346 SEER, 79, 2, 200 I Ladislas of Hungary as a leader of a Crusade to the Holy Land (Laszl6 Veszpr&my),the political position of Croatia in the late fourteenth century (Damir Karbic), noble family-politicsconcerning the inheritanceof estatesin late medieval Hungary(PRlEngel),female inheritancein medievalHungarian law (MartynRady), and many others. Some of the articlesare useful short summariesconcerning Hungarian or CentralEuropeantopics,providingan overviewof the historiographyand/or main researchresultsand problems.As there is a greatshortageof suchworks in English, these articles will be welcome to those who wish to introduce students to Central European medieval history. The most notable examples are Henrik Birnbaum'sarticle on the vernacularlanguages of medieval East CentralEurope,J6zsefLaszlovszky'soverviewof the developmentof medieval Hungarian field-systems,Katalin Szende's surveyof urbanizationand urban society in medieval Hungary, and Jan M. Piskorski's analysis of the historiographyof the German settlementin East-CentralEurope. It is impossible to mention all the contributions, but as these examples show, probablyfew readerswill wish to read all the articles,though many will find somethingthat is of interestto them. Department ofHistorical andCultural Studies N. BEREND Goldsmiths College, University ofLondon Ghimpu, G. Constiin4a Na(ionald a Romdnilor Moldoveni. Chi?inAu,Litera, I999. 479 pp. Lei io.oo. GHEORGHE GHIMPU is a soft-spoken, self-effacing figure of courage and resilience. Born in Bessarabiain 1937, he studiedphysics and mathematicsat the PedagogicalUniversityin Tiraspol and spent a year as a doctoral student at the Institute of Biological Physics of the Soviet Academy of Sciences (I970-7I). Upon his return to the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic, he took up a post at the University of Chi?inau.His desire to affirmhis national identity in the face of the Soviet russificationof his homeland prompted him to join a small band of friends in forming the clandestine National Patriotic Front of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina in 1972. They were quickly arrestedby the KGB and Ghimpu was sentenced to six years imprisonment which he spent in variouscamps in Mordovia and the Permpeninsula.When the PopularFrontof Moldova emerged in I989, Ghimpu was at the forefront of its activity.Between i990 and I994 he was a member of the parliamentof Moldova. Ghimpu'sbook 'The National Consciousnessof theMoldavianRomanians' is a studyof the Romanians of Moldavia fromtheir earliestattestation,which the author dates to the twelfthcentury, down to the unificationof Bessarabia with Romania in I9I8. The concluding chapter offersbiographicalsketches of Romanians and Moldavians who have affirmedthe Romanian identity of the Moldavians during the twentieth century. As such Ghimpu's work is an extremelyvaluable tool of reference,but it is writtenas a lesson forpreaching to the converted. Thoughtful readers are bound to note that there is little discussion of the meaning of moldovean in a late twentieth-century context, REVIEWS 347 indeed the use of romanilor moldoveni 'Moldavian Romanians' in the very title invites the question 'Why not moldovenilor roma'ni'Romanian Moldavians'? since many of the people Ghimpu is talkingabout now live in the Republic of Moldova (I will not confuse mattersby repeating the debate about the use in Englishof Moldavia and Moldova). The issue of a distinctMoldovan identity is raisedbut then dismissedon linguisticgrounds,while the cleavage between Moldovanswho considerthemselvesRomanian and those -including native speakersof Romanian who do not is ignored. In spiteof theselacunae Ghimpu'sbook deservesaplace in thebibliography of studies of Romanian national consciousness. It is well-documented, introduces evidence from sources in Russian and other Slavonic languages, and in this respect offersadditional perspectivesto the history of Romanian national identity. School ofSlavonic andEastEuropean Studies DENNIS DELETANT Urniversity College London Szvak, Gyula (ed.). MestoRossiiv Evrope. Materialy mezhdunarodnoi konferentsii. Magyar Ruszisztikai Intezet, Budapest,I999. 271 pp. Notes. Price unknown. JFworksof collective authorshipare often difficultto review, proceedings of internationalconferences areyet more challenging, and the presentvolume is in this respect perfectly characteristic. Here are the papers of thirty-six scholars presented at a conference organized and sponsored by the new Centre for Russian Studies at Lorand Eotvos University in Budapestin May of I998. Though the title of the volume does not indicate it, in fact the coverage extends from the early Kievan era to the end of the eighteenth century. Approximatelyhalf the contributingscholarsare Hungarian, eleven are Russian, five are Anglo-American, and one is German. About three quarters of the papers are published in Russian...