During the First World War the survival of hundreds of thousands of Latvian refugees, dispersed across the Russian Empire, overlapped with issues of identity. Latvians in Siberia and the Far East created a refugee organisation complete with military, diplomatic and cultural programmes for themselves and their homeland. The key players attempted to recreate the same organisational trajectories and outcomes during the Second World War, under very different geopolitical conditions. This article presents new archival research and suggests new interpretations of the dynamic nature of political organisation, refugee experience and identity in Latvia through the first half of the twentieth century.

The history of western Europe and of European integration has been explained primarily with reference to internal political and economic factors, or to its relations with the United States. This article argues that decolonisation and the emergence of the Third World as a political and economic actor had a profound influence on western Europe, mainly contributing to a further weakening of the role of the nation-state. The impact of the Third World was particularly strong in the period from the global revolution of 1968 to the high point of détente in 1975.

This article revisits the motives behind the Czechoslovak scheme ‘Russian Action’, which granted thousands of Russian émigrés residence and financial support in Czechoslovakia during the 1920s and 1930s. In particular, it looks at the efforts to bring to Czechoslovakia Russian civil war refugees living in Constantinople. Historians have conventionally focused on Prague as the home to intellectual and cultural exiles from Russia and have also decreed that the émigré policies of Czechoslovakia were driven principally by the humanitarian concerns of a liberal and democratic government. This article looks, instead, at the regime's deep-seated political motives, in particular its plans for a future, Bolshevik-free Russia, reconstructed under its guiding hand. In so doing, it raises questions about Czechoslovakia's self-image, ideology and place within the international hierarchy.

The Christian Social Union's domination of Bavarian state and society is such that it has justifiably been described as Bavaria's ‘official and hegemonic party’ (Staats- und Hegemonialpartei). However, it is important not to take the CSU's regional identity as an historical given. This article examines how the CSU set about constructing an integral Bavarian (gesamtbayerisch) identity during the 1950s and early 1960s by articulating the diverse historical experiences of the region-state's localities and sub-regions as a common Bavarian heritage. Drawing on articles about Bavarian cities, reports on historical re-enactments and commemorative speeches by party leaders, the article explores the celebration of this heritage in terms of ‘political character’, culture and Christianity.

This article explores what kind of ‘Europe’ was produced in the processes of transnational infrastructure building. It focuses on international organisations dedicated to Europe's infrastructural integration as a promising research site, where infrastructural collaborations (or the lack thereof) were articulated and negotiated. Case studies of the Bureau International des Autoroutes (1931), the Union for the Coordination of Production and Transport of Electricity (1951) and the European Conference of Transport Ministers (1953) explore the challenges of transnational system building. They also suggest that Europe's infrastructural interlacing was a contested process, producing, if successful, multilayered networks in which corporate, national and meso-regional borders remain clearly discernable.

Using a theoretical approach that takes into consideration the options available to small states in international relations as well as those factors that influence foreign policy decision making, this article tests the usefulness of the approach on a specific case study, the so-called Mosul crisis in northern Iraq in 1924–5. From the perspective of the alternatives opened to small states in the international arena in the aftermath of the First World War and on the basis of Sweden's stated foreign policy doctrine, Sweden's actions in the Mosul crisis were understandable and consistent with the basic premises of the suggested theoretical approach.

The reason why a fuller understanding of the significance of the Hitler dictatorship did not emerge in prewar democracies remains a question of enduring historical interest. This article examines the way in which Unilever, one of the earliest multinational corporations, responded to the challenges of political risk posed by the Third Reich, and how aspects of business activity that gave rise to moral issues were weighed against the need to survive commercially. The realisation that Unilever could be seen as an unwitting accomplice in the dictatorship's criminal activities seems to have come late to the company. While corporate culture reflected the values of contemporary society, multinational business was partly responsible for the failure to sound the alarm over the unique dangers inherent in National Socialism.

