World War I and Creating the New Europe: The Case of Czechoslovakia

During World War I, battles did not take place only on the front.  This was also a war of ideas. Propaganda played an enormous role during WWI.  It was in this war that modern propaganda came into existence, and the Czechoslovak resistance efficiently and frequently used it as an instrument. While propaganda of the belligerent parties was focused on their armies and population, the propaganda of Central Europeans was aimed at West European elites first and then at compatriots living abroad. Propaganda and the Czechoslovak legions were the most important instruments of the Czechoslovak resistance. This talk will concentrate on four key topics: the geopolitical dimension of the Czechoslovak question, ideological reasoning, territorial claims, and the promotion these ideas in the countries of Entente.

Michal Kšiňan is a Researcher at the Institute of History, Slovak Academy of Sciences. He received his PhD from the Sorbonne in Paris in 2011. Currently he is a Fulbright fellow at the Elliot School of International Affairs at George Washington University. His publications include : Milan Rastislav Štefánik (2012), La mémoire conservée du général Milan Rastislav Štefánik dans les archives du Service historique de la Défense (2008, Slovak translation 2009) as coauthor, and Komunisti a povstania. Communists and Uprisings (2012) as editor.