This book came out almost a decade ago. During these years Polish, Lithuanian, Bulgarian and Czech translations followed, each of them permitting small changes and corrections. In the year 2000 the consequences of the fall of communism in East Central Europe can be ascertained and evaluated better than in 1992, especially as new sources become available. This necessitated a rewriting of the last section, bringing up to date the chronological tables and the list of readings, and making small revisions in the text.
The ongoing debate about the terminology (East Central, Central or Eastern Europe) has been enriched by new interpretations and trends. The name “East Central Europe” became more widespread in literature, and in some instances has been used to include the present day Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, indeed Latvia and Estonia, i. e. those countries which have become independent of Russia. A good example of this approach is represented by the Institute of East Central Europe (Instytut Europy srodkowo-wschodniej) in Lublin. Under its auspices a huge collective two-volume history of East Central Europe in Polish has appeared in 2000 under the general editorship of Jerzy Kloczowski—the authors are: N. Aleksiun, D. Beauvois, E. Ducreux, J. Kloczowski, J. Samsonowicz, P. Wandycz. The French version, to be published by the Presses Universitaires de France in the collection “Nouvelle Clio”, will follow shortly.
In turn the appellation “Central Europe” has been favored by some Czech circles which insist that the Czech lands have always been westward oriented. Prague, they point out, lies farther to the west than Vienna and roughly at the same longitude as Berlin. Hence, the term Central Europe is the only appropriate one. The use of this name has also been noticeable in political discourse, particularly after Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary became parts of NATO, and are in the process of being admitted to the European Union.
Still another trend is noticeable. For those who justified a separate treatment of this region because of its inclusion into the Soviet Bloc, the disappearance of the latter renders such a regional approach no longer warranted. Finally, there is a tendency to treat all these terms as artificial concepts which exist only in the minds of those who apply them. Just as there is talk of a nation as an “imagined community” (Benedict Anderson), and a book has been written about the “invention” of Eastern Europe in the Age of Enlightenment, there is only one step to a denial of the existence of regional identities, whatever name one gives to them.
All these discussions, however intellectually stimulating they are, have not altered the basic approach adopted in this book. Admitting freely a certain arbitrariness in singling out a particular part of Europe, this author still believes that the historical evolution of this area and the issue of its peripheral or semiperipheral character justify a regional approach. If anything, the recent course of events (for instance the emergence of the Visegrad group) has brought out more clearly the distinctiveness of the countries surveyed in this volume, and emphasized the contrast between them and the Balkans, not to mention Russia.
World History
