Authors

Discussion

The dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1918 plunged East Central Europe into chaos. In Upper Silesia, the newly formed Polish and Czechoslovak nation-states clashed over the multiethnic Teschen region. To quell the violence, the Allied Powers divided the area, including the city of Teschen, between the two nations in July 1920. While national capitals denounced the new border as unjust for different reasons, for Teschen’s citizens, the split was life shattering. Workplaces, schools, and churches were suddenly not just over the river but in a foreign country. This paper examines how municipal leaders in Polish Cieszyn and Czech Český Těšín, navigating between national and local interests, sought to maintain the pre-war urban fabric by creating an open border. Through a transnational lens, it explores local border-making efforts in the interwar period, showing how peripheral leaders prioritized their urban constituents' needs over national security concerns. Drawing on municipal records, regional documents, communications with Prague and Warsaw, and local press, the paper challenges the narratives of small-town passivity and East Central Europe as merely a site of ethnic conflict. Instead, it reveals these local leaders as active agents who navigated the border-triggered disruptions within their city by placing their roles as administrators above nationalist agendas.