Eastern European History Research Articles

The Involvement of the Pechenegs in the Ethnopolitical Processes of the Southern Russian Steppes

Examining the involvement of the Pechenegs in the ethnopolitical processes of the Southern Russian steppes is crucial for understanding the formation of the ethnic and political map of Eastern Europe during the 10th and 11th centuries. The impact of the Pechenegs on the political situation in this region remains significant for historians and ethnologists. The purpose of this study is to analyze the role of the Pechenegs in the ethnopolitical processes of the Southern Russian steppes from the mid-10th century to the mid-11th century. The research focuses on the Pechenegs' contributions to ethnopolitical changes and their interactions with other peoples and states in the region. The study utilizes the works of prominent historians such as N. M. Karamzin, P. A. Golubovsky, S. M. Solov'ev and G. Manuku-Adameshteanu, as well as research by Turkish and Hungarian scholars. The analysis is based on primary sources, including chronicles and archaeological data, as well as secondary historical materials. The study addresses the origin of the name "Pecheneg" and their early homeland. Historians like Tatishchev, Karamzin, and Solovyov present different views on the origins and initial territories of the Pechenegs. Tatishchev associates the Pechenegs with the Sarmatians, while Karamzin and Solovyov identify them as Turkic peoples. The research examines the Pechenegs' influence on ethnopolitical processes in the Southern Russian steppes, including their conflicts with the Bulgars, Hungarians, Khazars, and the Rus state. Golubovsky and Manuku-Adameshteanu highlight the Pechenegs' significant impact on the Hungarians and other regional peoples. The article also explores the Pechenegs' settlement in modern Hungary and their roles as both vassals of the Kievan state and independent political actors in the region's political life. The article concludes that the Pechenegs played a significant role in the ethnopolitical processes of the Southern Russian steppes during the 10th and 11th centuries. Despite losing their political power by the mid-11th century, they had a considerable impact. Further research is needed to fully understand their role in the history of Eastern Europe.

Changed life worlds and survival strategies in disintegration after the regime change in Hungary: a former industrial town in the shadow of the factory giant

ABSTRACT In the literature of post-1989 Eastern European history, the disintegration of traditional industries and the decline of the factory towns that had been based on them is a well-known topic. Less attention has been paid to the transformation of the countryside or the villages that often served as the supportive network for the factory towns, a phenomenon that was also very typical of Hungary, where migrant or commuter workers became the subject of academic interest long before the collapse of state socialism. This study offers an international perspective and case study of the catchment area of Ózd, a former industrial and factory city located in northeastern Hungary that was once an important centre of Hungarian metallurgy and mining. In my analysis I address the related topic of how the decline of traditional industries affected this former industrial city and its surrounding villages, whose inhabitants mostly worked in industry until the industrial landscape and its society disappeared. This study focuses on Ózd and its surroundings, where the survival and sustenance of the population was directly threatened by the closure of collective farms, factories, plants and mines in the area.

The Strawpeople of Russian, Eastern European, and Soviet History in English-Language TV and Film

Abstract This special issue features historical scholars of imperial Russia and the Soviet Union analyzing representations of Russian and East European characters and history in contemporary Anglophone television and films, such as The Americans, Black Widow, The Great, For All Mankind, and Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga. They identify several tropes that shore up Anglosphere conceptions of progressiveness, liberalism, feminism, and even whiteness in ways that put pressure on geopolitics today, which some have characterized as a second Cold War. Gender and sexuality are dominant themes through which difference between the West and Eastern Europe is commonly staged onscreen. Debate emerges on whether this is a return to twentieth-century thinking or a new vision of Russian and East European otherness.

:From Peoples into Nations: A History of Eastern Europe

:<i>From Peoples into Nations: A History of Eastern Europe</i>

Prvá svetová vojna a Ukrajina : transnacionálna perspektíva

The article deals with the prospects of research of history of Ukraine throughout the years of the First World War from the perspective of transnational aspect. This educational approach has been a dominant one in Western historical study nowadays. However, in Ukrainian historiography, it has not received such popularity and influence yet. The author tries to demonstrate research prospects of usage of several scientific achievements of Western historians, depicting the connection with Ukraine in the First World War. In particular, this is the Ukrainian issue in international relations in 1914–1918, the history of Ukrainian cities during the First World War, the refugees from Ukrainian lands, violence during the War period 1914–1918, propaganda. On the one hand, these particular stories and plots from the War time show us the need of additional educational investigations done by Ukrainian historians. On the other hand, they convincingly demonstrate the value of Ukrainian narrative of the Great War, that significantly complements transnational history of this global confrontation since the beginning of the last century. Moreover, it outlines the potential perspective of a large-scale scientific project, namely – the rethinking of Eastern European history of the First World War, where the scientists from European countries would be involved.

