Die „Plünderungen“ in Oberungarn im Herbst 1918 – bolschewistische Anarchie oder nationale Revolution?

Abstract

This article examines the significance of the so-called “lootings” (rabovačky) in Upper
Hungary in the autumn of 1918, when receding soldiers and broad sections of the population
attacked the representatives of state power and Jewish innkeepers stereotyped as “usurers.”
In addition to their anti-Jewish character, their symbolic content, in which revolt against the
old order was accompanied by carnivalesque violent mockery of it, is elaborated upon. The
greatest attention, however, is paid to the political instrumentalization of the “lootings” on
the part of the representatives of the new Czechoslovak state. This instrumentalization
ranged from appropriation (albeit hesitant, given their violent nature) to condemnation: the
former for the “Czechoslovak revolution” in the post-war years, the latter as a prelude to
Bolshevization at the height of the economic crisis in the early 1930s.