This project examines the post-imperial transition in the Czech Lands and Slovenia between 1918 and 1923 from the perspective of food supply. Provisioning is considered one of the key elements of everyday life at the grass-root level as well as an important device for sustaining state authority. While the failure of rationing during the First World War accelerated the downfall of Austria-Hungary, successor states had to come to terms with the inherited social disorder and prove their claim on power through successful management of the ongoing food shortage, deprivation of consumers, and overstretching of producers. Focus on the interplay between state policies and their repercussions on the local level enables scrutiny into the building of individual as well as group agencies, shifting of loyalties and constructions of state. Choosing structurally similar empirical cases from Czech and Slovene regions allows for a cross-regional comparison of local variants of building of the post-war order based on the ethos of war victory.
