THE TURBULENT CENTURY: EASTERN EUROPE, 1914-1989
| History 3560 |
Brad Abrams |
| TR 1:10 – 2:25 |
1230 IAB, TH 2:30-4:30 |
| 313 Fayerweather |
bfa4, x46287 |
TAs:
Leon Lowder (lcl16)
Alex Toshkov (ast9)
This course is designed to provide a basic
introduction to the twentieth-century history of the countries
between Germany and the former Soviet Union. The materials are
chosen to illustrate a variety of different types of issues:
national, political, social, economic, cultural and intellectual.
Similarly, the types of materials employed are varied: survey
textbooks, selections from monographs, literary pieces, contemporary
documents, interviews and films. The intent is both to explore the
problematic history of the region, and to expose you to a variety of
approaches and materials. It begins with World War One and the
creation of what we now think of as Eastern Europe, and ends with
the fall of communism.
Grading (undergraduate):
Quizzes:
15%
Discussion Section/Film:
10%
Midterm exam:
30%
Final exam:
45%
Grading (graduate):
Quizzes:
15%
Final exam:
42.5%
Research paper:
42.5%
Books required throughout (available at
Labyrinth Books – 112th between Broadway and Amsterdam):
R. J.
Crampton. Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century – And Beyond.
Second ed. New York: Routledge, 1997.
Gale
Stokes, ed. From Stalinism to Pluralism. A Documentary History of
Eastern Europe Since 1945. Second ed. NY/Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1996.
All other
readings, unless otherwise noted, are (or will be) available in Butler
Reserves.
22-24 January:
Introduction: What Is Eastern Europe, and Why Is It Different From
Western Europe?
Charles Ingrao. “Ten Untaught Lessons about Central Europe.” Available online through the course website.
Map collection. [Handout]
29-31.
Historical Background before World War One: Empires, Empires, Empires.
Crampton. Chapter 1.
Alan Palmer. “Ferment Down the Danube,” “The Heyday of Nationalism” and “To Sarajevo.” Chapters Four, Five and Six of The Lands Between. New York: Macmillan, 1970. 71-119.
Gale Stokes. “The Social Origins of East European Politics.” In: Gale Stokes. Three Eras of Political Change in Eastern Europe. New York: Oxford, 1997. 36-66.
Czesław Miłosz. “Introduction,” “Place of Birth” and “Ancestry.” In: Czesław Miłosz. Native Realm. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981. 1-35.
Suggested
(really, it’s funny) Mark Twain. “Stirring Times in Austria.” Harper’s
New Monthly Magazine 96 (March, 1898) 530-40. Available online
through the course website
Discussion
Section.
5-7 February.
The Empires Strike Out: From The Bosnian Crisis to World War One.
Alan
Palmer. “’The Universal War for the Freedom of Nations” and
“The Making of Peace.” Chapters Seven and Eight of The Lands
Between. New York: Macmillan, 1970, 120-174.
Peter Hanák.
“Vox Populi: Intercepted Letters in the First World War.” Chapter
Eight of The Garden and the Workshop. Essays on the Cultural
History of Vienna and Budapest. Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1998. 179-212.
Karl
Kraus. The Last Days of Mankind.
In: In These Great Times. Manchester: Carcanet, 1984. 159-258.
Small collection of statistical data.
[Handout]
N.B. Quiz #1
will be on 12 February.
Discussion
Section.
12-14 February.
Postwar Instability: Structural and Political.
Crampton.
Chapters 2 and 11.
Ivan
Berend. “Class Revolutions – Counterrevolutions” and “Belated
National Revolutions.” Chapters Five and Six of Decades of Crisis.
Berkeley: University of California, 1998. 119-84.
Josef
Roth. “The Bust of the Emperor.” In: Hotel Savoy; Fallmerayer
the Stationmaster; The Bust of the Emperor. London: Chato and
Windus, 1986. 157-83.
Quiz
#1 on 12 February.
Discussion Section.
19-21 February.
Interwar Politics: From Instability to Stability and Back Again.
Crampton. Chapters 3-6.
Bradley Abrams. “Eastern Europe Between the
Wars: A Schematic Approach.” ±20pp.
Eugene Ionesco. Rhinoceros. In: XXX.
Discussion
Section.
26-28 February. Interwar Politics Concluded,
but Unfortunately Succeeded by the Great Depression and the Rise of
German Hegemony.
Crampton. Chapters 7-10.
Michael Henry Heim. “The Plague Years” and Karel Čapek. The White Plague. In: Cross Currents. A Yearbook of Central European Culture 7 (1988) 429-504.
Discussion
Section.
Film: Eastern
Europe 1914-1939.
In 702 Hamilton. [Count the mistakes! Show how much you’ve learned!]
N.B. Except for Man of
Marble, all films will begin at 8:00.
5-7 March. And
Then Even Worse: World War Two.
Crampton. Chapter 12.
E. A. Radice. “Economic Developments in
Eastern Europe under German Hegemony.” In Martin McCauley, ed. Communist
Power in Europe. London: Macmillan, 1977. 3-21.
E. A. Radice. “The Collapse of German
Hegemony and its Economic Consequences.” Chapter Twenty of M. C.
