Violence and Propaganda in European Civil Wars Dimensions of Conflict, 1917–1949

Foreword, Robert Gerwarth  Introduction: Civil War in Word and Deed: Dimensions of violence in Europe’s Age of Civil Wars, Yiannis Kokosalakis and Francisco J. Leira-Castiñeira  Part I: Contextual Aspects of Violence  1.   Civil War as the Graveyard of Revolution in Europe, 1917-1923, Bill Kissane  2.   “Civil War” in Modern France: A Historical Genealogy from Discursive Violence to Physical Killing, Joan Pubill Brugués  3.   Was There a Balkan Civil War?, Dmitar Tasić   4.   “Kill or Be Killed”: Psychological Approaches to Decision-Making and Moral Judgements in Civil Wars, Raquel Martín-Ríos and Francisco J. Leira Castiñeira  5.   Defining the Enemy: Propaganda in a Civil War, Troy Paddock  6.   Brutality in Civil Wars: Sociological Reflections, Siniša Malešević  Part II: Political Discourse and Propaganda  7.   ‘Corpulent plutocrats’ versus ‘scheming Jews’: Propaganda and Violence in the Russian Civil War, Yiannis Kokosalakis  8.     Enemy Images, Group Experiences and Propaganda in the Finnish Civil War, 1918, Tuomas Tepora  9.     “There can be no compromise”: The Propaganda of the Irish Civil War, Elaine Callinan  10.  “The war of words”: Propaganda during the Spanish Civil War, Francisco Sevillano Calero  11.  Patriots, Traitors, and Rebels: Mutual Portraits of Partisans and Fascists in the Italian Civil War, 1943-1945, Nicola Cacciatore  12. Political Discourse and Propaganda during the Greek Civil War, Haris Razakos  Part III: Physical Violence  13.  Grassroots Executions of Naval Officers by Seamen: Myth and Reality of Violence during the Russian Revolution, 1917-1918, Kirill Nazarenko  14.  Citizens at War: Mobilization, Militarization, and Atrocities in the Finnish Civil War and Beyond, Aapo Roselius   15.  Violence in the Irish Civil War, Thomas Earls FitzGerald  16.  “We Were Real Beasts”: From ‘Ordinary Men’ to Combatants in Spain, 1936-1939, Francisco J. Leira-Castiñeira   17.  The Italian Civil War: An Explosion of Brutality, Amedeo Osti Guerrazi  18. The Logic of Violence during the Greek Civil War, 1946-1949, Spyros Tsoutsoumpis

Biography

Yiannis Kokosalakis is a guest researcher at Bielefeld University, Germany. He is the author of Building Socialism: The Communist Party and the Making of the Soviet System, 1921–1941 (2023).

Francisco J. Leira‑Castiñeira is the Ramón y Cajal Fellow at Charles III University of Madrid, Spain. He is the author of Franco’s Soldiers: Recruitment and Combat in the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) (2023) and co‑editor of The Crucible of Francoism (2021).

“Bringing together theoretical discussions of intrastate violence and empirical studies of conflicts in Russia, Finland, Ireland, Spain, Italy, and Greece, Propaganda and Violence offers a nuanced, multidisciplinary examination of the relationship between dehumanizing propaganda and the brutal realities of European civil wars. Contributors highlight both the utility of historical comparison and necessity of attending to the specific and varied personal, social, political, and ideological factors that generated violence in particular cases”.

Lisa A. Kirschenbaum, West Chester University, USA

“Why were Europe’s civil wars in the first half of the twentieth century often so violent? This important and ambitious volume analyses the ideological, political and social factors that generated these cultures of intense violence”.

Martin Conway, University of Oxford, UK