Microcosm: Portrait of a Central European City by Norman s> Davies Roger Moorhouse (review)

Abstract

348 SEER, 8i, 2, 2003 Davies, Norman and Moorhouse, Roger. Microcosm: Portrait ofa Central European City.Jonathan Cape, London, 2002. xix + 585 pp. Illustrations.Maps. Appendices. Notes. Index. ?20.00. THE city in question has been known under many guises, although three versions stand out: its early Latinized name is 'Vratislavia';its more widely known German name was, and is 'Breslau';in Polish it is 'Wroclaw',which has also been its official name since 1945. It lies on the river Oder or Odra, and is historicallythe chief city of Lower Silesia. In I939 the largestGerman city east of Berlin(with629,000 inhabitants),it sufferedterribledevastationin 1945 and was the largestEuropean city to experience the wholesale exchange of its ethnic-culturalidentity as a resultof the Second WorldWar. Today, in termsof population, it is the fourthcity of Poland. During its thousand-yearhistorythe city and its region have been exposed to and have shared in many of the complex developments that have shaped this part of Europe: migrations and settlements, especially Germanic and Slavonic, but alsoJewish; the coming and going of weak national states and the absorptionof the areain largedynasticempires;and finally,the experience of a double dose of totalitarianism in the twentieth century. For Norman Davies and Roger Moorhouse the city thereforerepresentsCentral Europe in miniature hence the title of the book. Their history of the city is a great achievement in terms of its wealth of detail, its wide range of sources, its breadth of perspective,itsvivid narrative,and itsperceptivejudgements. And although each of the chronological chapters follows a similar formulaic pattern, the book is highly readable, and the last two chapters, covering the years I9I8-2000, almost compulsively so. In places the book's grandeur of scalelends it something of an epic quality. Davies and Moorhouse succeed in their proclaimed main objectives: to overcome the German-Polish historiographical rivalry that has bedevilled much of the analysisof the city'spast;to identifythe city'snumerouschanging political and cultural connections; and to examine the city's historywithin a regional and a wider European context. Their multinational focus and their rejection of exclusive nationalistinterpretationsreflectnot only the European ethos of our own day but also do historicaljustice to the rich past of the city and of its Silesianhinterland. The book is not entirely chronological, for the prologue casts the reader into the drama of the city during the eighty-day Soviet siege of 'Festung Breslau'in 1945. Afterthe harrowingaccount of the death of GermanBreslau, the readeris whiskedaway in chapter one, as if in a flash-back,to a surveyof the city'searliestbeginnings;it appearsthat its Slavonic name originatesfrom that of the Czech prince VratislavI who reigned in 9I 5-92 I. Thereafter the authors deploy different forms of the city's name in each of the successive chapters to illustratethe problem of the city's changing identity under Piast Polish, Czech/Bohemian, Habsburg, Prussian, German, and again Polish rule. The authors skilfullyweave into each chapter sections on regional and wider Europeanpolitical developments;on the city's economic life and social conditions;on religious,cultural,and ethnic changes;on the city'sadministration and civic events;and on itsbuildingsand physicalappearance. REVIEWS 349 There is much in the book for both the specialist historian and for the general reader interested in Europe's past. Topics worth highlighting for the medieval period include the Christianization of Slavonic Silesia; Silesia's complex relationship with Piast Poland; the beginnings and character of German settlement; the Mongol invasion of I241; the city's role during the Hussite wars; and the impact of natural disasters and attitudes towards witchcraft. Forthe early modern period the following stand out: the city as a bastion of Lutheranism yet its lenient treatment by the Roman Catholic Habsburgs; Silesia's economic and cultural eminence within the Habsburg monarchy (I526-I740); and the wars waged for Silesia by Frederick II of Prussia.Forthe nineteenth centurythe authorsofferparticularinsightinto the city's role during the wars againstNapoleon (theOrder of the Iron Crosswas created here in I8I 3) and the revolutions of I848, and as hotbed of German liberal and socialist thought; its increasinglycosmopolitan and multi-denominational character; its participation in the industrialization of Prussia (by 19I3 Breslau was Europe's largest producer of railway...