CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2012
| Author | Helmick, Timothy Ray |
|---|---|
| Title | Regaining the Homeland How Middle-Class Soldiers and Officers Came To Fight For Karolyi and Kun |
| Summary | I will employ the tool of comparative history to invoke the differences and similarities of the military under the Károlyi and Kun regimes; providing the loss of homeland/threat to sovereignty as the defining motivation that allowed these middle class soldiers to fight for both regimes. Theoretically I will draw upon both Theda Skocpol and Charles Tilly to establish three principal factors that validate the second part of my thesis; loss of the monopoly of violence by the state, multiple sovereignty in the separated territories, and the state losing its ability to be an effective coercive power over the soldiers. Both the Tilly and Skocpol theories are directed to correctly identifying revolution, (which both the Károlyi and Kun governments used to gain power) the former arguing from the perspective of political-conflict in which ultimate sovereignty is sought, and the latter stressing the social aspects in a Marxian conception; and allow me to explain the effect of the loss of clearly defined national boundaries undermining resistance to outside interference. I will also use Ferenc Eckhart and Miklos Lojko’s theory of sovereignty of the Hungarian Holy Crown to explain the element of nationalism and patriotism expressed by soldiers and officers of the Hungarian Army. My research will highlight the commonality of the demand placed on the state by the soldiers throughout both the Károlyi and Kun governments, and show how the level of commitment to these governments was directly measured by the level of success these governments attained in pursuit of the reclamation effort. |
| Supervisor | Gero, Andras, Casanova, Julian |
| Department | History MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2012/helmick_timothy.pdf |
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