Order and disorder in the home front: economic restrictions and police interventions in the city of Uzhhorod during the First World War

Анотація

The study analyses the economic and social conditions of the city of Uzhhorod during the First World War as part of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, with particular attention to local mechanisms of food supply, the rationing system, and requisitions. Drawing on archival sources and contemporary press materials, it explores the effects of the wartime economy and state intervention on everyday life. The aim of the article is to analyse how wartime economic management and government control transformed daily life and the population’s survival strategies on the northeastern periphery of rural Hungary. The research methodology is based primarily on the analysis of archival sources held in the Berehove Branch of the State Archives of the Transcarpathian Region. It uses contemporary documents that have so far remained largely overlooked by researchers. The analysis includes the materials of the Lord Lieutenant (Fond 4) and the Deputy Lord Lieutenant of Ung County (Fond 7), as well as the Mayor’s Documents of the Self-Governing City of Uzhhorod (Fond 6). These archival materials are supplemented with a critical examination of contemporary newspapers (Ung and Ungvári Közlöny [Uzhhorod Gazette]) which make it possible to reconstruct economic and social processes. Press analysis is indispensable, as newspapers were the most significant medium of mass communication at the time. They provide essential information such as decrees, market-regulation measures, and the names of individuals against whom proceedings were initiated for economic violations. The research applies qualitative content analysis and a comparative approach, with particular attention to the connections between local and national regulations. The novelty of the study lies in the fact that it is the first to present in detail the home-front economic regulations of Uzhhorod and the local mechanisms of food-supply control. It reveals the roles of Police Chief István Berzeviczy and Mayor Mihály Fincziczky in implementing price-control and anti-profiteering measures, and it demonstrates the practical challenges of wartime economic administration. Using previously unknown sources, the research reconstructs the functioning of the rationing system in Uzhhorod, its abuses, and the population’s strategies of adaptation. Conclusions. The mobilisation of the home front triggered not only economic but also social and moral crises. The example of Uzhhorod illustrates how wartime state administration became entrenched at the local level, generating tensions between law-enforcement authorities and the population. Economic hardship remained perceptible from the outbreak of the war until the Armistice of Villa Giusti on 3 November 1918. The Hungarian governments led by István Tisza and later by Sándor Wekerle between 1914 and 1918 attempted to address these difficulties first through market-restriction measures and later through the introduction of food-ration cards. The study concludes that everyday life on the home front unfolded in a continuous search for balance between centralised state control and community-based self-organisation, reflecting the peripheral characteristics of the Monarchy’s wartime system. Economic hardships created an almost explosive social situation, culminating in the Aster Revolution on 31 October 1918.