The Struggle for Respect: The State, World War One Veterans, and Social Welfare Policy in Interwar Czechoslovakia

0523823 - MÚA 2021 RIV AT eng J - Článek v odborném periodiku
Šustrová, Radka
The Struggle for Respect: The State, World War One Veterans, and Social Welfare Policy in Interwar Czechoslovakia.
Zeitgeschichte. Roč. 47, č. 1 (2020), s. 107-134. ISSN 0256-5250
Grant CEP: GA ČR(CZ) GF17-33831L
Institucionální podpora: RVO:67985921
Klíčová slova: World War I veterans * Austria
Obor OECD: History (history of science and technology to be 6.3, history of specific sciences to be under the respective headings)
Impakt faktor: 0.122, rok: 2020
Způsob publikování: Omezený přístup
https://doi.org/10.14220/zsch.2020.47.1.107

The article focuses on Czechoslovakia’s social policies towards veterans, with regard to both the extent and the form of provision. Upon returning to their homeland, World War One veterans became one of the key subjects of social welfare policy inthe post-war European order. Czechoslovakia started to develop its veterans’ social welfare legislation straight after the end of the conflict. From the Czechoslovak government’s point of view, only legionnaires, war invalids, and professional soldiers, together with their relatives and surviving family members, constituted worthy recipients of social welfare. The ideological basis for this policybecame “politically desired heroism”, which helped to define what comprised a rightful entitlement tosocial provision. While the state strove to find a balance between veterans’ wartime achievements and social welfare benefits, the veterans formulated multiple criticisms of the existing welfare system and repeatedly expressed their dissatisfaction with it. The author outlines four basic types of political activism among World War One veterans in the Bohemian territories. The article raises the question as towhat and howmuch, the state was willing to offer veterans, as well as examining whowas entitled to get support and why.
Trvalý link: http://hdl.handle.net/11104/0308226