State Formation and Administrative-Territorial Organization
Forthc. in Handbook of European Regions 1870-2010, ed. by J. M. Henneberg, Cham, Switzerland: Springer Nature
My contribution to a fascinating new handbook explores how administrative-territorial divisions in the Czech and Slovak Republics are rooted in historical processes of state formation.
Compared to most West European nation states, Czechoslovakia was established lately. It emerged from the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy after the First World War and existed until 1992, interrupted by the German annexation and the creation of an independent Slovak state between 1938 and 1945. The Czechoslovak state was composed of the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic, two territories with distinct historical identities.