From peoples into nations : a history of Eastern Europe / John Connelly.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Connelly, John, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Nationalism--Europe, Eastern--History.

Nationalism.

History.

Autonomy and independence movements.

Europe, Eastern--History.

Europe, Eastern.

Eastern Europe.

Europe, Eastern--History--Autonomy and independence movements.

Europe, Eastern--Politics and government.

Politics and government.

Genre:

History.

Physical Description:

viii, 956 pages : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Princeton, New Jersey : Princeton University Press, [2020]

Summary:

"This book is a history of East Central Europe since the late eighteenth century, the region of Europe between German central Europe and Russia in the East. Connelly argues the region, for which it is frequently hard to define exact boundaries and which is sometimes treated country-by-country in a way seemingly separate from the broader trends of European history, was one of shared experience despite most of the peoples being divided by linguistic, geographic, and political barriers. Beginning in the 1780s, an unwitting Habsburg monarch -- Joseph II -- decreed that his subjects would use only German, as he hoped to mould a common nationality using German over the disparate subjects. Instead, he unleashed the energies and struggle for the emergence of new nations that pitted small peoples armed with an idea against empires. The author argues that the underlying national self-assertion which emerged under imperial rule in the eighteen and nineteenth centuries shows deep connections to subsequent histories, to the creation of nation states of the regions after World War I, the failure of democratic rule in these states during the interwar years, the submersion of the region under Nazi then Soviet rule after 1939, and to the reinvention of sovereign states (and then the break up of two of them) after 1989. The book interconnects major themes and country histories for first time, chronicling this diverse region over many generations, from the time of Joseph, through democratic and socialist revolutions, genocide and Stalinism, through civil society movements struggling for liberal democracy, into our own day, when illiberal politicians come to power by exploiting very old fears"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Peoples of East Central Europe

Ethnicity on the edge of extinction

Linguistic nationalism

Nationality struggles : from idea to movement

Insurgent nationalism : Serbia and Poland

Cursed were the peacemakers : 1848 in East Central Europe

The reform that made the monarchy unreformable : the 1867 compromise

The 1878 Berlin Congress : Europe's new ethno-nation-states

The origins of National Socialism : fin de siècle Hungary and Bohemia

Liberalism's heirs and enemies : socialism vs. nationalism

Peasant utopias : villages of yesterday and societies of tomorrow

1919 : a new Europe and its old problems

The failure of national self-determination

Fascism takes root : Iron Guard and Arrow Cross

East Europe's anti-fascism

Hitler's war and its East European enemies

What Dante did not see : the Holocaust in Eastern Europe

People's democracy : early postwar Eastern Europe

Cold War and Stalinism

Destalinization : Hungary's revolution

National paths to communism : the 1960s

1968 and the Soviet bloc : reform communism

Real existing socialism : life in the Soviet bloc

The unraveling of communism

1989

Eastern Europe explodes : the wars of Yugoslav succession

Eastern Europe joins Europe.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780691167121

0691167125

OCLC:

1108817562