Public Health in Transition. Health Care at the dawn of the Habsburg Empire (1918–1924)

This project will investigate the transition of the public health system of the multinational Habsburg Empire in successor national states during and after the Empires collapse at the end of WWI.

The projects aim is to analyse how health institutions dealt with epidemic diseases and mental illnesses resulting from the war and geopolitical upheavals which reshaped the sense of self and created identity disorientation.

As a case study, it will focus on the macro-area between the former imperial capital city Vienna, the main Slovenian urban centre Ljubljana, and the main Habsburg port-city Trieste.

The fragmentation of this common space will be observed by comparing three models of transition of the common Habsburg public healthcare system in the three corresponding successor national states: the Austrian Republic, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (abbreviated to SHS-Kingdom), and the Italian Kingdom.

Three models of adapting strategies will be examined simultaneously from a regional, a national and an international perspective.

The research spans from the summer of 1918 until the middle of 1924 that is, from the establishment of national councils in the different regions of the collapsing Monarchy until the final diplomatic adjustments between Italy and the SHS-Kingdom with the Treaty of Rome, which brought to an end the international crisis concerning the free city of Fiume/Rijeka and established the geopolitical shape of the whole North-Eastern Adriatic area.

The project will be developed with the Faculty of Arts at the University of Ljubljana.