The time around 1900 was characterized by a number of transformative processes that were perceived as crises and/or resulted in events labelled as crises. The interdependence of local conflicts and transnational dynamics of crisis around 1900 was at the centre of the workshop “A Threshold of Crisis”, held at the University of Greifswald on 17th November 2023. Special attention was given to the North and the impact of the revolution of 1905.
The first session focused on representation, negotiation and conflict in Northern Europe. AMERIGO CARUSO (Bonn) opened the session with an overview over right-wing civil defense leagues, vigilante organizations, yellow unions and armed bands of strikebreakers that emerged against the so-called “strike terrorism” in Europe around 1900. Employers’ organisations in Germany and other countries used the term “strike terrorism” to link strikes with the transnational “moral panic” arising from political assassinations and anarchism in the late 19th century in a successful attempt to push the boundaries of what was regarded as adequate counter-measures in the face of a local strike. As a consequence, in pre-war Europe, the use of armed strikebreakers and civic militias became a widespread strategy in socioeconomic conflicts.
The use of sympathy lockouts by employers’ associations in Scandinavia was discussed by JESPER HAMARK (Borås). These dated back to 1899, when a few hundred Jutland carpenters went on strike with the Danish Employers’ Association responding by locking out every unionized carpenter in Denmark. The method of combatting local unions and strikes by massive sympathy lockouts was adopted by employers’ confederations throughout Scandinavia over the following decades. By comparing Sweden and the United States, Hamark concluded that lockouts were the most efficient during economic recessions.
Even though Conservatives in Sweden may have agreed with the employers’ associations course of confrontation, they did see the “writing on the wall”, as ERIK BENGTSSON (Lund) pointed out. In Sweden, actual democratization with universal manhood suffrage to the lower chamber was achieved in 1909, universal and equal suffrage for women and men in 1918. Images such as “the writing on the wall” or “the dam” helped in convincing conservative elites to regard democratization as an unstoppable force to reckon and to deal with before it would be “too late” – an understanding that might have helped to pave the way not only for democratization but also for accepting the socialist and labour movement in Sweden as part of this process, as Bengtsson argued.
Yet even though Conservatives accepted democracy, the process of democratization challenged the established political system in Sweden, as JOSEFIN HÄGGLUND (Södertörn/Lund) made clear in her presentation. Around 1900, parties could still be described as a controversial feature of the political system. Focussing on the Swedish Social Democrats, Hägglund discussed some of the questions and representational dilemmas connected to parliamentarism that were debated at that time. For example, to whom were members of parliament primarily responsible – to the constituency that elected them, or to the party?
The second session shifted the perspective from Northern to Central Europe with the Hungarian Crisis as a case study for a transnational political conflict around 1900. MARK CORNWALL (Southampton) provided a detailed analysis of the Hungarian crisis of 1903–1906 as one of the most vocal threats to state stability in the pre-war Habsburg empire. Not only was the 1905 revolution in Russia a key backdrop to socialist stirrings in Hungary and a major threat to the Habsburg regime. The Hungarian crisis soon spilled over into the rest of the empire, reinvigorating opposition politics in Croatia and – most importantly – leading to the introduction of male universal suffrage in Austria. Further afield, in Western Europe, the elite confrontation in the conflict caused expert observers, previously sympathetic to “liberal Hungary”, to turn against it. The instability therefore seriously damaged Hungary’s international reputation, while at home it encouraged socialist and non-Magyar national leaders to become much bolder in their demands for change.
IVAN JELIČIĆ (Rijeka) provided a detailed, in-depth analysis of the general strike in Fiume in February 1906 as an example for a local conflict interconnected with the transnational Hungarian crisis. The growing multilingual industrial port, part of the Hungarian half of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, laying on the border with Austria, was not anew to workers striking, yet the strike of 1906 was a pivotal moment for the local socialist movement, showcasing the interconnectedness of Fiume’s socialists with Austro-Hungarian and other European political crises.
The third session focussed on Eastern Europe, discussing the impact of the revolutions of 1905 and 1917. The revolution of 1905 had a strong impact on the border regions of the Russian Empire and adjacent countries. But even in other countries, the transnational media echo generated by the revolution of 1905 triggered a wave of protest movements that amalgamated calls for political reform, extension of the suffrage and social justice. MORITZ FLORIN (Erlangen) discussed how images of atrocities taken during the Russian revolution of 1905 were used by a variety of actors to further their own aims, be they commercial or political. Such images were used to make violence visible and trigger emotional engagement, for example fear. This way photographs could act as instruments, and in some ways agents of revolution in and of themselves, as Florin argued.
