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

《欧洲最后的农民战争》旨在从农村的角度重新解读欧洲历史上最暴力的几十年。农民不仅仅是世界大战时期造成约3000万人死亡的灾难的被动受害者；他们通过暴力和反城市的政治倡议帮助塑造了“灾难时代”。东中欧是上个世纪欧洲大陆最动荡的地区，也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，因为这些土地上的农民在第一次世界大战中有着共同的经历，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。这使得这一地区的农民历史既有联系又有意义；通过跨国研究将它们置于欧洲二十世纪历史的中心是该项目的主要目标。PI Jakub Benes博士和共同i教授Petra Svoljsak将在以前属于哈布斯堡帝国的四个国家进行档案研究，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年秋天由奥匈帝国军队的逃兵发起的农民起义，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主要力量。在斯洛文尼亚，研究小组将重现Alfonz Sarh的职业生涯，他是第一次世界大战中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不定，并于1943年作为党派英雄牺牲。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（Slovacko Brigade， 1918年由数千名农民逃兵组成的志愿团）的命运，以了解农民如何在战争结束后立即团结到捷克斯洛伐克的事业中，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回顾，并在研究匈牙利语资源的研究助理（RA）的帮助下，在1917-1945年的农村的更大叙事中被语境化。RA将集中精力调查1918年匈牙利的农村骚乱和1919年匈牙利苏维埃共和国的农民反应。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策略。该团队将与克罗地亚瓦拉兹丁的博物馆建立合作关系；马里博尔,斯洛文尼亚;以及斯洛伐克的斯卡利卡（Skalica），以组织一场巡回展览，突出当地的历史片段，特别是那些与第一次世界大战中的农民逃兵有关的故事，实际上是一个相互关联的重要跨国故事的一部分。这将使该项目的研究成果能够接触到非学术界的观众，并帮助地区博物馆馆长建立国际网络。这种伙伴关系可能会带来更多有价值的发现。该项目的结果将发表在一个主要的单人专著和三篇评审期刊文章中：一篇由PI和Co-I共同撰写，另一篇由PI和RA共同撰写，第三篇由Co-I单独撰写。经过两年的资助，“欧洲最后的农民战争”将有：为二战时期的欧洲提供了一种新的农民视角；2. 论证了从农民视角研究“浩劫时代”的重要性；3. 在城乡分化似乎正在决定欧洲政治的时候，为城乡分化提供了至关重要的历史视角；4. 向中东欧观众展示了他们的农村地区历史属于广阔的国际舞台。

'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.