Redrawing Nations: Ethnic Cleansing in East-Central Europe, 1944-1948 by Philipp s> Ther Ana Siljak (review)

Abstract

REVIEWS i6i Geographically, the work covers the whole of the Soviet Union and thus includesthe Caucasusand the Volga region aswell as CentralAsia. There are five sections, each dealing with key sets of issues.The firstsection looks at the political context. The second section, devoted to 'establishment' Islam, includes a detailed examination of such topics as official institutions and sanctionedpractices;obstaclesto the implementationof religiouspreceptsare also noted. The two largestsections (each over one hundred pages in length) treat 'unofficial'Islam and the social dimension. An understandingof these informalmanifestationsof Muslimpiety is crucialto any evaluationof the role of Islam in the Soviet Union. The fifth section examines the relationship between the Soviet regime and Islam, including ideology, internal security and foreign policy considerations.The final chapter raises the issue of Islam and nationalidentity,and the transmutationof thisrelationshipinto the nexus between Islamand nationalism. It is unfortunatethatthe text is marredby a numberof misprints.However, these are small distractionsand in no way detractfrom the very real merit of this study. In short, it is an indispensablework for anyone with an interestin Islam in the Soviet Union, and likewise Islam in the post-Soviet successor states. HearandMiddle EastDepartment S. AKINER School ofOriental andAfrican Studies University ofLondon Ther, Philipp, and Siljak,Ana (eds).Redrawing Nations.EthnicCleansing inEastCentralEurope ,I944-I948. HarvardCold War StudiesBook Series. Rowman & Littlefield,Lanham, MA, and Oxford, 200I. Xii+ 343 pp. Notes. Tables. Figures.Map. Index. C26.95(paperback). POLAND and Czechoslovakiaemerged from the Second WorldWaras almost homogenous nation-states. National minorities, a third of each country's population in the inter-warperiod, were expelled en masse;those remaining were vigorously'denationalized'.Poland and the Czech Republic today have stable borders, no irredentist claims on their own or other's territory and, leaving aside the mildly irritatingdemands from the Sudeten German lobby, good relationswith their neighbours.They also stand in the firstrankfor EU membership: a mark, if any were needed, of their status as mature nationstates . For those frustratedwith contemporary developments (Palestine, the formerYugoslavia)who are castingaroundfor easy solutions,it is temptingto ask:might the ends (internationalstability)justifythe means (massexpulsion)? They most certainly do not, argues Ana Siljak in the conclusion to this collection of fourteenwide-rangingessaysbyAmericanand CentralEuropean scholars on various aspects of expulsion and resettlement in Poland and Czechoslovakia at the end of the Second World War. 'Internationally supervisedethnic cleansing' (p. 328) involved immense human sufferingand material loss; only the rigid confines of the Cold War prevented the ethnographicaland territorialorderfrombeing challenged and overturned. I62 SEER, 8i, I, 2003 An awarenessof contemporaryethnic conflictand the lessonsthat mightbe learnt from the past are present throughout this collection which, although it takes the fashionable term 'ethnic cleansing' as its title, spends little time discussing its validity as an analytical tool for historians (unfortunately,no clear definition is given and the term is used loosely and interchangeably). When, as in Philipp Ther's introductorysurvey on twentieth-centuryforced migrations,the reader is treated to a glowing assessmentof Nato's campaign in Kosovo in i 999 and the suggestionthat 'suchinterventionswill makeethnic cleansing a relic of the past' (p. 63), one does begin to wonder whether a collection such as this is really the right place for historians to make policy recommendations. But on the whole, the reader is left to drawparallelsof his or her own choosing and this striving for contemporary relevancy does not detractfromthe overallvalue of the book, which lies in three main areas. Firstly,the contributionsdraw extensively on recently declassifiedarchival material from the former eastern bloc. The fresh perspectivesand the more variegated picture, particularlyof local decision-making, that this inevitably gives can only be welcomed. It also serves as a good indication of both the state of researchin this field and, as Eagle Glassheimoutlines in his piece on Czechoslovakia, areas where further research is needed. Secondly, because the collection is organized by country (it is divided into sections on Poland, Czechoslovakiaand the two Germanys,with most emphasison thefirst)rather than by minority,the readeris betterable to appreciatethe directbearingone population displacementhad on another.This isparticularlyinstructivein the case of Poland,where the fate of its German and Ukrainianpopulations(dealt with by StanislawJankowiak, Orest Subtelny and MarekJasiak)was bound up with that of ethnic Poles removed from territorieseast of the River Bug annexed to...