«Только анархия может дать нам возможность победить советскую власть»: докладная записка генерала М. К. Дитерихса руководству РОВС (1930)

The article analyzes a memo from the head of the Shanghai branch of the General Military Union, General M. K. Dieterichs, to the leadership of the ROVS, which is practically unknown to domestic researchers. The document is kept in the collections of the Bakhmetyev Archive of Russian and Eastern European History and Culture at Columbia University. The text of the memo shows the discrepancy between the author’s realistic assessment of the international situation in the Far East, the situation in the Far Eastern regions of the USSR, where there was an increase in discontent with the activities of the Soviet government, as well as the state of White emigration in China and the presentation of the prospects of the anti-Soviet movement based on Dieterichs’ belief in the exclusively repressive and spiritually alien Russian people essence of Soviet power and readiness a significant part of the ordinary military emigration to sacrifice in the overthrow of the «Bolshevik yoke». In the end, this discrepancy had a negative impact on the course of the anti-Soviet struggle.

Studium historyczne na Wydziale Humanistycznym Uniwersytetu Stefana Batorego w Wilnie (1919–1939)

The operations at the University in Vilnius, reactivated in 1919, were stabilized only after the Polish-Bolshevik War and the incorporation of the Vilnius Region into the Commonwealth in 1922. Over the majority of functioning, the SBU's authorities encountered issues with maintaining the full staffing. The positions adequately filled were limited to those within the Department of Polish History, the Department of Modern History, the Department of Medieval History and Auxiliary Sciences of History, and the Department of Eastern-European History. Stanisław Kościałkowski, Felix Koneczny, Kazimierz Chodynicki, Ryszard Mienicki, Janusz Iwaszkiewicz, Teofil Emil Modelski, Stanisław Zajączkowski, and Henryk Łowmiański are among the notable representatives of Vilnius' Clio that need to be mentioned. Despite continuous development, the University had a regional character. Both the academic studies and programs offered by the historical departments were focused on the history of Eastern Europe, notably on Polish-Moscow relations and the history of Lithuania, specifically the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Vilnius. The academia remained overshadowed by national universities. However, it was perceived as a vital institution by the Kingdom of Poland and the citizens of Vilnius, having a significant impact on the shape of Polish identity and culture.

Report from the 2nd National Scientific Conference on ‘Work Culture’, December 1, 2022

On December 1, 2022, the 2nd National Scientific Conference on ‘Work Culture’ was held at the Faculty of History, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, entitled “Little Workers: Child Labor in Social-Cultural and Economic Perspectives Throughout History”. The organizers of the meeting were the Department of Economic History, the Department of Eastern European History, and the Workshop of Cultural History of the Faculty of History at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań. Due to the participation of speakers from abroad, the conference had an international character this time around.

Forced Labour of Polish and Soviet Children Under Nazi Occupation Discussion by Prof. Johannes-Dieter Steinert and Prof. Beata Halicka, 1 December 2022

The following conversation is an abridged transcript of a discussion that Prof. Dr. Beata Halicka (UAM) held with Prof. Dr. Johannes-Dieter Steinert of the University of Wolverhampton in the UK. It took place on December 1, 2022 and was the opening event of a conference entitled Little Workers: Child Labor in socio-cultural and economic perspectives throughout history. The conference was organized by the Department of Economic History, the Department of Eastern European History and the Research Unit of Cultural History and was held at the Faculty of History of Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan. Johannes-Dieter Steinert is a prominent specialist in the field of child forced laborers in National Socialist Germany and German occupied Eastern Europe. His books on the subject have been published in English, German and Polish.