The next presentation by THOMAS RETTIG (Greifswald) dealt with the aftermath of the Russian Revolution of 1917. Taking the West Russian Volunteer Army – a joint German-Russian military adventure in the Baltic in 1919 – as a case study, Rettig described how transnational imperial networks adapted to the collapse of the Empires in Central and Eastern Europe in 1917/18 by taking advantage of the chaos of civil war with the intent of fostering their own interests.
The fourth and final session discussed collective and individual crises in the face of conflict. As MARKO TIKKA (Tampere) pointed out, Finland’s Civil War in the winter of 1918 was – in proportion to the country’s population – one of Europe’s most destructive internal conflicts of the 20th century. Yet only a few months after the end of this collective crisis Finland adopted municipal suffrage, and as the result, municipalities and towns switched to universal suffrage. The 1920s and 1930s brought improvements for most of the population as for example universal compulsory education, significant improvements to the rights as well as living conditions of farmers, workers, and women. Tikka emphasized the importance of (local) municipal democracy and local decision-making in this process that led from conflict to cooperation.
Yet on an individual level, the loss and suffering connected with the Finnish Civil War affected lives for a long time, as MERVI KAARNINEN (Tampere) showed in her presentation that was based on a long-term oral-history study of orphans conducted since the 1970s. About 90 percent of the circa 5.000 orphans of the Finnish Civil War were children of poor working-class families that had been on the side of the “Reds” in 1918. Despite the general improvements mentioned by Tikka, surviving with children without receiving any outside economic support was an impossible task for most “red” war widows that resulted in families being torn apart and the traumatization of its members, as Kaarninen pointed out.
The role of pregnant (working class) women and young mothers as one of the most volatile societal groups – especially in times of crises – was also discussed by NAIMA TINÉ (Göttingen/Greifswald). Focussing on protests in Saxony caused by the unprecedented hyperinflation of 1923, Tiné showed how working-class women became a driving force in these protests, bringing key issues such as reproductive medicine, pregnancy welfare and family planning or the involvement of working women in unions on the political agenda in Saxony.
Main topic of discussions at the workshop were crises and their perception under processes of societal and economic change around 1900. Individual discussions focussed on the definition of crises, the concept of historical thresholds, the relationship between media and crises as well as between bodily and psychological experiences, or the role of antisemitism, amongst other topics.
Conference overview:
Introductory session
Arne Segelke (Greifswald): Welcome and introduction to the workshop
Amerigo Caruso (Bonn): Transnational perspectives on social conflicts and repressive strategies before 1914
Session 1: Representation, negotiation and conflict in Northern Europe
Chair: Arne Segelke (Greifswald)
Josefin Hägglund (Södertörn/Lund): Party, democracy and representation in the Swedish Social Democratic Party, 1910–1920
Erik Bengtsson (Lund): Accepting Democracy. Conservatives and the accommodation to democracy in Sweden, c. 1890–1920
Jesper Hamark (Borås): Sympathy action around 1900. Scandinavian lockouts in comparative perspective
Session 2: Transnational dynamics and local conflicts in the Austro-Hungarian Empire – The Hungarian Crisis
Chair: Solveig Wang (Greifswald)
Mark Cornwall (Southampton): Transnational Dynamics of the Hungarian Crisis 1903–1906
Ivan Jeličić (Rijeka): Fiume’s February 1906 General Strike. Workers’ Demands, General Suffrage, and Socialist Rituals
Session 3: Violence and entanglements in Eastern Europe
Chair: Erik Wolf (Greifswald)
Moritz Florin (Erlangen): Visual revolution. Photography, extreme violence and the transnational circulation of images from Russia, 1903–1906
Thomas Rettig (Greifswald): The West Russian Volunteer Army. A History of Imperial Entanglements in Europe after the Fall of Empires (1917–1923)
Session 4: Collective and individual crises
Chair: Annalisa Martin (Greifswald)
Marko Tikka (Tampere): Life after the Finnish Apocalypse
Mervi Kaarninen (Tampere): Children and the Finnish Civil War
Naima Tiné (Göttingen/Greifswald): 1923. Working Class Women between Pregnancy, Unemployment, and Social Unrest