Hist 324

East Central Europe in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

Prof. Eagle Glassheim

Office: 1203 BuchananTower

Office Hours: Tues. 10-12 and by appointment

E-mail:

Course Description:

This course will provide a historical overview of the lands, peoples, and states of Eastern Europe from 1815 to the present. Given the great flux in borders, sovereignties, and the ethnic profile of the region during this period, we will have to continually refine or redefine our concept of Eastern Europe, an area that roughly encompasses the band of countries stretching from today's Poland to the Balkans. In keeping with a convention that is not entirely free of political overtones, I will divide the region into two parts, East Central Europe and Southeastern Europe (the Balkans). Though the latter will appear at key points in our narrative, the class will focus primarily on the Central European territories of the Habsburg Monarchy and its successor states.

The first half of the course will look at how the supra-national Habsburg Empire and its eleven peoples negotiated the rise of nationalism, industrialism, and popular politics. We will analyze the Monarchy's strengths and weaknesses as it responded to serious internal and external challenges from 1848 to 1918. When war and nationalism finally destroyed the Empire in 1918, its unique constitution and ethnic structure would leave an enduring stamp on the region. In the second half of the course, we will turn to the Empire's successor states during the interwar period, as they struggled to consolidate new national states in a decidedly multi-national region. Though this experiment in nation-building collapsed under the Nazi German onslaught, it would return in Communist guise after the Second World War. The course will conclude with a look at dissident movements, Mikhail Gorbachev's renunciation of Soviet hegemony, and the subsequent wave of democratic revolutions in 1989.

Required Texts:

Jan Gross, Neighbors, 2001.

Heda Margolius Kovaly, Under a Cruel Star [aka: Prague Farewell], 1997.

Mark Mazower, The Balkans: A Short History, 2000.

Mark Mazower, Dark Continent: Europe's Twentieth Century, 1999.

Gale Stokes, From Stalinism to Pluralism, 1996 (2nd edition).

Readings marked with an asterisk (*) are part of the course reading pack, available on WebCt and on reserve in Koerner Library. The course pack is NOT for sale at the bookstore.

Course Requirements:

  • Required discussions and written discussion responses (3 graded each semester)—noted in the syllabus with an “R” by the date (due by 9am)
  • One short paper (3-4 pgs), due on Nov. 3
  • One research paper or project (6-8 pgs), due on Mar. 23
  • One take-home exam (4 pg) each semester, due during exam periods

Fall Schedule

I.What is East Central Europe?

Week 1

Introduction:The Lands and Peoples of East Central Europe(Sept. 5)

Lecture: Backwardness, Imagined and Real(Sept. 7)

Readings: *Mason map, 1-22, doc1; *Ingrao; Mazower (Balkans), xxv-xliii

Week 2

Lecture: The Habsburg Empire: State and Society(Sept. 12)

Discussion: What is East Central Europe? (Sept. 14-R)

Readings: Kundera in Stokes, 216-23; *Hanak; *Wolff; Mazower (Balkans), 1-36; *Metternich

II.The Age of Revolution and Reaction, 1815-1867

Week 3

Lecture: Defining the Nation: Czechs, Poles, Hungarians(Sept. 19)

Lecture/Discussion: Nationalism and Theories of Nationalism (Sept. 21-R)

Readings: *Herder; *Renan; *Anderson; *Quin; *Orton;*Kohl

Assignment: Map Quiz

Week 4

Lecture: Springtime of Peoples: The Revolutions of 1848-49 (Sept. 26)

Discussion: Nationalism and Liberalism in 1848-49(Sept. 28-R)

Readings: *Evans; *Palacky; *Deak #1; Hungarian Declaration of Independence <

III.Nationalism, Mass Politics, and War, 1867-1918

Week 5

Lecture: The Legacy of 1848(Oct. 3)

Lecture: The Supra-National Empire: Forces for Unity in the Habsburg Monarchy (Oct 5)

