Checkmate! The World of Chess (2025)

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Despite Austria's triumph over the forces of the French Revolution in 1815, the Habsburg empire enters the year 1866 on the verge of collapse. Since 1848 Austria has been met by successive disasters, external and internal. Diplomatic isolation and defeat in war with the Italians and the Prussian have forced Kaiser Franz Joseph I and his ministers to look inward to salvage their crumbling empire. Negotiations have begun with the Hungarian nobility, leaders of the empire's most numerous and most problematic constituent population (second only to the Germans). Yet a deal cut with only the Hungarians will not be sufficient. The empire's many minority groups have a myriad of demands that often conflict over one another. The Czechs demand greater influence, Poles and Ukrainians duel over control of Galicia, and the liberation of an independent Serbian state has stirred nationalist sentiment in the empire's south. The chances of all parties leaving Vienna satisfied is a pipedream, so delegates must prepare to compromise with, or even betray their fellow delegates to shape the future of the Habsburg realm.

Daniel Keane is a senior from Illinois, and an Oxford College of Emory graduate. He is currently finishing a Major in History and a Minor in Italian. Outside of classwork, he works in the Theater Emory workshop helping build sets and has been involved in behind the scenes work for student theater since freshman year. In his free time he likes enjoys playing board games, painting minis, and sometimes gets a bit of reading done. Working on this committee has allowed him to indulge in a particular fascination with the late Habsburg empire and its dysfunctionalities.

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