From Cotton and Smoke: Łódź—Industrial City and Discourses of Asynchronous Modernity, 1897–1994

From Cotton and Smoke: Łódź—Industrial City and Discourses of Asynchronous Modernity, 1897–1994

HISTORIOGRAPHY OF THE KHAZAR STATE: INTERDISCIPLINARY DIALOGUE ABOUT ONOMATOLOGICAL EXCURSUSES AND PASSAGES OF A HISTORIAN-MEDIEVIST

The purpose of this article is to introduce some data of the fundamental work of A.P. Novosel’cev “The Khazar state and its role in the history of Eastern Europe and the Caucasus”, which is not used by historians, and to clarify the interpretations, proposed by the author. The relevance of the article is due to the fact that no assessment has been given in domestic journals to the numerous attempts to comprehend historical proper names: anthroponyms, ethnonyms, potamonyms, astyonyms and komonyms over the past three decades since the publication of the named work. Scientific novelty lies in the consistent observance of the requirements of comparative studies – a comparative-historical approach that demonstrates the insufficiency of simple comparisons. The main material of the research is onomatological excursuses and passages of the mentioned fundamental work of A.P. Novosel’cev. The result of their consideration is, firstly, the establishing the fallacy of deriving the astyonym and potamonym “Atil’” from the Finno-Ugric languages. Secondly, it is the reconstruction of the primordial archetype of the astyonym “Hamlyh”/”Hamlidzh” fixed by historical sources in the form of Hanlyh “Khan’s Residence”, “Capital”. Thirdly, it is the establishing the origin of one of the names of the Khazar capital Sarykshin. Fourthly, it is the proof of the periphrastic nature of the astyonym “Atil’”. Fifthly, it is the establishment of the primacy of A-anlaut (Atl) in the ancient name of the Volga River and the secondary nature of I-anlaut (Itil’).

Children of the grave: Investigating non-adult feeding practices in medieval and early modern Estonia through stable isotope analysis.

Studying infant diet and feeding practices through stable isotope analysis provides direct insight into the life and health of vulnerable population groups in the past. Although the general diet in medieval and early modern Livonia has been reconstructed from written sources, little is known about childhood diet during this tumultuous period of Eastern European history. This study presents a comparative investigation of the staple non-adult diet in urban/rural communities during the 13th-17th centuries AD, with a special focus on feeding practices. We aim to reveal the impact of socio-economic circumstances on early childhood nutrition, which affects the physical development and overall survival of this susceptible population group. Bone collagen samples from 176 individuals between the fetal and the 7-15 age categories from four urban/rural South-Estonian cemeteries were cross-sectionally analyzed via EA-IRMS (Elemental Analysis with Isotope Ratio Mass Spectroscopy) for δ13C and δ15N. Results suggest that South-Estonian children had a staple terrestrial C3 diet integrated with animal proteins. Significant divergences were observed between urban and rural sites and slight variation occurred among rural subgroups, possibly resulting from a wider food choice available in towns, different consumption of C4 foods, and/or secular changes. This study provides the first data regarding infant feeding practices in medieval and early modern Livonia. These practices were similar among the different contexts, indicating comparable cultural traditions in child rearing. Breastfeeding was likely practiced for 1-2 years, with supplementary foods introduced around 1 year of age. The weaning process was probably concluded around the age of 3. The δ13C and δ15N values of older children are comparable to those of the adults from the same sites, indicating their diets became similar after weaning, when they started working and obtained a more mature social status.

Borders and Spaces in the History of Eastern Europe: From the Fixed to the Phantom Ones

Lagno A.R. Borders and Spaces in the History of Eastern Europe: From the Fixed to the Phantom Ones // Slavic Studies. JournalofRussianAcademyofSciences. = Slavyanovedenie. 2022. No.1.

Baltic Archaeology, Cultural History, Ancient Lithuanian Symbolism, Old Europe, and the Archaeomythology of Marija Gimbutas

Marija Alseikaitė-Gimbutienė (Gimbutas) (1921–1994) was born and raised in Lithuania within a family of physicians and intellectuals devoted to the preservation of Lithuanian folk culture. She studied archaeology with Professor Jonas Puzinas who was the first scientifically trained archaeologist in independent Lithuania. Marija Gimbutas was thoroughly trained in Eastern European archaeology, Baltic prehistory, Indo-European linguistics, ethnology, history, folklore, mythology, and European languages taught by the most accomplished Lithuanian scholars in their fields. In 1942 she earned a Master՚s degree at Vilnius University for her thesis on “Burial Practices in the Lithuanian Iron Age.” In 1946 she earned her doctorate in archaeology from Tübingen University in Germany before immigrating to the United States in 1949. This paper traces her prodigious production of major publications and scholarly achievements fostered by her multidisciplinary education in Lithuania. It discusses the development of her Kurgan hypothesis, her excavations in Southeastern Europe, her theory of Old Europe, her formulation of archaeomythology, and the ancient veneration of the earth as the source of life.

