Book Description

In 1938, on the eve of what would mark the beginning of the Second World War during the international crisis, Eastern Europe was divided – in every sense of the word. New governments, which were generally regarded as national states, rose from the ashes of the old pre-modern Austro-Hungarian and Russian empires. However, civic nations were not formed within them; the titular ethnic groups were far from being the only representing populations in these states. The new states in Eastern Europe were the offspring of wars and revolutions. Their borders were initially determined by the rights of the powerful. New borders divided entire peoples, having created the very foundation for inter-state conflicts as well as the desire to revise the established order in the region. One of the consequences of the Second World War was the revision of Eastern European borders. Still today, historians have yet to agree upon a single assessment of the eastern European events in the 1930s and 1940s. Researchers from Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Poland, Moldavia, Israel, Germany and the USA have all contributed articles featured in this collection. The book is focused on national border changes in Eastern Europe during the period from 1938 to 1947: population transfer as a result of foreign and domestic political considerations, interethnic relationships and ethnic purges of paramilitary units; the concept of self- perception of people living on frontiers forced to change their national and civil status; and the problems of modern East European borders.