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1 results

  • 4 - Black Markets, Green Expeditions

  • Claire Morelon, University of Manchester
  • Book:
    Streetscapes of War and Revolution
    Published online:
    30 May 2024
    Print publication:
    06 June 2024, pp 156-206
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  • Summary

    “As food increasingly disappeared from shops, market stalls, and restaurants, wartime shortages badly affected city life. By 1917, most Prague residents struggled to obtain basic food items; the city and its inhabitants were cold, due to coal shortages, and dirty, through lack of soap. The state’s rationing system proved insufficient to cover the needs of the population, leading to the blossoming of a black market. Discrepancies in access to food shaped new divisions. Prague was ‘ruralized’ as people grew vegetables in allotments and on balconies. Hungry city-dwellers went on trips to the countryside to purchase food. This new reliance on farmers subverted social hierarchies. An antagonism grew between Prague and the countryside, undermining the unity of the Czech nation. The association ‘The Czech Heart’ attempted to heal the rift by sending hungry Prague children to better-fed villages. Food provision shifted legitimacy away from the Austrian state to national organizations.”