Eastern Europe [antikvár]

IntroductionEastern Europe is one of the most complex and tragic areas in the world. Inhabited by several peoples who speak a variety of languages and espouse different faiths, the region for centuries has been a fated borderland of empire, a thoroughfare of conquest, and an object of partition and subjection. Yet its several parts have maintained their identities and contributed their share to Western civilization from Copernicus and Hus to Chopin, Liszt and Bartók.America's affinity with the troubled nations of Eastern Europe runs deep and strong. Polish patriots like Pulaski and Kosciuszko joined our fight for national independence. We, in turn, became a rallying ground for the independence movements of Kossuth of Hungary, Masaryk of Czechoslovakia and Pade-rewski of Poland. Indeed, it was a President of the United States, Woodrow Wilson, who first proclaimed the complete restoration of a reunited, independent Poland as an incontrovertible aim of the Allies during World War I. An historic declaration that Czechs and Slovaks should unite to form a new country was signed at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1918. Millions of our best citizens descend from those who sought "the bread of freedom" here when it was denied in Eastern Europe.The fate of the peoples of Eastern Europe during and after World War II lays claim to our profound compassion. Brutal death factories, total reprisals and mass assassinations exterminated millions of Jews and decimated the remaining population in an incredible compendium of horror unrivaled throughout history. With peace came an alien ideology and the excesses of the Stalinist police state. Those dark years were followed in the later 1950s by the release of forces for change which, despite erratic progress and frequent disillusionment, have contributed to internal liberalization, a show of freer nationalexpression and an opening of "windows to the West."Beneath the drab and oppressive conformity of Communism, Eastern Europe today is undergoing a quiet evolution conditioned by the dynamics of reform within the Communist world and by that world's relations with the West. Another factor in this process is the alienation of most Eastern Europeans from things Russian.The destalinization begun by Khrushchev unfroze a static situation and breached the barriers to change. It gathered momentum with the provocative examples of Communist but independent Yugoslavia, rebellious Hungary, revisionist Poland, defiant Albania and deviant Romania. The Sino-Soviet dispute powerfully adds to the element of flux in the region.Perhaps most important is lagging economic development in the area, which places the regimes under growing pressures to orient economic planning along more rational lines and to open channels of trade and technical exchange with the West.President Lyndon B. Johnson's policy of building "bridges of increased trade, of ideas, of visitors and of humanitarian aid" between East and West constitutes a positive and constructive approach to strengthening ties and broadening relations with Eastern Europe. While it would be too much to expect that our initiatives can rapidly modify the Eastern European reality, they do serve to illuminate and reinforce the community of interest between our country and that area.This book affords Americans an opportunity to review in brief compass the background and highlights of current problems in Eastern Europe. The presentation is vivid and the subject most topical. Author Godfrey Blunden and the Editors of the Life World Library are to be congratulated on this addition to a notable series.Jacob D. Beam former U.S. Ambassador to Poland