Central European Cross-roads: Social Democracy and National Revolution in Bratislava (Pressburg), 1867-1921

Abstract

This study of social democracy and national revolution in multiethnic Bratislava (Pressburg) is partly a detailed analysis of the revolutionary events of 1918-1919 (chapters 5-8), partly an examination of the longer period 1867-1921 (chapters 2-4, 9). The latter is to provide a broader historical context to the relatively short period of revolutionary national-political change. The study thus combines two perspectives in terms of historical time, but it also combines two spatial dimensions – the microcosm of the city of Bratislava and the wider world of Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and the former Habsburg Empire. A third way in which the study aims to be ‘multidimensional’ is its attempt to integrate social, political, ethnocultural, and psychological aspects of the historical process. The short-term time perspective, roughly covering the period between October 1918 and March 1919, is largely based on primary sources, in particular newspapers. The longer-term perspective is based on an interpretative synthesis of what the author consider the most important literature in the Slovak, Czech, German, English, and other languages, supplemented by primary source material of the author.