-Hungarian army and which led to the establishment of local peasant republics and made rural populism into a major force in interwar Yugoslavia. In Slovenia, the team will reconstruct the career of Alfonz Sarh, a peasant leader of paramilitary deserters in the First World War who then oscillated between extreme nationalism and communism and died as a partisan hero in 1943. In Czech Moravia and Slovakia, we will examine the fate of local national guard units and the Slovacko Brigade, a volunteer regiment formed in 1918 of thousands of peasant deserters, in order to understand how peasants could rally to the Czechoslovak cause immediately at the war's end and then embrace anti-state rural radicalism in the 1920s.These largely forgotten stories will be contextualised in a larger narrative of the countryside in 1917-1945 through extensive literature review and with the help of a Research Assistant (RA) working on Hungarian-language sources. The RA will focus his/her efforts on investigating rural unrest in Hungary in 1918 and on the peasantry's response to the Hungarian Soviet Republic in 1919. An advisory board chosen from prominent historians and cultural heritage experts will help steer the project's research and dissemination strategies. The team will establish partnerships with museums in Varazdin, Croatia; Maribor, Slovenia; and Skalica, Slovakia in order to organise a traveling exhibition that will highlight how episodes of local history, especially those relating to peasant deserters of the First World War, were actually part of an interconnected and important transnational story. This will allow the project's findings to reach a non-academic audience and help regional museum curators forge international networks. Such partnerships will likely lead to further valuable findings. The project's results will be published in a major single-authored monograph and three refereed journal articles: one co-authored by the PI and Co-I, another co-authored by the PI and RA, and a third single-authored by the Co-I.After two years of funding, 'Europe's last peasant war' will have: 1. Offered a new peasant perspective on Europe in the era of World Wars; 2. Demonstrated the importance of studying the 'age of catastrophe' from the perspective of peasant villagers; 3. Provided crucial historical perspective on urban-rural divides at a time when they appear to be defining European politics; 4. Shown to east central European audiences that their rural regional histories belong on a broad international canvas.