ORGANISATION

With these three themes in mind, then — modernisation, nationalism and the multinational state — the organisation of this book will become clear. The overall structure of the three main parts is chronological, but within each of these parts subject matter is necessarily broken down into chapters on specific areas and states. Each part is introduced by a thematic chapter which sets the scene and describes particular developments which span the whole or much of the period in question.

Part One covers the eighteenth-century background. This is an essential part of the story, since the conditions and events of this period not only help explain subsequent developments but also illustrate each of the key themes of the book. As far as modernisation is concerned, the eighteenth century saw the first serious attempts made outside Peter the Great's Russia to improve state efficiency, with the specific aim of closing a perceived gap between East European regimes and more modern competitors. The would-be modernisers here were Maria Theresa of Austria and her even more determinedly modernising sons, Joseph II and Leopold II. Some attention will also be paid to the comparable effort made in the final decades of the Polish—Lithuanian Commonwealth, even though, in the end, this effort was frustrated by partition. In this respect Poland offered a cautionary illustration to other states, such as the Ottoman Empire, of the potential penalty for failure to modernise.

The eighteenth century is also important, as already suggested, for an understanding of the origins and nature of nationalism, even if its full force was not felt until later. Some of the earliest expressions of East European nationalism will be described, together with an explanation of the narrower, gentry-based nationalism that distinguishes the Hungarian and Polish variants. The incendiary potential of nationalism, as demonstrated by the French Revolution, can also be said to be among the reasons for East European rulers' deliberate abandonment of modernisation, typified by the reaction of Francis I of Austria.

Finally, the eighteenth century was the first point at which all the major multinational empires of Eastern Europe came into direct conflict with one another. Russian encroachment on the Ottoman Empire began in earnest in this period; the Habsburg Monarchy was not only in conflict with the Ottomans but also became aware of the new Russian power; Austro-Prussian rivalry became a byword; and Poland—Lithuania was ground to pieces between its predatory neighbours.

In Part Two, the full impact of the eighteenth-century legacy in the period between 1804 and 1867 is discussed. This impact is broadly summarised as one of nationalism, revolution and state formation. The importance of the Napoleonic Empire in transmitting this impact is undeniable, since the conquests of Napoleon I, brief though they were, succeeded in turning much of Eastern Europe upside down and had an effect long after Napoleon's fall in 1815.18 Although the following period was one of political reaction, it was clear from the revolutions of 1848 that the genie of change could not be stuffed back into its bottle. By 1867, when the Habsburg Monarchy adopted certain wide-ranging constitutional changes, Eastern Europe as a whole had also been transformed by the emergence of nationalism, social as well as political revolution, and the appearance of entirely new states.

Nationalism, from being the preoccupation of the few, was by the end of this period increasingly seen as a mass motivator, an irresistible force of the age. This, it should be remembered, was the perception above all of committed nationalists, who tended everywhere to project their enthusiasm onto the whole of society; among those peoples whose population remained largely peasant, nationalism was still embryonic. Nevertheless, wars had been fought in Eastern Europe, and blood spilt, in the name of the nation, and the more this happened, the greater the number of people aware of their nationality. This had implications for the nature of political change within existing states and even greater implications for the viability of the international state system.

In terms of other political changes the period through to 1867 saw the longterm effects of the French Revolution itself rippling through Eastern Europe like the aftershocks of an earthquake. The concepts of political rights, equality, constitutionality and even social justice became issues among at least some classes of East Europeans. By the end of this period the form, if not the reality, of liberal constitutionalism was more common in Eastern Europe. In addition to political revolution, some societies of Eastern Europe were also beginning to be exposed to the effects of economic and social change. The fundamental precondition for this was the freeing of peasant labour from serfdom, in the Habsburg Monarchy by 1848, in Russia by 1861 and in the Ottoman Empire through the establishment of autonomous nation-states. This made possible in turn the beginnings of genuine modernisation, albeit with the gap between Eastern and Western Europe even greater than it had been in the eighteenth century.

The final feature of this period, the emergence of nation-states, was a phenomenon confined to the Ottoman Empire. This entailed a succession of international crises, and was indeed accomplished in each case only as a result of great power intervention, but was important for the intensification of nationalism and the creation of fresh sources of international conflict.

Part Three is about nationalism, independence and modernisation through to the end of the First World War. Put differently, this part can be seen as taking each of our three main themes to a sort of culmination or climactic point. Nationalism plays an increasingly eye-catching role in this third period. This is nowhere more so than in the Habsburg Monarchy, which became a byword for nationality disputes, and whose very existence as a great power came into question by 1914 as a result of the fatal symbiosis between the Monarchy's internal problems and its foreign relations. Nationalism also put paid to the Ottoman Empire, at least that portion of it in South-Eastern Europe. A less well-known aspect of nationalism in this period was its effect on the German and Russian empires. In the case of Germany this was exclusively a

Polish problem; in the case of Russia, Poles were only one of a multitude of subject nationalities increasingly unhappy with the tsarist regime. The increasing visibility of nationalism as a threat to these multinational states, however, also ensured that stratagems for countering or otherwise coping with nationalism were more conscious and more focused. It would be fair to say that, right down to the outbreak of the First World War, this was a struggle in which our multinational empires were holding their own, with the notable exception of the Ottoman Empire.

Several states formally achieved independence in this period well before 1914. The First World War, however, brought formal independence for even more states, or rather peoples, and in the process transformed the political map of Eastern Europe into more or less the outlines it has today. The great multinational empires disappeared, with the exception of the Soviet Union, the revolutionary Communist regime which took over the Russian Empire. The emergence of the so-called successor states in Eastern Europe and the establishment of the Soviet Union were the dominant features of the political landscape throughout most of the twentieth century.

As for modernisation, this is a part of the story which perhaps ought to be termed anticlimactic, for the societies of Eastern Europe in this third period remained backward by comparison with the rest of Europe. It is true that much of Eastern Europe experienced an accelerating industrialisation and consequently considerable social change. The vast majority of East Europeans, however, continued to live in an agrarian economy, even if one increasingly influenced (often negatively) by outside forces. Independence as a sovereign state, for instance, did not necessarily avert economic dependence. In a political sense, too, Eastern Europe remained backward. Despite the formal existence of constitutional government in most states (even Russia had a constitution after 1905) and the spread of political parties, governments and political institutions were on the whole authoritarian and in many ways unrepresentative and unresponsive to the needs of ordinary people. The catastrophe of the First World War added widespread physical destruction, loss of life and psychological traumatisation to the factors keeping Eastern Europe behind.