Frontiers of Violence

T.K. Wilson has written a comparative history of violence in two important theatres of upheaval and changing national boundaries in the wake of the First World War. In Ulster, the conflict came at the climax of the struggle for Irish separation from the United Kingdom. Since the population was divided along Protestant/Catholic lines, regional loyalty to Great Britain impacted on local relations in drastic ways, with resulting factional mayhem. The exactly contemporaneous border plebiscite in Upper Silesia also generated insecurity, the emergence of a new state, moving boundaries, old animosities, and spiking ethnic hatred. Catholicism played a role here too, but the great majority on both sides of the Polish/German issue was Catholic. Further, the ‘ethnic’ divide was confused by a large group whose ethnic identity was not clear. The mayhem in Upper Silesia was even more extensive. Hence, in both regions, national and other identity was at issue; territorial partition formed a component of both situations; and in both regions the accompanying violence had long-term implications

Archaeology · Ethnic conflict · Ethnic group · Ethnology · Genealogy · Geography · German · Hatred · Identity (music · Immigration · Irish · National identity · Nationality · Partition (number theory · Political science · Politics · Population · Protestantism · Sociology · Demography · Gender Studies · History · Irish and British Studies · Law