Table Of ContentContested Cities in the
Modern West
A.C. Hepburn
Ethnic and Intercommunity Conflict Series
General Editors:Seamus Dunn, Professor of Conflict Studies and Director,
Centre for the Study of Conflict, and Valerie Morgan, Professor of History and
Research Associate, Centre for the Study of Conflict, University of Ulster,
Northern Ireland
With the end of the Cold War, the hitherto concealed existence of a great many
other conflicts, relatively small in scale, long-lived, ethnic in character and
intra- rather than inter-state has been revealed. The dramatic changes in the dis-
tribution of world power, along with the removal of some previously resolute
forms of centralised restraint, have resulted in the re-emergence of older, histor-
ical ethnic quarrels, many of which either became violent and warlike or
teetered, and continue to teeter, on the brink of violence. For these reasons,
ethnic conflicts and consequent violence are likely to have the greatest impact
on world affairs during the next period of history.
This new series examines a range of issues related to ethnic and intercommunity
conflict. Each book concentrates on a well-defined aspect of ethnic and inter-
community conflict and approaches it from a comparative and international
standpoint.
Rather than focus on the macrolevel, that is on the grand and substantive
matters of states and empires, this series argues that the fundamental causes of
ethnic conflict are often to be found in the hidden roots and tangled social
infrastructures of the opposing separated groups. It is through the understand-
ing of these foundations and the working out of their implications for policy
and practical activity that may lead to ameliorative processes and the construc-
tion of transforming social mechanisms and programmes calculated to produce
longterm peace.
Titles include:
Stacey Burlet
CHALLENGING ETHNIC CONFLICT
Ed Cairns and Mícheál Roe (editors)
THE ROLE OF MEMORY IN ETHNIC CONFLICT
T.G. Fraser
THE IRISH PARADING TRADITION
A.C. Hepburn
CONTESTED CITIES IN THE MODERN WEST
Colin Knox and Padraic Quirk
PEACE BUILDING IN NORTHERN IRELAND, ISRAEL AND SOUTH AFRICA
Colin Knox and Rachel Monaghan
INFORMAL JUSTICE IN DIVIDED SOCIETIES
Northern Ireland and South Africa
Brendan Murtagh
THE POLITICS OF TERRITORY
Marc H.Ross
THEORY AND PRACTICE IN ETHNIC CONFLICT MANAGEMENT
Contested Cities in the
Modern West
A.C. Hepburn
Professor of Modern Irish History
University of Sunderland
© A.C.Hepburn 2004
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save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the
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Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication
may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work
in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published 2004 by
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A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hepburn, A.C. (Anthony C.)
Contested cities in the modern West/A.C. Hepburn.
p. cm. – (Ethnic and intercommunity)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0–333–71790–2 (cloth)
1. Ethnic conflict–Case studies. 2. Sociology, Urban–Case studies.
3. Urban policy–Case studies. I. Title II. Ethnic and intercommunity conflict
series (Palgrave (Firm))
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‘The co-existence of several nations under the same state is a
test, as well as the best security of its freedom …’
Lord Acton, ‘Nationality’, in Essays in the History of Liberty:
Selected Writings of Lord Acton (3 vols, ed. JR Fears, 1985,
pp. 424–5)
‘A strange city … and a very beautiful one. And all refugees
from all over the Earth are drawn to it … And even though dif-
ferent tongues and languages mix in the streets, no-one hurts
anyone else …’
Stefan Chwin, Esther (Gdansk: Tykul, 1999. Cited in
Jersak: 21)
‘I come from the late city of Newark …. Look, the Irish ran the
city, the Italians ran the city, now let the coloured run the city
… I got nothing against that. It’s the coloured people’s turn to
reach into the till …’
Philip Roth, American Pastoral (London: Jonathan Cape,
1997, p. 345)
Istanbul was Constantinople
Now it’s Istanbul not Constantinople
popular song c.1953, words by Jimmy Kennedy
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Contents
List of Maps and Tables ix
Preface x
List of Abbreviations xiii
1 Contested Cities: Social Change, State Action and
International Intervention 1
Three new capitals: Prague, Bratislava and Helsinki 11
The spoils of war: Wroclaw and Thessaloniki 20
Uncontested cities? Barcelona and Strasbourg 25
2 Surrender: from Danzig to Gdan´sk 29
Teutonic knights and the Polish-Lithuanian
Commonwealth, 997–1793 33
Prussian and German rule, 1793–1918 39
From Germany to Free City and back, 1919–45 46
A new city: Gdan´sk since 1945 59
3 Resistance: the Survival of Italian Trieste 62
Habsburg Trieste, 1377–1918 65
Trieste and Italy, 1918–45 71
From Military Government to Italy again, 1945–present 79
4 Peaceful Reconquest: Montreal 95
Conquest to confederation, 1760–1867 98
Demographic versus economic power: an uneasy 101
balance, 1867–1960
Reconquest? 1960–2000 110
5 Peaceful Contest: Brussels 128
Capital of the southern Netherlands to 1830 131
Capital of Belgium, 1830–1914: French unchallenged 136
Capital of Belgium, 1914–60: French challenged 141
A third region? The emergence of Brussels-Capital 144
6 The Failure of Chronic Violence: Belfast 158
1801–1921: rule from London 163
1921–72: Belfast as regional capital 174
Since 1972: rule from (mainly) Westminster again 180
vii
viii Contents
7 The Failure of Acute Violence: Jerusalem 189
Ottoman rule to 1918 194
British rule, 1919–48 198
Partitioned Jerusalem: 1949–67 204
United Jerusalem? 1967 to the present 207
8 Conclusion 222
Bibliography 241
Maps and tables
Maps
2.1 The southern Baltic lands in the seventeenth and 30
eighteenth centuries
2.2 Language use in Germany’s north-eastern borderlands, 31
1910
2.3 The Free City of Danzig, 1919–39 46
3.1 Trieste and the Julian region: changing frontiers, 63
1866–1954
3.2 Slovenes in Trieste, 1920 64
4.1 Montreal, Quebec and Canada 96
4.2 Language use on the island of Montreal, 1971 97
5.1 The provinces of Belgium 129
5.2 Brussels and its periphery since 1970 129
5.3 Elections to the Brussels Regional Council, 1999 149
6.1 Belfast and Ireland, showing the 1921 partition line 159
and the three border counties
6.2 The Catholic districts of Belfast, 1901 160
7.1 Israel, 1949–67 190
7.2 Arabs and Jews in contemporary Jerusalem 191
Tables
1.1 Prague: Population by main language spoken, 1869–1910 11
1.2 Helsinki: Population by main language spoken, 1870–1980 19
2.1 Danzig/Gdan´sk: Population and language, 1850–1992 33
2.2 Religion in Danzig, 1796-1910 41
3.1 Trieste: Population by main language spoken, 1846–1953 66
3.2 Selected elections in Trieste, 1897–1924 75
3.3 Free Territory of Trieste: elections in Zone A, 1949 86
4.1 Montreal: Population and language, 1871–1981 98
5.1 Brussels: Population and language, 1846–1947 130
6.1 Belfast: Population and religion, 1784–1991 169
7.1 Jerusalem: Population and religion, 1800–1995 193
ix
