Constitutional Trends in Eastern Europe, 1945–48

Abstract

The constitutional development of the governments of eastern Europe in modern times has varied with the particular circumstances and personalities of each national group. Yet in its broader aspects this development has revealed a remarkably uniform pattern. The minority peoples of the Habsburg, Romanov, and Ottoman empires met the challenge of alien laws and discriminatory economic conditions in the nineteenth century by adopting as their program the political principles popularized by the French revolution. By the outbreak of World War I, Serbia, Greece, Rumania, Bulgaria, and Albania had achieved an independent status, and with the exception of the last-named had established a tradition of parliamentary government and the beginnings of a liberal democracy. A new era of opportunities and problems, inaugurated by the victory of the Allies in 1918, saw the creation of the enlarged Yugoslavia and Rumania, and of the new Czecho-slovakia. Two years later, with the stabilization of Russia's western frontier, Finland, the three Baltic states, and Poland were established as independent states. Albania and Bulgaria continued with modest changes of frontier and political outlook, and took their place beside a recalcitrant Hungary and a chastened Greece.