Jakub S. Benes

This project examines the splitting of the Austrian Social Democratic movement between Czechs and Germans, the nationalities that had the largest working classes in the Habsburg Empire and between which political nationalism took on the most intransigent form. It highlights the changes in political language that allowed the discourses of nationalism and class solidarity to fuse. By locating the specific moments when nationalist versions of social utopias won out over alternatives and determining why this occurred, the dissertation offers a more persuasive account of the nationalizing process in east central Europe. It also adds an important dimension to understanding the political breakdown of the Habsburg Monarchy and the prospects of internationalist ideologies today.