Does Europe have a centre? Reflections on the history of Western and Central Europe

2006 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 257-268 ◽  
Author(s):  
NICOLETTE MOUT
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Central Europe ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Berlin Wall ◽  
Special Part ◽  
History Of ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Separate Identity ◽  
The Cold War

Any definition of Central Europe based on geographical and/or historical facts causes difficulties. The line dividing Europe during the Cold War has a very limited use because it does not take into account Central Europe as a special part of the continent. Historians such as Geoffrey Barraclough, Hugh Seton-Watson and Oskar Halecki discussed the idea of a separate identity of Central Europe during the Cold War. Especially after the fall of the Berlin Wall, this discussion was re-opened. From a historian's point of view, the most important contributions came from Piotr Wandycz and Jenő Szűcs. An imaginary centre of Europe can only be found in the continent's common history.There is a belief, rather widespread in English-speaking countries, that the eastern half of Europe is inhabited by a number of endlessly quarrelling small nations whose conflicts keep endangering the quiet and comfort of Anglophones. (Hugh Seton-Watson)

Global Development

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Lorenzini
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
International Organizations ◽  
Development Aid ◽  
Global Perspective ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Development Projects ◽  
Berlin Wall ◽  
History Of Development ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Cold War

In the Cold War, “development” was a catchphrase that came to signify progress, modernity, and economic growth. Development aid was closely aligned with the security concerns of the great powers, for whom infrastructure and development projects were ideological tools for conquering hearts and minds around the globe, from Europe and Africa to Asia and Latin America. This book provides a global history of development, drawing on a wealth of archival evidence to offer a panoramic and multifaceted portrait of a Cold War phenomenon that transformed the modern world. Taking readers from the aftermath of the Second World War to the tearing down of the Berlin Wall, the book shows how development projects altered local realities, transnational interactions, and even ideas about development itself. The book shines new light on the international organizations behind these projects—examining their strategies and priorities and assessing the actual results on the ground—and it also gives voice to the recipients of development aid. It shows how the Cold War shaped the global ambitions of development on both sides of the Iron Curtain, and how international organizations promoted an unrealistically harmonious vision of development that did not reflect local and international differences. The book presents a global perspective on Cold War development, demonstrating how its impacts are still being felt today.

Prologue

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter D. McDonald
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Cultural Diversity ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Cultural Expression ◽  
Intangible Heritage ◽  
History Of ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Print Literacy

The section introduces Part II, which spans the period 1946 to 2014, by tracing the history of the debates about culture within UNESCO from 1947 to 2009. It considers the central part print literacy played in the early decades, and the gradual emergence of what came to be called ‘intangible heritage’; the political divisions of the Cold War that had a bearing not just on questions of the state and its role as a guardian of culture but on the idea of cultural expression as a commodity; the slow shift away from an exclusively intellectualist definition of culture to a more broadly anthropological one; and the realpolitik surrounding the debates about cultural diversity since the 1990s. The section concludes by showing how at the turn of the new millennium UNESCO caught up with the radical ways in which Tagore and Joyce thought about linguistic and cultural diversity.

Central Europe

2021 ◽  
pp. 600-616
Author(s):  
Árpád von Klimó
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Central Europe ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Religious History ◽  
Protestant Reformation ◽  
State Socialism ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Religious Landscape

Central Europe is still imagined as an area dominated by Christianity, for the most part the Catholic Church, in close alliance with Christian rulers who minimized the impact of both the Protestant Reformation and minorities such as Judaism. This idea rests, however, on an oversimplified picture of the religious history of the region. Recent research has shown that the reality was more complex, and that historians still know very little about what the overwhelming majority of people believed or how they practised their religion. Christianity has never completely monopolized the religious landscape of Central Europe and has itself been constantly changing. The history of Christianization, Reformation, empires, and nationalism present in Central Europe as well as state socialism, the Cold War and today’s relative pluralism give an idea of this complexity.

Central Europe

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zlatko Šabič ◽  
Marko Lovec ◽  
Kateřina Kočí
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Central Europe ◽  
Academic Community ◽  
Work In Progress ◽  
Recent Memory ◽  
Common Definition ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Cold War

This article focuses on works that take “central Europe” as a subject of research. There are two conclusions one can draw from the overview that follows. The first one is that there is no common definition of “central Europe” The second one is that in spite of the lack of consensus, the literature on central Europe is abundant. The reason for that seems obvious. Central Europe has never existed merely as a geographic term; it has always been about an idea, about politics, about identity, or the combination of those. The recent memory—the period after the end of the Cold War—proves this point. Furthermore, the “returning” of central Europe to “Europe” after 1989 met an unprecedented response in the academic community; the region has become an attractive study field for scholars. The following overview, which remains and will remain work in progress, is an attempt to capture some of that academic contribution.

scholarly journals International Slavic Studies: Concepts, History and Evolution

2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Wenfei Liu
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
The West ◽  
The Status ◽  
History Of ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Formal Establishment ◽  
Slavic Studies

Abstract This paper departs from the definition of Slavistics and reviews the history of international Slavic studies, from its prehistory to its formal establishment as an independent discipline in the mid-18th century, and from the Pan-Slavic movement in the mid-19th century to the confrontation of Slavistics between the East and the West in the mid-20th century during the Cold War. The paper highlights the status quo of international Slavic studies and envisions the future development of Slavic studies in China.

