1st Edition
Interwar East Central Europe, 1918-1941 The Failure of Democracy-building, the Fate of Minorities
This monograph focuses on the challenges that interwar regimes faced and how they coped with them in the aftermath of World War One, focusing especially on the failure to establish and stabilize democratic regimes, as well as on the fate of ethnic and religious minorities. Topics explored include the political systems and how they changed during the two decades under review, land reform, Church–state relations, and culture. Countries studied include Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Romania, Bulgaria, and Albania.
"Sabrina Ramet has assembled a team of highly respectable country specialists to offer a fresh and historiographically updated reading of interwar developments in East Central Europe. The volume is bookended by two excellent comparative and theoretically informed essays carefully weighing the multiplicity of factors contributing to the instability of the interwar regimes. As a result this survey succeeds admirably in producing a nuanced narrative and analysis." - Maria Todorova, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA
Sabrina Ramet, together with a roster of other eminent scholars, has produced an exciting new history of interwar East Central Europe. The volume has a clear focus on the failure of democracy (1918 to 1941), and on the bedeviling issues of ethnic minorities and of peasants; the latter made up an overwhelming majority of much of the region's population. The book will be of great interest to political scientists and historians of East Central Europe, and of Europe more generally, and it is perfect for classroom use. - Irina Livezeanu, University of Pittsburgh, USA
- Interwar East Central Europe, 1918-1941: The failure of democracy-building, the fate of minorities – An introduction -- Sabrina P. Ramet (Norwegian University of Science & Technology, NTNU, Emerita)
- Interwar Poland: The geopolitics of failure – M. B. B. Biskupski (Central Connecticut State University)
- Interwar Czechoslovakia – a national state for a multi-ethnic population -- Sabrina P. Ramet (Norwegian University of Science & Technology, NTNU, Emerita) and Carol Skalnik Leff (University of Illinois)
- Interwar Hungary: Democratization and the Fate of Minorities -- Béla Bodó (University of Bonn)
- Interwar Romania: Enshrining ethnic privilege -- Roland Clark (University of Liverpool)
- Interwar Bulgaria: populism, authoritarianism, and ethnic minorities -- Christian Promitzer (University of Graz)
- The Kingdom of Diversity and Paternalism: the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes/Yugoslavia, 1918-1941-- Stipica Grgić (University of Zagreb)
- Interwar Albania -- Bernd J. Fischer (Indiana/Purdue University, Emeritus)
- The Peasantries and Peasant Parties of East Central Europe: Robert Bideleux (Swansea University)
- Afterword: Stefano Bianchini (University of Bologna)
Biography
Sabrina P. Ramet is Professor Emerita of Political Science at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), in Trondheim, Norway.
Sabrina Ramet has assembled a team of highly respectable country specialists to offer a fresh and historiographically updated reading of interwar developments in East Central Europe. The volume is bookended by two excellent comparative and theoretically informed essays carefully weighing the multiplicity of factors contributing to the instability of the interwar regimes. As a result this survey succeeds admirably in producing a nuanced narrative and analysis.
Maria Todorova, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA
Sabrina Ramet, together with a roster of other eminent scholars, has produced an exciting new history of interwar East Central Europe. The volume has a clear focus on the failure of democracy (1918 to 1941), and on the bedeviling issues of ethnic minorities and of peasants; the latter made up an overwhelming majority of much of the region's population. The book will be of great interest to political scientists and historians of East Central Europe, and of Europe more generally, and it is perfect for classroom use.
Irina Livezeanu, University of Pittsburgh, USA
...the strength of this collection is that its contributions are written by experts who speak the languages of the countries they discuss, an that numerous recent sources are drawn upon.
Nikica Barić, University of Zagreb, Croatia, Casopis za suvremenu povjest (Journal of Contemporary History)
