Resumen de “A withered olive branch”? The curious situation of Hungarian Jews during the dissolution of the Habsburg Empire

Anna Adorjáni

• The Habsburg Empire dissolved after World War One. A new world order of nation-states was emerging that acknowledged and distributed civic rights to non-titular nations based on national minority status. How did Jewish communities in the former Kingdom of Hungary respond to the gradual change of sovereignty, the ethnicisation of everyday life and the escalating antisemitic violence? Focusing on the turbulent months between October 1918 and March 1919, this study examines the transformation of loyalty patterns among various Jewish communities at the local, regional, national and international levels. A pivotal aspect of the chaotic transition from empire to nation-state was the intensified nationalism and the growing interest in models accommodating ethno-confessional diversity. Amid the emerging solutions to the minority question in East-Central Europe and worldwide, this paper focuses on the model of non-territorial autonomy within Jewish communities in the territories that became part of Romania and Czechoslovakia.