“Continuities in Forced Migration in Europe and Asia, 1900-1955” (Double Panel) - Part 1: The Legacy of an Empire: Refugee Agency and Post-Imperial Displacement in Central Europe

Back

E Global History and Decoloniality

Continuities in Forced Migration in Europe and Asia, 1900-1955 (Double Panel) - Part 1: The Legacy of an Empire: Refugee Agency and Post-Imperial Displacement in Central Europe

Event Details

Date

V. Friday, 12th September, 08:30-10:30
Location
K1040
Theme
E Global History and Decoloniality

Convenor

Kerstin von Lingen (University of Vienna)

Chair

Michal Frankl (Leibniz Institute for the History and Culture of Eastern Europe (GWZO))

Commentator

Michal Frankl (Leibniz Institute for the History and Culture of Eastern Europe (GWZO))

Panelists

Pauli Aro (University of Vienna)
Mátyás Mervay (New York University)
Konstantin Schischka (University of Vienna)

Papers

Pauli Aro

“Among fellow countrymen”, Reinventing global Banat Swabianness after Empire, 1900-1960

“Among fellow countrymen”, Reinventing global Banat Swabianness after Empire, 1900-1960

Expellee associations formed by so-called ethnic German refugees from East Central Europe in Austria and West Germany were prominent examples of post-World War II refugee organisations. These associations acted as lobbies for the expellees, organised aid but also continued the propagation of interwar-era German minority ideologies. They offered opportunities for expellees to settle but also tried to coordinate the onwards migration of expellees from Central Europe towards the west, particularly to the Americas. While this is a well known post-1945 phenomenon, these associations did not simply appear out of thin air. Several of them built on pre-existing organisations, some having been continuously around since the Habsburg Empire. Focusing on the example of the Banat Swabian association in Vienna, founded in 1908, this paper engages with continuities of regional German migrant activism. The paper regards the association in Vienna between 1900 and 1960 as a node within a global network of migration between the Banat and various destinations in Europe and the Americas. It questions whether this network was primarily kept alive by a global Banat Swabian identity. Instead, it claims that a series of crises, such as the Dual Monarchy's breakup, the interwar years' strict migratory regimes, and evacuation and flight in the wake of World War II, repeatedly created the need for a specific type of regional migrant organisation. Like elsewhere, Vienna's Banat Swabian activists used such circumstances to rejuvenate their association for Banaters with very different reasons to migrate.
Mátyás Mervay

‘How the Habsburg Empire Survived in Shanghai: The Making of the Central European Jewish Refugee Relief in Semi-Colonial China’

‘How the Habsburg Empire Survived in Shanghai: The Making of the Central European Jewish Refugee Relief in Semi-Colonial China’

Partially based on the author’s published article, this paper will explore the consequences of the Austro-Hungarian Empire’s end through the tumultuous biography of a philanthropic entrepreneur and quasi-consul community leader known today for assisting thousands of Jewish refugees during World War II. Focusing on Paul Komor (1886–1973) and the migrant community of Shanghai Hungarians, the presentation contends that postimperial diasporas preserved a piece of empire in their commitment to Jewish emancipation, imperialist nationalism, multiple loyalties, and political nostalgia. It also argues that diasporic networks and charitable actions communicated political and national loyalties while creating and defining the boundaries of the community. Presenting original research involving sources in multiple languages from China, Hungary, the U.S., the U.K., and the Netherlands, the paper traces the fortunes of a Jewish Hungarian family in colonial Shanghai, shows the limits of its son’s charity-rooted advancement in community leadership, sheds light on the seemingly contradictory political ideas of a postimperial expatriate to explain his complicated relationship with his kinstate, and analyzes the institutionalization of communal charity and the competing prerequisite definitions of postimperial national belonging.
Konstantin Schischka

‘From Empire to Nation-States: Displacement across Shifting Borders, Liminal Belonging, and Perceptual Continuities

‘From Empire to Nation-States: Displacement across Shifting Borders, Liminal Belonging, and Perceptual Continuities

The end of World War I brought the collapse of some empires, the redrawing and shifting of borders, and the rise of the notion of homogenous nation states. The fragility of this political order continued to shape patterns of violence-induced migration. Lasting geopolitical changes from the early 20th century significantly impacted forced migration dynamics, effects that were still felt two and three decades later – during and after World War II. Preliminary findings stemming from a data-driven GIS approach show that most DPs resettled by the International Refugee Organisation via Austria were born within the borders of the late Habsburg Empire. The influence of shifting borders on specific regions such as Bačka (Serbia), Prekmurje (Slovenia) and Galicia (Poland/Ukraine) and their populations provides new insights into the temporal-spatial factors influencing displacement during and after WWII. By focusing on migration trajectories, life events and different forms of agency of a sample of DPs born in these three regions, this paper examines the different causes, drivers and outcomes of refuge in a longitudinal and comparative manner. In addition to structural factors, it explores how inherited notions of belonging, community networks and mental maps influenced their emigration process via Austria. Through the combination of macro-level geoanalysis and micro-level analysis of various forms of individual and collective agency, this paper offers a comprehensive and comparative perspective and contributes to the broader academic debate on migration history in a global context.

Abstract

The late 1940s and 1950s brought the construction of resettlement regimes on a global scale. Earlier scholarship on displacement and resettlement has treated post-war experiences in Europe (the aftermath of the Holocaust) and in Asia (the aftermath of Japan’s surrender) as separate domains. This double panel uses a different approach showing the interconnections between the European and the Asian spheres, their longue durée implications, and the trajectories of migrants moving on to Australia and the Americas. This double panel examines the fluidity and complexity of identity – tested, formed, and dissolved by forced migration – through the lens of displacement after conflicts in Europe and Asia. Questions relating to end of empire, forced migration, humanitarian responses, and migrant communities’ strategies play a crucial role. Panel 1: The Legacy of an Empire: Refugee Agency and Post-Imperial Displacement in Central Europe Towards the end of his collection of anecdotes about Jewish life in former Habsburgia, Friedrich Torberg reflects on Jewish refugees of Nazism, a fate he experienced personally. He emphasises the global resilience of their networks and relationships. But more importantly, Torberg effectively draws a direct line between the breakup of the Habsburg Empire and the predicament of Jewish refugees like him, thereby highlighting an important dimension of the refugees of Nazism, World War II, and their aftermath. Since the end of World War I, the fragile and exclusive Central European nation-state order could only be created and maintained by continually forcing entire populations to flee and go into exile. At the same time, the legacy of the former Habsburg Empire remained evident in these refugees’ actions, practices, networks, desires and expectations. This legacy decisively shaped their refugee experience and points towards the persisting influence of the multinational cultures. This panel emphasises the necessity to engage with these post-empire continuities and path dependencies in order to fully understand the global displacement and refugeedom of Central Europeans during and after World War II in a comprehensive manner. The panel’s papers aim to bridge the often-observed structure-agency divide in migration history by focusing on different actors, structures, and their intersections. The analytical scope of the papers lies between macro- and microperspectives on refugees from the former Habsburg Empire and the causes, courses and outcomes of their global migration trajectories. The papers highlight the still evident “mental maps” as a form of cognitive framework and how refugeedom of Central European refugees was profoundly shaped by the region’s multinational past.