In the midst of a contentious atmosphere of the interwar period, the far-eastern province of Subcarpathian Rus’ attracted the personal curiosity and professional attention of Russian ethnographer and theoretician Petr Bogatyrev and Czech journalist-writer Ivan Olbracht. Both traveled extensively in the region and immersed themselves deeply in the life and culture of the local residents, Carpatho-Rusyns, and Hasidic Jews. Witnesses to Interwar Subcarpathian Rus’: The Sojourns of Petr Bogatyrev and Ivan Olbracht explores for the first time in English the legacy they bequeathed in their respective work: Bogatyrev as an apolitical ethnographic collector and theoretician and Olbracht as a passionately committed Communist whose reports and brilliant stories from the region, including Nikola Šuhaj, Brigand, and The Sorrowful Eyes of Hannah Karadjic capture a glimpse of a world destined to change radically as a result of the ravages of war.

This is a history of a stateless people, the Carpatho-Rusyns, and their historic homeland, Carpathian Rus', located in the heart of central Europe. At the present, when it is fashionable to speak of nationalities as "imagined communities" or as transnational constructs "created" by intellectuals\ elites who may live in the historic "national" homeland or in the diaspora, Carpatho-Rusyns provide an ideal example of a people made—or some would say still being made—before our very eyes. The book traces the evolution of Carpathian Rus' from earliest pre-historic times to the present and the complex manner in which a distinct Carpatho-Rusyn people, since the mid-nineteenth century, came into being, disappeared, and then re-appeared in the wake of the revolutions of 1989 and the collapse of Communist rule in central and eastern Europe.

In War on the Eve of Nations: Conflicts and Militaries in Eastern Europe, 1450–1500, Vladimir Shirogorov examines how Eastern European armed forces produced critical geopolitical changes in the region. Analyzing the interactions between changes in warfare and the nation-building process, Shirogorov focuses on developments regarding the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Muscovy, Sweden, the Kazan Khanate, and Ottoman Turkey.

The Cold War began in Europe in the mid-1940s and ended there in 1989. Notions of a “global Cold War” are useful in describing the wide impact and scope of the East-West divide after World War II, but first and foremost the Cold War was about the standoff in Europe. The Soviet Union established a sphere of influence in Eastern Europe in the mid-1940s that later became institutionalized in the Warsaw Pact, an organization that was offset by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) led by the United States. The fundamental division of Europe persisted for forty years, coming to an end only when Soviet hegemony in Eastern Europe dissolved. Imposing, Maintaining, and Tearing Open the Iron Curtain: The Cold War and East-Central Europe, 1945–1989, edited by Mark Kramer and Vít Smetana, consists of cutting-edge essays by distinguished experts who discuss the Cold War in Europe from beginning to end, with a particular focus on the countries that were behind the iron curtain. The contributors take account of structural conditions that helped generate the Cold War schism in Europe, but they also ascribe agency to local actors as well as to the superpowers. The chapters dealing with the end of the Cold War in Europe explain not only why it ended but also why the events leading to that outcome occurred almost entirely peacefully.

The political map of Eastern Europe changed dramatically in December 1991 when the leaders of Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine huddled together in a Bielavieza Forest retreat and decided to dissolve the 15 union republics, which composed the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). One of those republics was the Belorussian Soviet Socialist Republic (BSSR). A United Nations member since 1945, Belarus has a rich cultural heritage that is seen as a promising base for the development of a solid national identity and for real independence. It is this cultural heritage and sense of history that nourish the ongoing efforts of the nationalist minority, as well as the larger democratic opposition, to resist the regime of President Alaksandr Luka?enka who is bent on restoring ties to Russia. Thus Belarus, with its burdens of the past and potential for the future, finds itself in a struggle that will affect not only its own destiny, but also the international structure of Eastern Europe. The A to Z of Belarus—through its chronology, introductory essays, appendixes, map, bibliography, and hundreds of cross-referenced dictionary entries on important persons, places, events, and institutions and significant political, economic, social, and cultural aspects—traces Belarus' history and provides a compass for the direction the country is heading.

Who are the Moldovans? The Language of the Moldovans explores this question from the perspective of debates about the languages spoken by the people of this ex-Soviet state. Locating language as a central point of both cohesion and conflict in the region's recent history, the peculiarities of the Moldovans are illustrated by a survey of language attitudes, a series of ethnographic interviews, and extensive observations by the author. The result is an image of an emerging nation that is, at once, similar to the experiences of other ex-Soviet states and uniquely complex. Much of that complexity lies in the population's extensive multilingualism and in uncertainty about the Romanian-ness of the official language. This cross-discipline volume is of great interest to advanced students and researchers of linguistics, political science, and Eastern European studies.

After World War II, some 12 million Germans, 3 million Poles and Ukrainians, and tens of thousands of Hungarians were expelled from their homes and forced to migrate to their supposed countries of origin. Using freshly available materials from Polish, Ukrainian, Russian, Czechoslovak, German, British, and American archives, the contributors to this book provide a sweeping, detailed account of the turmoil caused by the huge wave of forced migration during the nascent Cold War. The book also documents the deep and lasting political, social, and economic consequences of this traumatic time, raising difficult questions about the effect of forced migration on postwar reconstruction, the rise of Communism, and the growing tensions between Western Europe and the Eastern bloc. Those interested in European Cold-War history will find this book indispensable for understanding the profound--but hitherto little known--upheavals caused by the massive ethnic cleansing that took place from 1944 to 1948.