Petty States and their Conservative Dictatorships: Interwar Lithuania and Austria – Continuities and Recourses Today

Interwar Lithuania and Austria had similar preconditions: both had a strong Catholic tradition, both were petty states under strong pressure of neighbouring powers (Poland and Germany), both founded their national identity on their past as a large and mighty empire. Antanas Smetona (in Lithuania) and Engelbert Dollfuß (in Austria) established conservative authoritarian regimes relying on middle-class and peasant political circles. These dictatorships constantly had to defend themselves against more radical national and fascist movements within the country and were finally dethroned through the invasion of the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. Based on a historical comparative analysis of these two dictatorships politics and the party spectrum of both countries today will be inspected, continuities from and recourses to the interwar period will be researched. This comparative analysis shall offer new insights into the history as well as into the current politics of Lithuania and Austria.