Vladko Maček (1871–1964) became the leader of the Croatian Peasant Party (HSS) in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia after the assassination of Stjepan Radić (1871–1928). In this capacity, he played a pivotal role in Croatian and Yugoslav politics during the critical years 1928–41, when the clouds of war were gathering over Europe, and during the first phase of World War Two. Today he is best remembered for having negotiated the Cvetković-Maček Sporazum (agreement) in August 1939; the Sporazum created a so-called banovina (province) of Croatia with considerable autonomy, and was intended to contribute to the calming of Serb–Croat frictions in royal Yugoslavia. The Banovina comprised 26.6 per cent of the territory of Yugoslavia and had some 4.4 million inhabitants, 28.6 per cent of the total population of the kingdom.1 However, it lasted only until April 1941, when an Axis invasion resulted in the occupation and partition of Yugoslavia.

The Croat Peasant Party was arguably the most important Croatian political party during the existence of the first Yugoslavia (1918–41). Under the leadership of Vladko Maček (1879–1964), it entered the most difficult period of its history: it was forced to contend with the royal dictatorship (1929–34) of King Aleksandar Karadjordjević, the Great Depression, growing nationality tensions and an increasingly volatile political climate in which the extremes of the right and left, represented in Croatia by the Ustaša and Communist parties respectively, contended for power. This article examines the contentious relationship between Maček's Croat Peasant Party and the fascist Ustaša movement between 1929 and 1941, and assesses Maček's legacy and his place in Croatia's 20th-century political history.

In the years 1936–41, the Croatian Peasant Party, led by Vladko Maček, operated two militias – the Croatian Peasant Defence (HSZ) in the villages and the Croatian Civil Defence in the cities. The HSZ was intended to protect Croatian peasants from attacks by Serb Chetniks as well as by communists, and was thus itself a symptom of the lawlessness prevailing in the interwar Kingdom of Yugoslavia. The HSZ also formed part of Maček's efforts to compete with the fascistic Ustaša movement, an armed organization behind the so-called ‘Velebit uprising’ of 1932.

In summer 1936 Vladko Maček's priorities lay with rebuilding the Croatian Peasant Party after its six years of illegality under King Aleksandar's dictatorship in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Yet the Spanish Civil War (1936–39) was to have a polarising and radicalising effect on Croatian society. Both communists and supporters of the fascist Ustaša movement looked to Spain as a model for resolving the ‘Croat question’ at a time when Croats were becoming increasingly frustrated with Maček's passivity. As a propaganda war raged in the press of the radical left and right, the Croatian Peasant Party tried to ignore the conflict. Maček's failure to realise the impact of the war in Spain on the political situation in Croatia is indicative of some of his weaknesses as a leader in difficult times. The Croatian Peasant Party missed the opportunity to take a strong moral stance against fascism during the Spanish conflict, and Maček's fence-sitting from the 1930s onwards permitted the more extreme ideological movements in Croatia to take advantage of the rapidly changing conditions of a Europe engulfed in war.

Archive-based regional studies can contribute much that is new to the economic, political and social history of the Second World War. This paper considers the process of industrial mobilisation in Northern Ireland, a politically divided region which was part of the United Kingdom but which had its own government. It examines the changing administrative framework of war production, the debate on military and industrial conscription, the role of women and the economic implications of geographical remoteness from London. The paper adds to our limited knowledge of regional mobilisation and contributes to a neglected aspect of the history of Northern Ireland.

This article explains the position of Portugal during the first attempt to enlarge the European Economic Community in 1961–3. It first makes clear the motives behind the Portuguese government's policy option in favour of EEC associate membership and future entry. Next, it analyses the attitude of the EEC members and Portugal's EFTA partners to this policy option. The article concludes that such a policy was condemned to failure, due to the authoritarian nature of the Portuguese regime and the country's colonial policy, and that, had the negotiations progressed, Lisbon would probably have had to opt in favour of a provisional agreement.

