Second and third year undergraduate courses

Nationalism, Democracy and Dictatorship in Twentieth Century Eastern Europe

HT52106A / HT53106A

Although Eastern Europe is an area with no clear geographic boundaries, it has traditionally attracted negative stereotypes as Europe’s backyard, dominated by violence, instability and backwardness and ruled by bloodthirsty dictators, from Vlad Dracul to Slobodan Milošević. The course will challenge these stereotypes and students will be encouraged to rethink notions about ‘east’ and ‘west’ and the meaning of Europe. By studying the region’s turbulent past and national ideologies allegedly engaged in a perennial conflict, students will be presented with an excellent opportunity to engage with different, often competing interpretations of the past and problems of studying societies that have been going through transition throughout the past century. This is essentially a political history course, with elements of cultural and social history, and non-history disciplines such as sociology and politics.

Eastern Europe has been at the centre of some of the main developments in modern history, yet the region is still largely unknown and remains western Europe’s ‘Other’. Students will be introduced to some main debates about the origins of nations and nationalism in the nineteenth century (in respect of Eastern Europe). They will discuss the meanings and definitions of Eastern Europe and other, related, geographic-symbolic concepts, such as Central Europe and the Balkans. They will then study main developments in the twentieth century: the First World War and the post-war settlements; the emergence of ‘New Europe’ in the 1920s; failure of democracy and rise of dictatorships in the interwar period; occupation, resistance and collaboration in the Second World War; the Holocaust; Communist takeovers in the aftermath of the war; the Tito-Soviet split of 1948; the Hungarian revolution of 1956; the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968; the rise of Solidarity movement in Poland in the 1970 and 1980s; the Perestroika and Glasnost of the 1980s; revolutions of 1989 and fall of communism; disintegration and war in Yugoslavia; political, economic and social transition of the region; EU enlargement.

The assessment methods are chosen to foster complex learning and the development of a broad range of skills and abilities. In addition to acquiring knowledge and developing powers of critical analysis, students will learn self-management, communication, teamworking, and other interpersonal skills.

Learning outcomes

LEVEL 2

• Students will be introduced to main developments in the modern history of Eastern Europe. They will be able to place the twentieth century history of the region in a wider historical and geographic context.
  
  
• They will acquire a basic grasp of the key questions surrounding some of the most important and controversial events, such as the emergence of nationalism in the nineteenth century; the disintegration of Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires; creation of nation states at the Congresses of Berlin (1878) and Paris (1919-20); interwar failure of democracy and rise of right-wing dictatorships; occupation, resistance and collaboration in the Second World War; communist takeovers; the Soviet ‘empire’ in Eastern Europe; revolutions of 1989 and the fall of communism; post-communist challenges of social and economic transition; and wars in Yugoslavia.
  
  
• The ability to think critically and objectively about political and social events and to formulate an informed opinion in the face of conflicting interpretations and claims.
  
  
• The ability to participate in informed discussion and debate concerning major world events and recent political developments.
  
  
• The development of complex learning, self-directed learning, and IT skills through exposure to a range of assessment methods.

LEVEL 3

In addition to the Level 2 learning outcomes, Level 3 students will:

• Develop a greater familiarity with the primary and secondary sources.
  
  
• Be capable to critically analyse relevant main historiographical debates and develop their own ideas and positions in relation to them.

Introductory reading

I Berend, Decades of Crisis: Central and Eastern Europe before World War II (2001)

I Berend, Central and Eastern Europe, 1944-1993: Detour from the Periphery to the Periphery (2008)

RJ Crampton, Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century – and After (2nd edn, 2007)

RJ Crampton, The Balkans since the Second World War (2002)

M Hroch, Social Preconditions of National Revival in Europe (2000)

P Longworth, The Making of Eastern Europe: From Prehistory to Postcommunism (1997)

M Mazower, The Balkans: A Short History (2002)

SK Pavlowitch, A History of the Balkans, 1804-1945 (1999)

J Rothschild, East Central Europe between the Two World Wars (1990)

J Rothschild, Return to Diversity: A Political History of East Central Europe since World War II (3rd edn, 1999)

M Todorova, Imagining the Balkans (1997)

G Stokes, From Stalinism to Pluralism: A Documentary History of Eastern Europe since 1945 (1996)

G Swain and N Swain, Eastern Europe since 1945 (3rd edn, 2003)

L Wolff, Inventing Eastern Europe: The Map of the Civilization on the Mind of the Enlightenment (1994)