L'Europa centrale. Conflictualità e progetto: Passato e presente tra Praga, Budapest e Varsavia by Francesco s> Leoncini (review)

Abstract

REVIEWS 975 Leoncini, Francesco.L'Europa centrale. Conftictualita eprogetto: Passato epresente tra Praga,Budapest e Varsavia. Libreria Editrice Cafoscarina, Venice, 2003. 332 pp. Maps. Notes. Bibliography. Documents. Appendix. ?15.00 (paperback). THIS is a collection of essays by an Italian historian of Central and Eastern Europe, written over the period from the middle I970s to 2000. The focus is nominally about the whole region of 'Mitteleuropa', but the concentration is primarilyon whatwas once Czechoslovakiaanditscentralrole in the unhappy fate of the region. There are many interestinginsightsand speculationsabout the personalitiesand the course of events thereinwhich are worthy of serious consideration even where the reader may disagree with some of Leoncini's emphasis and conclusions. The coverage of the essays encompasses a wide range of topics, from the role ofJan Hus in the evolution of Bohemian and Moravian national identity, the disintegration of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the perennial tensions between German and Slavic aspirationsin the region, the career of Tomas G. Masarykin the emergence and governing of interwarCzechoslovakia,the background of the historic interwar agreements of Rapallo and Locarno, to the Hungarian, Polishand CzechoslovakianrebellionsagainstMuscovite rule in the I95os and I960s, the SolidarityMovement in Poland in I980-8 I, the collapse of the Soviet Communist empire and the most recent effortsat postCommunist transformationin the former Warsaw Pact zone. It is a massive canvas, indeed, but the individualessaysare eloquent and thought-provoking, if generallydiscursivein a decidedly non-Anglo-Saxon way. Throughout, Leoncini leaves no doubt where his sympathiesand antipathies lie, although there are a few noteworthyshiftsin perspectiveand emphasis over the quarter-century covered by the essays. His primary ideological affinityis with the 'socialism-with-a-human-face'programmesof the intellectuals associated with the Hungarian and Polish revolutions of I956 and especially with the aspirations enunciated by those involved in the Prague Spring of I 968. He professes to find similarcommitments to liberal socialist values in the Polish SolidarityMovement. Indeed, in the most recent period he criticizesthe formerleadersof these movements for neglecting such values once they achieved power in the post-Communist realignments throughout the region. He is also highly attractedto a Masarykianvision of a reintegrationof the emergent small states after achieving ethno-national independence. (Surprisingly , he barely mentions the writings of his countryman Mazzini in this connection.) In a document of post-war aspirations by exile Hungarian intellectuals in I944, there is a call (p. 296), which Leoncini obviously endorses, for a kind of expanded Danubian Confederation to maximize the leverage of these mini-states and to guard against any renewed threat of German domination. Leoncini argues elsewhere for a similaramalgamation, but now against the EU and NATO, both of which he sees as vehicles for the subordination and marginalization of the multitude of mini-states resulting from the breakupof multi-ethnic conglomerationslike the formerYugoslavia. Thus, while Leoncini is quite positive in his assessment of the Wilsonian 976 SEER, 82, 4, 2004 dream of self-determination,he wishes to go a step furtherby amalgamating these self-preoccupied, often conflicting, newly independent statelets, thus enhancing their ability to defend themselves against the indifference, not to say neo-colonial greed, of the major Westernpowers seeking to extend their domination throughoutthe region. Among his principal betenoiresis the historical, quasi-elemental power of Germanic dominance in the region. Here, Leoncini is sometimes ambivalent. On the one hand, he showsa good deal of sympathyfor the Sudeten Germans of Bohemia under the Czechoslovak constitution which Masaryk, albeit reluctantly, was forced to accept for his new state. Given their numerical, economic, and financial significancein Czechoslovakia, Leoncini argues that they shouldhave been grantedsome sortof federalstatusas a statenation. On the other hand, he recognizes in many of the later essaysthat the culturaland political aspirations of the Germans were fundamentally incompatible with those of the Slavicpeoples of the region. Indeed, he blamesthe Germanization of the Austro-Hungarian Empire resultingfrom the Ausgleich of I867 for the enforced Germanization (andMagyarization)of that multi-nationalaggregation and the consequent upsurge of ethno-national secessionist movements which led to the outbreakof WorldWar One and then the fragmentationof Mitteleuropa. He treats Germanic domination as almost a force of nature, espoused equally by such diverse political figures as Bismarck,von Bulow, Walther Rathenau and Adolf Hitler. He has some interesting observations...