Torn Men in Torn Towns: Border-Making in the Divided City of Teschen, 1920–34

The fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1918 sent Central Europe into chaos. In Upper Silesia, the emergent Polish and Czechoslovak nation-states clashed over the multiethnic Teschen region. Trying to pacify the ethnic violence, Allied Powers divided the contested territory along with the city of Teschen between the two new states in July 1920. Whereas the national centers declared the new border as unjust—albeit for different reasons—the citizens of former Teschen found their lives being ruptured as the border cut through the city. Workplaces, schools, and places of worship were suddenly located not just over the river, but in a foreign country. Operating between the interest of the nation and the city, this paper explores how small-town municipal leaders in the newly emerged towns of Polish Cieszyn and Czech Český Těšín attempted to demarcate their national territory while simultaneously creating a permeable border that would secure the “benefits of an undivided homeland.” By utilizing the transnational approach to urban history and exploring local border-making practices and cross-border cooperation such as joint fire rescue and medical care throughout the interwar period, this paper demonstrates that local leaders on the periphery defended the rights of their urban constituents against the security concerns of their national governments. Drawing on municipal records, regional administrations’ documents, official communication with Prague and Warsaw and the local press, it pushes not only against discourses of small-town passivity, but also historiography that presents East Central Europe as a site of ethnic conflict and national rivalry. Rather than mindless perpetrators of ethnic violence, or passive victims of imported nationalisms, this paper shows that small town leaders were active agents in both national politics and local conflict resolution, frequently choosing pragmatism over ideology.