EUTopia CoLeCo Legal History: The End(s) of War

Historical context Until the end of the First World War, Slovene territory was a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In the final years of the war, as imperial structures weakened, political initiatives among South Slavic representatives intensified. Competing visions on new structures emerged regarding the future political organization of the South Slavs. One proposal, articulated in the May Declaration of 1917, advocated the unification of South Slavic nations within the Habsburg framework as an autonomous political unit. In contrast, the Corfu Declaration of 1917 envisaged the creation of State of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes outside the Empire, in association with the Kingdom of Serbia under the Karađorđević dynasty. These programs reflected broader tensions between reformist federalism and the pursuit of full sovereignty beyond imperial structures. In the final phase of the First World War, imperial policy further alienated South Slavic political elites. Emperor Charles I’s promis...

(image: UPF Barcelona's campus of the 'Ciutadella', where the peak event took place) After almost ten months of hybrid, online, and in-person collaboration, the individual and collective blog posts produced by  students from Universitat Pompeu Fabra (Barcelona), CY Cergy Paris Université, the University of Ljubljana, and the Vrije Universiteit Brussel are ready to be published over the coming weeks.  We begin with a contribution by Klara Babić , entitled The Role of Telecommunications in Establishing the New Authorities of the Slovene National Government at the End of the First World War and the Dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire . Her contribution will be followed by those of her fellow students and colleagues across the EUTopia network. The Ljubljana students worked under a common thematic umbrella in 2025-2026 ( From a state of war to a state of peace  via (new) communication technologies and media: the establishing of authorities, institutions, laws and the r...