CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2016
| Author | Bari, Bence László |
|---|---|
| Title | The Problems of National Self-Determination and the Future Political Nations of Eastern Europe in the First Word War (The Concepts of the New Europe, 1916-1919) |
| Summary | During the course of this final thesis, I observe the Great War-era discourse on national self-determination through the spectrum of the contemporary periodical THE NEW EUROPE in the period between October 1916 and January 1919. The study focuses on the conceptual problems of nation, self-determination and autonomy within the intellectual sphere of this international society. Firstly, I argue that the New Europe group adopted the notion of self-determination under the influence of the First Russian Revolution. The new concept was attached to the principle of nationality – a general scheme of European reconstruction based on national units – as a turnout with special democratic content. By this statement, I stand against the general equating between the two notions, but also against the Lenin- and Wilson-centred discourse of contemporary scientific literature. Nextly, I study the conceptualization of the future Czechoslovakia as an exemplary case of related problems. I argue that while the British wing of the New Europe stood for the establishment of political nations and territorial autonomies, the founder Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk argued for an ethnic approach and limited his views on minority rights to an extra-territorial sense. However, the Czech politician also developed a concept of political nationhood during the Great War in order to solve the German question of the Bohemian lands, making a good use of self-determination during this process. Finally, I make a comparison with the Yugoslav case to point out important differences between the conceptualization and the actual coming-to-be of political nations. |
| Supervisor | Balázs Trencsényi |
| Department | History MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2016/bari_bence.pdf |
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