RIAS, 1963–1992

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Popular Music ◽  
Public Attitudes ◽  
Rock And Roll ◽  
Iron Curtain ◽  
Berlin Wall ◽  
Unique Case ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Cold War

This concluding chapter briefly charts the history of RIAS until the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989. By the late 1960s RIAS had undergone three significant changes. First, the station had become a much more thoroughly German institution. Next was RIAS's decision to broadcast more popular music, especially rock-and-roll. The final significant change for RIAS was the introduction of a new format: television. The chapter shows how these changes coincided with political and generational shifts in the last decades of the Cold War, which at the same time highlights the fact that RIAS is a product of the Cold War. Finally, the chapter turns to a discussion of the legacy of RIAS and of how the station's history serves as an important and unique case study for considering the success and limitations of the American efforts to sway public attitudes behind the Iron Curtain.

The End of the Cold War

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas Guyatt
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
International Order ◽  
Berlin Wall ◽  
Warsaw Pact ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Cold War

This chapter discusses the history of the end of the Cold War. It describes different versions of what signified the end of the Cold War, which include the demolition of the Berlin Wall in November 1989, Mikhail Gorbachev's declaration that the Soviet Union would no longer use its military to subdue the satellite states of the Warsaw Pact in 1988, and the reunification of Germany in October 1990. The chapter also considers the consequences of the end of the Cold War, which include a renewed search for international order and cooperation.

Eastern Europe

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bernd Stöver
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Eastern Bloc ◽  
Berlin Wall ◽  
World War ◽  
East Central ◽  
World War 2 ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Cold War

This chapter examines the role and experience of Eastern Europe in the Cold War. It explains that the history of East Central Europe's Cold War began with the gradual dissolution of the anti-Hitler coalition at the end of World War 2 and that the transition to the officially declared Cold War was accompanied by various official statements. The chapter describes how the Cold War escalated with the Eastern bloc uprisings between 1953 and 1956, and argues that the construction of the Berlin Wall represented the main watershed in the history of the Eastern bloc as well as in the evolution of the Cold War.

scholarly journals Negotiating the German Democratic Republic: Angolan student migration during the Cold War, 1976–90

Africa ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 89 (S1) ◽  
pp. S144-S166 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcia C. Schenck
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Academic Success ◽  
Foreign Students ◽  
Foreign Student ◽  
Berlin Wall ◽  
Student Migration ◽  
History Of ◽  
East German ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The University

AbstractThis article traces the experiences of Angolan students who attended East German institutions of higher education between Angolan independence and the fall of the Berlin Wall. Based on oral histories collected in Luanda from twenty-one returned Angolan students in 2015, triangulated with archival material from Angola and the GDR, it argues that students negotiated between accommodation and resistance in their everyday life at the university and beyond. Conscious of the importance of academic success and adaptation to the East German learning culture, Angolan students drew a line when regulations infringed on their personal freedom and responded by engaging East German officials in discussion or simply by circumnavigating the rules. The life history of a female student illustrates how she negotiated between responsibility to formal learning and personal needs within a controlling society. When one considers the conditions of Angolan student life in East Germany as a whole, it becomes apparent that the East German notion of the model foreign student did not map onto the complexities of Angolan student lives. This article sheds light on the student migration of a generation of Angolan post-independence technocrats, many of whom studied in the former East during the Cold War. Through the eyes of Angolan educational migrants, we see the limits and possibilities of the lives of foreign students in the GDR.

The Cold War: A Very Short Introduction

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert J. McMahon
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Vietnam War ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Berlin Wall ◽  
Short Introduction ◽  
History Of ◽  
Full Analysis ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Second World

The Cold War: A Very Short Introduction discusses the Cold War, which dominated international life from the end of the Second World War to the fall of the Berlin Wall. But how did the dispute begin, and why did it move from its origins in post-war Europe to encompass virtually every corner of the globe? This VSI considers these questions and more, providing a truly international history of the Cold War and examining its enduring legacy. It draws on the most recent scholarship and documents to offer a full analysis of all aspects of the war. These include the Vietnam War and the changing global politics since the 1970s.

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