Gender, Pleasure, and Violence: The Construction of Expert Knowledge of Sexuality in Poland [Płeć, przyjemność i przemoc: Kształtowanie wiedzy eksperckiej o seksualności w Polsce

<i>Gender, Pleasure, and Violence: The Construction of Expert Knowledge of Sexuality in Poland</i> [Płeć, przyjemność i przemoc: Kształtowanie wiedzy eksperckiej o seksualności w Polsce

The Court of Richard II and Bohemian Culture by Alfred Thomas

Reviewed by: The Court of Richard II and Bohemian Culture by Alfred Thomas Elizabeth Allen alfred thomas, The Court of Richard II and Bohemian Culture. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2020. Pp. 225. isbn: 978-1-8438-4566-9. $105. Over more than two decades, Alfred Thomas has brought to light for an English readership the international court culture of medieval Bohemia and its influence in England. Anne's Bohemia: Czech Literature and Society, 1310–1420 (University of Minnesota Press, 1998) took Anne's marriage to Richard II as the justification for a masterful survey of Czech literature with an eye to inviting comparisons with English literature. Thomas's subsequent work on Czech and English literature, A Blessed Shore: England and Bohemia from Chaucer to Shakespeare (Cornell University Press, 2007), cemented this essential scholarly project of making known in English a thoroughly cosmopolitan eastern European literary history; a deeper dive into the Bohemian connections to Chaucer's works came in Reading Women in Late Medieval Europe: Anne of Bohemia and Chaucer's Female Audience (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015). From Thomas' erudite and meticulous body of work, scholars of late-medieval English literature have gained crucial insight into the cultural relations between [End Page 158] England and Bohemia. Thomas' work is essential to an important twenty-first century scholarly undertaking—spearheaded by David Wallace (Europe: A Literary History) and taken further by scholars like Candace Barrington (Global Chaucers) and Marion Turner (Chaucer: A European Life)—to widen the context of English literary culture to include all of Europe and indeed, the rest of the globe. In his present monograph on the subject, Thomas details Bohemian art, literature, and statecraft in order to pursue readings of late fourteenth-century works by Chaucer, Gower, the writer of the Alliterative Morte Darthur, and the Pearl poet. The Court of Richard II and Bohemian Culture is a handsome volume: printed on clay-covered paper, it contains 40 high-resolution, full color in-line illustrations. These visual materials draw a particularly vivid picture of the ties between Bohemia and England: the shared materials, styles, and themes which, Thomas argues, emphasize not so much national identities as 'familial and dynastic affiliations that transcended the west-east European divide' (p. xvi). This book consists of four chapters and a conclusion. In Chapter One, Thomas establishes that Richard II's court found creative inspiration in the multilingualism of Anne's Bohemian relatives, especially her father, Emperor Charles VI, and her half brother, King Wenceslas IV. This political link creates occasions for reading the English poetry of the late fourteenth century in an international context. In Chapter Two, Thomas treats Anne as the real-life corollary to Venus in Gower's Confessio Amantis and to Alceste in Chaucer's Legend of Good Women, where the 'collaboration' with the patron 'is clearly not working out' (p. 71). In a series of short sections, Thomas explores the literary culture of female patronage in other works by Chaucer and by other authors including Dante, Petrarch, and Machaut. Chapter Three turns to more sustained readings of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and the Alliterative Morte Darthur, arguing that both poems, far from provincial, register the international court culture he describes. In Gawain's seduction scenes, he finds a reflection of Robert de Vere's scandalous affair with Anne's lady in waiting, Agnes Lancecrona; in the Morte, he finds in King Arthur's grief a reflection of Richard II's grief for de Vere upon his death. In both poems Thomas finds an ambivalence about the moral and political values that international court culture seems to embrace. Chapter Four finds that Pearl's 'curious blend of consolatio and courtly love motifs' (p. 167) registers links to Bohemian architectural, visual, and poetic texts: Karlstein Castle outside Prague, and the Czech Legend of St. Catherine of Alexandria. Here and in the book's conclusion, Thomas describes Richard's political ambition and his investment in the ideology of sacral kingship as thoroughly embedded in an international court culture shared by England and Bohemia—an international culture that, after Richard's death, gave way to the comparative insularity of the Lancastrians. Thomas' work proceeds by testing associations (as opposed...

Shifting Alliances

Abstract Although Albania emerged from the Second World War as an appendage of Yugoslavia, the Albanian Communist regime soon turned against Yugoslavia and forged an alliance with the Soviet Union. However, after the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev launched a campaign of de-Stalinization, Albania’s alliance with the USSR steadily eroded and collapsed altogether by the early 1960s. The PRC under Mao Zedong emerged as the new patron for the only Stalinist regime left in Europe. This article draws on recently declassified archival materials to reassess how and why Albanian Communist leaders shifted from one alliance to another. Both ideological and security considerations shaped the decision-making process. The article sheds light not only on Albania’s Cold War history but also on the history of Eastern Europe and the Soviet bloc.

