INTRODUCTION TO THE LITERATURE OF
EAST CENTRAL EUROPEAN HISTORY.
TOPIC: THE FORTY YEAR REVOLUTION, 1914-1954?

 

Topic 1: Introduction.

Topic 2: An Overview

Ivan T. Berend. Decades of Crisis. Berkeley: UCP, 1998.

Topic 3: East-Central Europe’s Revolutionary Potential in 1918-21: Communists in Hungary, Peasants in Bulgaria

Nándor F. Dreisziger. "The Dimensions of Total War in East Central Europe, 1914-18." In: Béla K. Király and Nándor F. Dreiziger, eds. East Central European Society in World War I. Boulder: Social Science Monographs; New York: Distributed by Columbia University Press, 1985. 2-23.

Béla Király. "Red Wave in East Central Europe: A Repercussion of Total War," Ivo Banac. "The Emergence of Communism in East Central Europe," Peter Pastor. "One Step Forward, Two Steps Back: The Rise and Fall of the First Hungarian Communist Party, 1918-1922." In: Ivo Banac, ed. The Effects of World War I: The Class War after the Great War. The Rise of Communist Parties in East Central Europe, 1918-1921. Boulder: Social Science Monographs; New York: Distributed by Columbia University Press, 1983. ix-4, 85-126.

Ferenc Imrey. Through Blood and Ice. NY: E.P. Dutton, 1930. 258-70.

György Borsányi. "Combat and Captivity." Chapter IV of The Life of a Communist Revolutionary, Béla Kun. Trans by Mario D. Fenyo. Boulder: Social Science Monographs; New York: Distributed by Columbia University Press, 1993. 37-77.

John R. Lampe. "Stamboliiski’s Bulgaria and Revolutionary Change, 1918-1923." In: Peter Pastor, ed. Revolutions and Interventions in Hungary and Its Neighbor States, 1918-1919. Boulder: Social Science Monographs; New York: Distributed by Columbia University Press, 1988. 417-30.

John Bell. "The Agrarian Union and the Wars" and "The Road to Power." Chapters IV and V of Peasants in Power. Princeton, NJ: PUP, 1977. 85-153.

Topic 4: Nationalism and Nation-Building.

Irina Livezeanu. Cultural Politics in Greater Romania : Regionalism, Nation Building and Ethnic Struggle 1918-1930. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1995.

Topic 5: The Problem of Minorities.

Richard Blanke. Orphans of Versailles. The Germans in Western Poland, 1918-1939. Lexington: University of Kentucky, 1993.

Topic 6: The Problem of Authoritarianism.

Joseph Rothschild. Pilsudski’s Coup d’Etat. New York: Columbia University Press, 1966.

Topic 7: The Problem of Fascism:

Vladimir Tismaneanu. "Romania's Mystical Revolutionaries: The Generation of Angst and Adventure Revisited." East European Politics and Societies 8 (1994) 3:402-38.

Daniel Chirot. "Who Influenced Whom? Xenophobic Nationalism in Germany and Romania." In: Roland Schonfeld. Germany and Southeastern Europe -- Aspects of Relations in the Twentieth Century. Sudosteuropa-Studie 58. Munchen: Sudosteuropa- Gesellschaft, 1997. 37-57.

Selections (primarily on Hungary and Romania) from:

Stein Larsen, ed. Who Were the Fascists? Social Roots of European Fascism. Bergen: Universitetsforlaget, 1980.

Hans Rogger and Eugen Weber, eds. The European Right: A Historical Profile. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1965.

Topic 8: Germany and Economic Penetration.

David Kaiser. Economic Diplomacy and the Origins of the Second World War. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980.

Topic 9: Germany and Diplomacy.

Igor Lukes. Czechoslovakia Between Stalin and Hitler. The Diplomacy of Edvard Benes in the 1930s. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.

Topic 10: Poland Under Hitler in the Second World War.

Jan Gross. Polish Society Under Occupation.

Topic 11: Poland Under Stalin in the Second World War

Jan Gross. Revolution from Abroad. The Soviet Conquest of Poland's Western Ukraine and Western Belorussia. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988.

17 March: Spring Break.

Topic 12: The Experience of the Second World War.

Cecil B. Eby. Hungary at War. Civilians and Soldiers in World War II. University Park, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1998.

E. A. Radice. "Economic Developments in Eastern Europe under German Hegemony." In Martin McCauley, ed. Communist Power in Europe. London: Macmillan, 1977. 3-21

Jan Gross. "The Social Consequences of War: Preliminaries for the Study of the Imposition of Communist Regimes in East Central Europe." East European Politics and Societies 3 (1989) 198-214.

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.

Paul Robert Magocsi. "Population Movements, 1944-1948." In: Historical Atlas of East Central Europe. Seattle/London: University of Washington Press, 1993. 164-8.

Topic 13: The Imposition of Stalinism I: The Problem of the Working Class.

Padraic Kenney. Rebuilding Poland: Workers and Communists, 1945-1950. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997.

Topic 14. The Imposition of Stalinism II: The Problem of the Intellectuals.

Bradley Abrams. "‘The Struggle for the Soul of the Nation’: Czech Culture and Socialism, 1945-1948." Unpublished (as yet) Ph.D. dissertation. Stanford University, 1997.

Topic 15: Hungary and the Expulsion of the Germans.

Charles Gati. Hungary and the Soviet Bloc. Durham, NC: Duke Univerity Press, 1986.

Collection of articles on the expulsion of the Germans from East Central Europe.

Topic 16: Stalinism at Apogee: The Show Trials.

George Hodos. Show Trials: Stalinist Purges in Eastern Europe, 1948-1954. New York: Praeger, 1987. OR Karel Kaplan. Report on the Murder of the General Secretary. Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, 1990.

Topic 17: Final Consideration.

Hannah Arendt. The Origins of Toalitarianism. Volume Three: Totalitarianism. New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1985.

Ferenc Feher and Agnes Heller. "Hannah Arendt’s Origins of Totalitarianism Reconsidered." In: Feher and Heller. Eastern Left, Western Left: Totalitarianism, Freedom and Democracy. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1987.

Ian Kershaw and Moshe Lewin. "Introduction: The Regimes and Their Dictators: Perspectives of Comparison" and "Afterthoughts." In: Kershaw and Lewin, eds. Stalinism and Nazism: Dictatorships in Comparison. Cambridge: CUP, 1997. 1-25, 343-58.

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