Readings: *Mason 23-45, doc3-7,9,10; 1867 Compromise < *Deak #2

Week 6

No class at normal time on Oct. 10

Instead, you must attend one of the two talks on Oct. 10 by Mark Pittaway

Lecture/Discussion: Nationalization of Public Life in Bohemia (Oct. 12-R)

Readings: *Sayer, 82-153; *Cohen;*Schools/Moravia (18a and 18b)

For fun: Mark Twain "Stirring Times in Austria" <

Week 7

Lecture: Ottoman decline (Oct. 17)

Lecture/Discussion: The Balkans(Oct. 19-R)

Readings: Mazower (Balkans), 37-111

Week 8

Lecture: Twilight and Effervescence: Fin de Siecle Culture in Vienna and Prague(Oct. 24)

Discussion: Politics and Culture in a New Key(Oct. 26-R)

Readings: *Mason, 46-52, docs 2,8-13; *Schorske; *Herzl

Week 9

Lecture: The Decline of the Habsburg Empire? (Oct. 31)

Lecture: The Great War on the Eastern Front(Nov. 2)

Readings: *Mason, 53-91; *Wank

Assignment: paper # 1 due Nov. 3 by3pm in the history office (1297 BuchananTower)

IV.Interwar East Central Europe: NationalStates and Minorities

Week 10

Lecture: The End of Empires: National Revolutions and the Treaties of Paris(Nov. 7)

Discussion: Versailles Simulation (Nov 9-R)

Readings: *Deak #3; Mazower, 41-71; *Versailles Settlement

Week 11

Lecture: Democracy and Dictatorship(Nov. 14)

Video:Eastern Europe between the Wars (Nov. 16)

Readings: *Glassheim #1; *Deak #4; *Brubaker

Week 12

Lecture: Minorities in East Central Europe: Germans, Jews, Slovaks (Nov. 21)

Debate:Democracy, Fascism, Communism (Nov 23-R)

Readings:Mazower, 3-40; 104-137

Week 13

Lecture: Depression and the Shadow of Nazi Germany(Nov. 28)

Lecture/Discussion: Catch-up and Review(Nov. 30)

Readings: Mazower, 71-103; Mazower (Balkans), 115-130

Spring Schedule

V.War and Genocide, 1939-1945

Week 14

Lecture: The Experience of German Occupation: Czechs, Poles, Jews (Jan 9)

Lecture:The Eastern Front (Jan 11)

Readings: Mazower, 138-181; start Gross

Week 15

Lecture: The Holocaust in Eastern Europe(Jan 16)

Discussion: The Holocaust (Jan 18-R)

Film: Shop on Main Street

Readings: Gross, all

VI.The CurtainFalls: Communism and Stalinism in East Central Europe, 1944-1956

Week 16

Lecture: National and Social Revolution in East Central Europe, 1939-1948 (Jan 23)

Lecture:Cold War and Soviet Hegemony(Jan 25)

Readings: *Glassheim #2; Mazower, 212-263; Stokes, docs 4-6

Week 17

Lecture:Visions of Utopia (Jan 30)

Discussion: High Modernism (Feb 1-R)

Reading:*Scott; *Lebow, 1-73;Mazower, 263-273;

Week 18

Lecture:Stalinism and Terror (Feb 6)

Film: Trial in Prague(Feb 8)

Readings: Stokes, docs 7, 9-11; Kovaly first half

Week 19

Discussion: Under a Cruel Star(Feb 13-R)

Paper/Project Prospectus Discussion(Feb 15-R)

Readings: Kovaly second half

Feb 19-23 is break week.

VII.Post-Totalitarianism and Dissent, 1956-1989

Week 20

Lecture:1956/1968 (Feb 27)

No class on Mar. 1

Readings: Mazower, 273-285; *Khrushchev; Stokes docs 12, 14-16

Week 21

Film/Lecture/Discussion:Czechoslovakia1968(Mar 6)

Lecture/Discussion: Normalization and Auto-Totality (Mar 8-R)

Readings: *Sik and Svitak on 1968; Stokes docs19-21; *Bren;*Drakulic

Week 22

Lecture: Intellectuals and Dissent(Mar 13)

Discussion: Havel and Power of the Powerless (Mar 15-R)

Readings: Stokes docs 26-29; *Havel

Week 23

Lecture/Discussion: Solidarity (Mar 20)

Films: The Cold War and Dissent (Mar 22)

Readings: Stokes docs 32-36; *Ash; *Michnik

Assignment: research paper due on Mar. 23 at 3pm.

