Europe's Last Peasant War

Project Summary 

'Europe's last peasant war' aims to reinterpret the most violent decades of European history from the perspective of the countryside. Peasants were not just passive victims of the calamities in the era of World Wars that killed around 30 million people; they helped shape the 'age of catastrophe' with violence and anti-urban political initiatives. East Central Europe, the most volatile region of the continent in the last century, was the most important battleground in this struggle. The project focuses on the area of the Habsburg Empire and its successors since the peasants of these lands shared a common experience of the First World War and found themselves in new and beleaguered interwar states. This makes the peasant histories of this region both connected and consequential; placing them at the centre of Europe's twentieth-century history through transnational research is the project's main goal.

Project updates

On Wednesday 24 August 2022, Dr Beneš organised and opened an exhibition titled 'Green cadres. Peasant revolts and movements in Austria-Hungary and its successor states' in Varaždin, Croatia. 

On 1 July 2022, Dr Beneš organised and opened an exhibition titled 'Green cadres. Peasant revolts and movements in Austria-Hungary and its successor states' in Skalica, Slovakia.

Key Information

Principal Investigator: Dr Jakub Beneš, Lecturer in Central European History 

Co-Investigator: Dr Petra Svoljšak, Milko Kos Historical Institute, Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts

Postdoctoral Research Fellow: Dr Tamas Revesz, Research Fellow in Hungarian History

Project Duration: February 2021 to September 2023

More information can be found on the AHRC website