Obituary: Éva S. Balogh (1936–2021)

Born in Pécs, Éva S. Balogh was a twenty-year-old undergraduate student at Eötvös Loránd University at the time of the 1956 revolution. During the uprising, she helped publish a revolutionary student newspaper and fled Hungary in December 1956 to find refuge in Canada following the Soviet suppression of the revolt. Balogh completed a B.A. in history at Carleton University in Ottawa, followed by an M.A. and PhD in history from Yale University. Her scholarly career included serving as a professor of Russian and Eastern European history, as well as working in senior academic administration as the dean of Yale’s Morse College from 1973 to 1978. After this, Balogh’s career shifted focus, and she helped establish Brevis Press, a publishing company.Balogh was an early user of the Internet in March 1994, being an active participant in two nascent discussion groups on Hungary and Hungarian politics. Eventually, she established and moderated her own online discussion group on Hungary, before launching the Hungarian Spectrum blog in June 2007 from her home in Bethany, Connecticut. In a video interview with journalist Benjamin Novak, Balogh once recounted a friend’s initial reaction to her first blog post. “Oh, Éva,” the friend said with a tone of gentle pity, “a blog isn’t meant to be a historical treatise.”1 That comment reflected the challenge of transitioning from academic to journalistic writing.However, it was a challenge that Balogh would meet head on, as she wrote daily blog posts that mostly read like long-form journalistic articles. Her pieces offered analysis of Hungarian current affairs and trends in contemporary society, based on a wide range of Hungarian-language sources, as well as on her own connections to, and discussions with, key people in Hungarian democratic opposition circles. Balogh’s writing combined informed opinion and news reporting—all from a broadly liberal democratic angle. Balogh also produced English translations of Hungarian written sources. Over the course of fourteen years, Balogh published some 5,000 articles in Hungarian Spectrum—rarely missing a day and writing nearly all the published pieces herself. Her process was to spend each morning reading Hungarian news sites—both from the left and the right political spectrum—and then the second half of the day on writing her daily blog posts, most of which exceeded 1,000 words in length.In 2011, Balogh’s commitment to democratic values in Hungary led her to become a founding member of the Canadian Hungarian Democratic Charter. Her diligent daily reporting in Hungarian Spectrum also brought her widespread recognition. In 2019, when George Soros won the Ridenhour Courage Prize, he donated the $10,000 that he had received to Hungarian Spectrum, in order to raise international awareness of Hungary’s slide into authoritarian rule. In addition to her thousands of Hungarian Spectrum articles, Balogh also published guest columns in the Hungarian daily Népszava.When Balogh died suddenly of cardiac arrest on November 30, 2021, Hungarian Spectrum had over 7,000 subscribers. The site became a true vocation for Éva—her commitment and passion never wavered. While her sudden death leaves a void for thousands of loyal readers, Hungarian Spectrum is archived by the Vera and Donald Blinken Open Society Archives at Central European University and by the Library of Congress.2

HISTORICAL AND ETHNOLOGICAL MYSTERIES AROUND THE EXOETHNONYM-PETRIFIKAT VET’KE

The non-decreasing relevance of the topic of the article can be seen through annual publications in “Bulletin of Higher Education Institutions” and specialized journals on national history and ethnology that were dedicated to the history of the East Slavic paticipalities and related ethnic groups. As a rule, they contain contradictory consequences of understanding the number of anthroponyms and ethnonyms. The aim of the article is to introduce new data into scientific circulation and clarify the interpretations available in Russian history and ethnology. The unmentioned lexicographic and bibliographic data are used and subjected to a comparative historical review. The assumption made in the article about the semantic identity of exoethnonyms-petrificates Burtas, Vet’ke, Suvas should be taken into account by the authors of future publications on the history of Eastern Europe.

«Я познание сделал своим ремеслом...» (памяти Михаила Львовича Швецова)

The article is dedicated to the memory of M.L. Shvetsov, a Donetsk archaeologist, expert in the field of the funeral rite of the Khazar Khaganate peoples and the late nomads. It provides biographical data and describes the main stages of his formation as a scientist. The relevance of the results of M.L. Shvetsovs field explorations and his significant contribution to the study of the early medieval history of Eastern Europe is noted.