Week 24

Lecture/Discussion: The Environment and Dissent (Mar 27)

Debate: Congress of Communists, Dissidents, and Reformers(Mar 29-R)

Readings: Stokes docs 31; *Waller; *Konrad; *Michnik; *Havel (Politics & Conscience)

VIII.Collapse of the Soviet Empire, 1989+

Week 25

Lecture: Collapse of the Soviet Empire (Apr 3)

Lecture/Discussion: Velvet Dissent, Velvet Revolution (Apr 5)

Readings: Mazower, 361-389;Stokes docs 52-53; *Gorbachev

Week 26

Lecture/Discussion: Yugoslavia and Post-Communism (Apr 10-R)

Lecture/Discussion: Europe and then what? (Apr 12)

Readings:Mazower, 389-403;Mazower (Balkans), 130-156; *Naimark; Stokes docs 48-51

Course ReaderMaterials

HIS 324

2005-2006

Prof. Eagle Glassheim

  1. John W. Mason, The Dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, 1867-1918 (New York: Longman, 1997): map, 1-22, doc 1.
  2. Charles Ingrao, The Habsburg Monarchy, 1618-1815 (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 2000): 1-22.
  3. Peter Hanak, “Central Europe: A Historical Region in Modern Times,” in In Search of Central Europe, George Schopflin and Nancy Wood eds. (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1989), 57-69.
  4. Larry Wolff, Inventing Eastern Europe(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994), 1-16.
  5. Richard Metternich, ed., Memoirs of Prince Metternich, 1830-1835, vol. V, Gerard Smith trans. (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1880-1882), 225-227.
  6. Johann Gottfried Herder, “Ideas for a Philosophy of History of Mankind,” in Vincent Pecora, ed., Nations and Identities (Oxford: Blackwell, 2001), 87-92.
  7. Ernest Renan, “What is a Nation?” in Vincent Pecora, ed., Nations and Identities (Oxford: Blackwell, 2001), 162-176.
  8. Benedict Anderson, “Imagined Communities,” in Vincent Pecora, ed., Nations and Identities (Oxford: Blackwell, 2001), 309-317.
  9. Michael J. Quin, A Steam Voyage Down the Danube (London: Richard Bentley, 1836), vol. I, 167-171.
  10. Johann Georg Kohl, Austria (London: Chapman and Hall, 1843), 56-87.
  11. Lawrence Orton, The Prague Slav Congress of 1848 (Boulder: East European Quarterly, 1978), 1-13.
  12. R.J.W. Evans and Hartmut Pogge von Strandmann, The Revolutions in Europe 1848-1849 (Oxford University Press, 2000), 9-26 (22).
  13. Frantisek Palacky, "Letter to the German National Assembly," [1848], in Hans Kohn, ed., The Habsburg Empire 1804-1918 (New York: Van Nostrand, 1961), 118-24; and Frantisek Palacky, "Manifesto of the First Slavonic Congress to the Nations of Europe, June 12th 1848," The Slavonic and East European Review, Vol. 26, No. 67: 309-13.
  14. István Deák (#1), "The Revolution and the War of Independence, 1848-1849," in A History of Hungary, Peter Sugar ed. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994), 209-34.
  15. John W. Mason, The Dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, 1867-1918 (New York: Longman, 1997): 23-45, docs 3-7, 9, 10.
  16. István Deák (#2), Beyond Nationalism: A Social and Political History of the Habsburg Officer Corps 1848-1918 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 3-9.
  17. Derek Sayer, The Coasts of Bohemia (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998), 82-153.
  18. Gary Cohen, The Politics of Ethnic Survival: Germans in Prague, 1861-1914 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981), 19-34.
  19. John W. Mason, The Dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, 1867-1918 (New York: Longman, 1997): 46-52, docs 2, 8-13.