On 11 October 1941 the Vichy government passed legislation mandating the dismantling and smelting of French bronze statues and monuments in the public domain. Crippled by copper shortages and bound by the terms of the Franco-German armistice, the etat français sought to ‘mobilise’ all potential sources of non-ferrous metals, including public statuary. The statue of Mistral in Arles was one of the monuments that were dismantled. The destruction of this tribute to the Provençal poet and founder of the Félibrige sparked considerable protest and opposition, but from an unusual quarter – supporters of Pétain's National Revolution. The case of the destruction of the statue of Mistral in Arles reveals the intersection of regionalism and resistance in wartime France and challenges many of our perceptions about both these movements.

Ame de Mon Pays
Ame éternellement renaissante
Ame joyeuse, fière et vive
Qui hennis dans le bruit du Rhône et de son vent!
Ame des bois pleins d'harmonie
Et des calanques pleines de soleil
De la patrie, âme pieuse
Je t'appelle! Incarne-toi dans mes vers provençaux!

Recent studies of Italian Fascism have focused on ritual, spectacle, commemoration and myth, even as they also take seriously the totalitarian thrust of Fascism. But whereas this new culturalist orientation has usefully pointed beyond earlier reductionist approaches, it has often accented style and myth as opposed to their opposites, which might be summed up as ‘substance’. Some of the aspirations fuelling Fascism, responding to perceived inadequacies in the mainstream liberal and Marxist traditions, pointed beyond myth and style as they helped to shape the Fascist self-understanding – and Fascist practice. This article seeks to show how the interplay of substance, style and myth produced a particular – and deeply flawed – totalitarian dynamic in Fascist Italy.

This article uses recently released archival material to examine the role of the Irish government in the negotiation of the Sunningdale communiqué of 1973, which marked, among other things, an agreement to establish a Council of Ireland and was therefore a key part of the first attempt to establish a power-sharing devolved executive in Northern Ireland. The article will problematise the distinctions which have been made between various strains of political thought held by leading intellectuals and politicians on the national question and show how the discourse of ‘revisionist nationalism’ and reconciliation which sponsored the key institution of the Sunningdale communiqué, the Council of Ireland, was in contradiction to the meaning attached to the functions of the Council, which was in fact closer to traditional nationalist aims.

The methods used by the Nazis to control elements of German society have been the focus of intense historical debate. This paper attempts to analyse the implementation of Sippenhaft (family liability punishment) after the 20 July 1944 assassination plot against Hitler. Sippenhaft was advocated for use against the families of the conspirators involved in this plot and also against members of the armed services. Consequently, its implementation became the personal domain of the Reich leader of the SS, Heinrich Himmler, as well as local army commanders, army courts and the Nazi party itself. This article will argue that the inadequacies of its imposition were largely compensated for by its effectiveness as a device of fear.

This article highlights the extent to which Norway's policies towards the two Germanys and ‘the German question’ were anchored in its perception of ‘the German problem’. While the Cold War overshadowed Norway's relations with the GDR, ‘the German problem’ prevailed in its relations with the FRG well into the 1960s. Norwegian dependence nevertheless forced it to support West German reconstruction, rearmament and sovereignty. Relations with Bonn were a perennial political minefield. While Norway loyally followed NATO's restrictive policy towards the GDR, from the early 1960s politicians saw that this stood in the way of détente. Bonn's new Ostpolitik in the late 1960s allowed for political rapprochement between Oslo and Bonn and held out the hope of achieving the long-awaited rapprochement with East Berlin.

The main aim of the GDR's foreign policy was to promote the survival and stabilisation of the SED dictatorship, and the so-called ‘worldwide revolution’, by seeking external recognition. After it was granted full sovereignty in 1954–5 the East German state carefully cultivated relations with Western countries. The Scandinavian countries received special attention on the basis of common history, natural economic and transport links, a close relationship with their respective communist parties and East German conformity to Soviet policy in the Baltic region. Up to the 1970s the GDR's main aim was to end its own international isolation. Despite a few spectacular successes, not even Sweden was won over and the final breakthrough did not come until the government of the FRG embarked on its new and successful Ostpolitik. In 1972–3 the Scandinavian countries were among the first officially to recognise the GDR.