Kohlennot: Politics and Everyday Life in the Central Powers During the Great War and Beyond (1914-1920)

The project deals with the coal crisis in the Central Powers during the World War I and beyond (1914–1920). It aims to analyse the crisis comparatively, from the perspective of social and everyday history. It focuses on the European area most affected by the coal crisis, i. e. the territory of the Central Powers and the lands occupied by them, from Belgium to Ukraine and from the Baltic to the Balkans. The project aims to analyse the societal dimension of coal
scarcity during 1914–1920 in two dimensions: 1) Territory of Central Powers, by comparatively examining selected central European urban centres and 2) The Czech lands. Inspired by the categories of centre and periphery, the project aims to identify the position of cities within the Central Powers. In the research of the Czech lands, the project will additionally focus not only on the administrative borders of the cities but also on the larger geographical area, including rural regions, which will allow a comprehensive assessment of the impact of the coal crisis and
a comparison of the centre versus the periphery.