Politics of Urban Space in the Wartime Habsburg Monarchy: Olmütz/Olomouc, 1914 to 1919

Abstract The purpose of this article is to bring provincial and local perspectives into the research of urban space in the wartime Habsburg monarchy. Using the case of Olmütz/Olomouc, a midsize town in central Moravia, it analyzes how various social actors used public space and how they could appropriate its symbolic meaning in wartime. While local urban geography had long been contested by political, most often nationalist actors, World War I introduced fresh themes to the context of the city. Public rituals of loyalty repurposed and intensified some of the old traditions, even as organized and unorganized actors sought to “capture,” “invade,” and potentially “occupy” the same spaces to highlight their agendas in public demonstrations whose form owed much to the traditional public rituals. After October 1918, when the balance of power shifted between nationalist groups, the contest for urban space continued, along with ongoing political unrest, showing strong continuity of wartime practices into the immediate postwar era both in terms of political instability and in terms of the patterns of public ritual.