Kaser and E. A. Radice, eds. The Economic History of Eastern Europe
1919-1975. Oxford: Clarendon, 1986. 495-519.
Holocaust readings to be determined.
N.B. The midterm will be on 14 March.
Film: Divided
We Fall. In 702 Hamilton.
Discussion
Section.
12-14
March. The End of the Old East Central Europe.
Bradley Abrams. "Morality, Wisdom and
Revision: The Czech Opposition of the 1970s
and the Expulsion of the Sudeten Germans." East
European Politics and Societies 9 (1995) 234-55.
Collection of information on World War Two and
the postwar states of Eastern Europe. [Handout]
N.B. MIDTERM
EXAM 14 March.
19-21 March.
Spring Break: Come if you want, but I won’t be here. See note for
next week.
26-28 March. A
Moment’s Breather, but then the Communists’ Come to Power.
Crampton. Chapter 13.
Stokes. Documents 1-6.
Jan Gross. “The Social Consequences of War:
Preliminaries for the Study of the Imposition of Com-munist Regimes in
East Central Europe.” East European Politics and Societies 3
(1989) 198-214.
Hugh Seton-Watson. “The Seizure of Power.”
In: The East European Revolution. NY: Praeger, 1951. 167-70.
Czesław Miłosz. “Preface,”
“The Pill of Murti-Bing,” and “Looking to the West.” In: The
Captive Mind. New York: Vintage, 1955. vii-53.
N.M.B. I’m going to ask you to talk next
Tuesday about how the experiences of the interwar period and the war
made it easier for the communists to come to power. The Gross article
will be helpful, but you should think for yourselves about other
factors. Make a list. If you do the work, this will be interesting and
entertaining.
Film: Ashes
and Diamonds. In 701 Hamilton.
2-4 April.
Stalinism (Bad) and Part One of Destalinization (Better, but Still Not
Good).
Crampton. Chapters 14 and 15.
Stokes. Documents 9-11.
Czesław Miłosz. “Ketman.” In: The
Captive Mind. New York: Vintage, 1955. 54-81.
Milan Kundera. The Joke. New York:
Penguin, 1983. 22-43.
Tzvetan Todorov. Selections from Voices
from the Gulag. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State UP, 1999.
1-96.
Georgi Markov. Selections from: The Truth
that Killed. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1983. 3-61.
N.B. Quiz #2
will be on 2 April.
Discussion
Section.
9-11 April. See? Things Don’t Just Get Worse: Part Two of Destalinization and the “New Relationship” of the 1960s.
Crampton. Chapter 16.
Stokes. Documents 12-13.
Milovan Djilas. “The New Class.” From: The
New Class. New York: Harper Torchbook, 1957. 37-69.
Selected documents from: Paul Zinner, ed. National
Communism and Popular Revolt in Eastern Europe. NY: Columbia UP,
1956.
Selected documents from: Edmund Stillman, ed. Bitter
Harvest. The Intellectual Revolt behind the Iron Curtain. London:
Thames and Hudson, 1957.
Films: Man
of Marble. N.B.
The film will be in 501 Schermerhorn and will start at 7:00.
16-18 April.
The Rise and Fall of “Reformed Communism”: What To Do Next?
Crampton. Chapters 17-8.
Stokes. Documents 14-27, 29 and 37..
Václav Havel. “The Power of the
Powerless.” In: Steven Keane, ed. The Power of the Powerless.
Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1985. 23-96
Discussion
Section.
23-25 April.
Slouching Toward Armageddon: Economics and Society in the 1970s and
Early 1980s.
Crampton. Chapters 19-20.
Stokes. Documents 30-6 and 38-9.
Sabrina Ramet. “Rock Music and
Counterculture.” In: Sabrina Petra Ramet. Social Currents in
Eastern Europe. Durham/London: Duke University Press, 1995.
234-61.
Jiřina Šiklová.
“The ‘Gray Zone’ and the Future of Dissent in Czechoslovakia.”
In: Marketa Goetz-Stankiewicz, ed. Good-Bye Samizdat. Evanston,
IL: Northwestern University Press, 1992. 181-92.
Slavenka Drakulić. “Make-Up and Other
Crucial Questions,” “The Strange Ability of Apartments to Multiply
and Divide,” “A Communist Eye, Or What Did I See in New York,”
“A Letter from the United States – The Critical Theory Approach”
and “How We Survived Communism.” How We Survived Communism and
Even Laughed. NY: Harper, 1991. 21-32, 82-92, 113-32, 179-90.
Roman Laba. “Introduction” and Chapter
Nine, “Fashionable Myths and Proletarian Realities.” In: The
Roots of Solidarity. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991.
3-12 and 169-82.
Film: Man
of Iron. In 701 Hamilton.
30 April-2 May.
It’s Finally Over: The End of Communism in Eastern Europe.
Crampton. Chapters 21-2.
Stokes. Documents 40-3.
Katherine Verdery. “The ‘Etatization’ of
Time in Ceausescu’s Romania.” Chapter Two of What Was
Socialism, and What Comes Next? Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1996. 39-57.
Final N.B. I am going to try and leave the
session for 2 May open for you to ask questions to help you prepare
for the final. As you will see/have seen, I fall behind a bit, so this
also gives us a cushion.
14
May, 1:10-4:00. FINAL EXAM
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