"Habsburg" Cities in the Successor States (since 1918)

This course will cover the divergent trajectories of the same cities in the successor states to the Habsburg Empire. While Vienna went from Imperial metropolis via capital of a small nation state to provincial backwater during the Third Reich before its rebirth after 1945 and especially following the fall of Communism, Budapest and Prague became the seats of government of independent Hungary and Czechoslovakia in 1918. After their development had become arrested under the impact of occupation and war and decades of socialist restrictions, they were only able to reclaim their European status after 1989, since when a number of other ex-Habsburg cities have risen to become capitals of newly-independent countries (Bratislava-Slovakia, Ljubljana-Slovenia, Zagreb-Croatia). Attending this course will help you understand how and why, over the course of the 20th century, East Central Europe became mired in catastrophe, was divided by the Iron Curtain, and rose again to re-forge old bonds and meet new challenges.