List of Illustrations and Maps
Introduction
1: Nations, States, and Conflict in Central Europe
2: How to Mobilize the Polish Nation
3: The Central European Civil War
4: Violence and Crimes Beyond the Battlefields
Conclusion
Epilogue
Jochen Böhler is a Research Fellow at the Imre Kertész Kolleg in
Jena, where he teaches courses on the history of early
twentieth-century Central and Eastern Europe. His most recent
publications include, War, Pacification, and Mass Murder, 1939: The
Einsatzgruppen in Poland (2014) alongside Jurgen Matthäus and
Klaus-Michael Mallmann, Legacies of Violence: Eastern Europe's
First World War (2014) with Joachim von Puttkamer and
Wlodzimierz Borodziej and The Waffen-SS. A European History (2016)
with Robert Gerwarth.
...[T]he book is definitely very important and valuable: it shows
the formation of the Polish state in a new light that undermines
traditional nationalist historiography and popular ideas...The book
allows us to go beyond nationalist conventional wisdom.
*Krzysztof Jaskulowski, SWPS University of Social Sciences and
Humanities, Nationalities Papers*
[an] intriguing and thought-provoking study ... There is no doubt
that this book will find a well-deserved place in the growing body
of historical works on East and Central Europe. It challenges the
nationally oriented narrative of nation-making, and offers a fresh
perspective, which invites us to rethink the role of violence in
the creation of nation-states in the post-imperial era.
*Tomas Balkelis, Lithuanian Historical Studies*
The author regarded it as crucial not to look for new facts, but to
find a balance between the facts already presented and to
consolidate them. He did it brilliantly. Thanks to the author, the
reader is presented with a synthesis of secondary literature, and
thus also by a holistic historical narrative, which was hitherto
lacking ... The book serves as a signpost, providing the necessary
historiographic overview ... By means of source diversity the
author is able to sketch a hitherto unpresented picture of violent
excesses. The book is written very legibly, which will certainly be
welcomed by both the lay and professional public ... The study
helps to understand the interbellum and subsequent crimes of the
Second World War, the origin of which is often found in the wrongs
of the violent period following the First World War.
*Jan Kutílek, Slovanský p%rehled [translated]*
The last chapter finally deals with "Violence and Crimes Beyond the
Battlefields", with Böhler also relying on archive finds and
diaries ... In this chapter, Böhler focuses on the regional level,
where political goals were often of secondary importance. In the
countryside, small paramilitary groups were masters of life and
death. As reports from the high command and local authorities show,
in 1919 and 1920, crime, corruption and banditry were the order of
the day. Pogroms against Jews were particularly perpetrated by
soldiers, led by officers with little experience and close ties to
the national democracy. With the successful formation of the state,
the violence subsided ... Böhler has succeeded in shedding more
light on a dark chapter in Polish history.
*Detlev Brandes, Historische Zeitschrift [translated]*
This book contributes not just to rising scholarship on European
paramilitary violence at the war's end, but to wider areas, such as
the social history of warfare in twentieth-century Europe,
nationalism and "national indifference," border studies, and
transnational history, in addition to the interwar history of
Poland and Central and Eastern Europe.
*Peter Polak-Springer, Qatar University, Journal of Modern
History*
Böhler's work successfully challenges both established and mythical
narratives of Polish nation-building, revealing the contingent and
violent nature of Poland's struggle for land and loyalty after
World War I.
*Brendan Karch, Louisiana State University, Central European
History*
Jochen Böhler's book is, without a doubt, important. Any scholar of
twentieth-century European history will find it worth reading, and
particularly useful when considering the question of the
reconstruction and re-emergence of Central European nation-states
after the Great War.
*Pawel Markiewicz, Slavonic and East European Review*
According to Böhler, "self-determination" was an unsuitable recipe
for structuring a multi-ethnic region. This becomes particularly
clear in his fourth chapter "Violence and Crimes Beyond the
Battlefields", in which Böhler draws a panorama where anti-Semitic
pogroms, skirmishes, violent oppression of the rural population and
death blend into each other. Hunger, disease and other hardships
plagued the country. [...] Böhler has presented a differentiated
description of these violence scenarios, largely reconstructed on
the base of a variety of sources.
*Jost Dülffer, editor of Peace, War and Gender from Antiquity to
the Present. Cross-cultural Perspectives*
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