  20. Carl Schorske, "Politics in a New Key: An Austrian Trio," in Fin-de-Siecle Vienna: Politics and Culture (New York: Vintage Books, 1981), 116-80.
  21. Theodor Herzl, “The Jewish State,” in Vincent Pecora, ed., Nations and Identities (Oxford: Blackwell, 2001), 185-189.
  22. John W. Mason, The Dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, 1867-1918 (New York: Longman, 1997): 53-91.
  23. Solomon Wank, “The Habsburg Empire,” in Karen Barkey and Mark Von Hagen, ed., After Empire: Multiethnic Societies and Nation-Building, The Soviet Union and the Russian, Ottoman, and Habsburg Empires (Boulder: Westview Press, 1997), 45-54.
  24. Istvan Deak (#3), “The Habsburg Empire,” in Karen Barkey and Mark Von Hagen, ed., After Empire: Multiethnic Societies and Nation-Building, The Soviet Union and the Russian, Ottoman, and Habsburg Empires (Boulder: Westview Press, 1997), 129-39.
  25. Ivo Lederer, ed. The Versailles Settlement: Was It Foredoomed to Failure? (Boston: D.C. Heath and Company, 1960), 17-23, 40-51, 78-105.
  26. Eagle Glassheim (#1), “Interwar Czechoslovakia,” samizdat (self-published), 1995.
  27. István Deák (#4), “A Hungarian Admiral on Horseback,” in Essays on Hitler's Europe (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2001), 148-157.
  28. Rogers Brubaker, "Nationalizing States in the Old 'New Europe'—and the New," in Nationalism Reframed: Nationhood and the National Question in the New Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 79-106.
  29. Eagle Glassheim (#2), "National Mythologies and Ethnic Cleansing: The Expulsion of Czechoslovak Germans in 1945," Central European History, vol. 33, no. 4 (November, 2000): 463-486.
  30. James C. Scott, Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998), 87-117.
  31. Katherine Lebow, “Nowa Huta, 1949-1957: Stalinism and the Transformation of Everyday Life in Poland's 'FirstSocialistCity'” (Ph.D., ColumbiaUniversity, 2002), 1-73.
  32. Nikita Khrushchev’s “Secret Speech,” in Ronald Grigor Suny, ed., The Structure of Soviet History (Oxford University Press, 2003), 340-350.
  33. Ota Sik and Ivan Svitak in Lyman Legters, ed. Eastern Europe: Transformation and Revolution, 1945-1991 (Toronto: D.C. Heath and Company, 1992), 193-210.
  34. Paulina Bren, “Weekend Getaways: The Chata, the Tramp, and the Politics of Private Life in Post-1968 Czechoslovakia,” in David Crowley and Susan Reid, eds., Socialist Spaces (Berg, 2002), 123-140.
  35. Slavenka Drakulic, How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed (New York: HarperCollins, 1993), 21-32, 76-81.
  36. Vaclav Havel (#1), “The Power of the Powerless,” Living in Truth (Faber and Faber: 1990), 36-122.
  37. Timothy Garton Ash, The Polish Revolution: Solidarity (New Haven: YaleUniversity Press, 2002), 1-37.
  38. Adam Michnik (#1), Letters from Prison (University of California Press, 1987), ix-xlii, 135-148, 160-168.
  39. Michael Waller, “The Ecology Issue in Eastern Europe: Protest and Movements,” Journal of Communist Studies, vol. 5, no 3 (1989): 303-328.
  40. George Konrad, Antipolitics (Henry Holt, 1989), 91-101, 227-233.
  41. Adam Michnik (#2), Letters from Prison (University of California Press, 1987), 3-24, 76-99.
  42. Vaclav Havel (#2), “Politics and Conscience,” Living in Truth (Faber and Faber: 1990), 136-157.
  43. Gorbachev in Ronald Grigor Suny, ed., The Structure of Soviet History (OxfordUniversity Press, 2003), 423-433.
  44. Norman Naimark, Fires of Hatred (HarvardUniversity Press, 2001), 139-184.