762 SEER, 82, 3, 2004 to explore many lines of enquiryand to engage productivelywith the work of scholars of Russian peasant law, education, religious beliefs, economic practice, and materialculture. Department ofHistogy PETER GATRELL University ofManchester Puttkamer,Joachim von. Schulalltag undnationale Integration in Ungarn. Slowaken, Rumdnen undSiebenbiirger Sachsen in derAuseinandersetzung mitderungarischen Staatsidee I867-I9 I4. Stidosteuropaische Arbeiten,II5. R. Oldenbourg Verlag, Munich, 2003. Tables. Notes. Map. Bibliographies. Index. ?64.80. THE SUDOSTINSTITUTE in Munich has to date published well over one hundred volumes examining in detail the complex social, political, cultural and economic issues concerning the Balkans and adjacent areas in the last two and even earlier - centuries. Professor von Puttkamer's very substantialstudy of Hungarian national educational policy in the fiftyyears preceding the First World War provides a penetrating analysis of the conflicting interestsand objectives of the dominant Hungarian majorityand the most importantminoritiesinhabitingthe Hungarianpartof the Habsburg Empire. The author's attention concentrates upon the Slovaks, Romanians, and Germans, but includes also the Serbs and Ruthenians, with some referencesto theJews. As such, the book is, obviously, the result of very thorough research, extending over severalyears and involving a detailed scrutinyand appraisal of parliamentary debates, the work of governmental commissions, laws, circularsand regulations,school curricula,reportsof school inspectors,school textbooks, educational periodicals, materialsavailable in the districtarchives in numerous towns and cities as well as the work of the differentminorities' culturalassociations.This itself makes the book a most valuable and reliable source of information which will for years serve many future scholars and researchersin thefield. In addition,the book will certainlybe of greatvalue to all those who pursue comparative studies concerning educational policy and educational developments in the period of increasing pressures emanating from the centres of political power designed to ensure national loyalty and culturalcohesion. Focusingattention upon Hungaryin the period I 867-I 914 fillsthe lacuna existingin the grandtheme of imperialdesignsto use education as a very importantmeans of promoting nationalintegrationin ethnicallyand culturallyhighly diverse empires. The volume also greatly helps our understanding of the roots of ethnic tensions and national rivalries in the later decades of the nineteenth and the earlyyears of the twentieth century in this partof Centraland EasternEurope. One can, indeed, go one stepfurtherand confirm the author's conviction that his book opens up new theoretical perspectives in its emphasis on the importance of the existing 'official government educational policy as rooted in the tension between structural modernization and nationalities'policy, by paying attention to the dailywork REVIEWS 763 at school from the perspective of the competing strategiesaiming at national integrationaswell as by facilitatinginter-regionalcomparisons'(p. 68). The structureof the book is very clear. The author considers in turn: the state's national education policy in a multicultural environment; national education policy and Church autonomy; state language and its teaching in a multicultural society; the concept of the nation and the impact of the coexistence within one stateof many nations and nationalitiesupon educational arrangements; the significance of National Days and the portrayal of the nation; school pupils and, finally, the schools in Hungary in the period I867-19I4 the concluding assessment. It is clear that many issues are multi-dimensionaland cut right across the differentchapters. Consequently, a degree of overlapbetween the differentsectionsis simplyunavoidable,but it is necessary in order to examine fully and coherently each theme under consideration. Naturally, the most important position in the analysis is occupied by the most influentialMinisters of Culture and Education,Jozsef Eotvos and Albert Apponyi and the two crucial educational laws associated with them (theLex Apponyi definedby the authoras the culminatingpoint of the repressiveHungariannationalitiespolicy of theAusgleich period [p. I 28]). The real strengthof the evidence collected and presentedin the book is the precise characterof the angle of analysis.The backgroundand the position of each particular minority and each religious denomination is examined in detail throughoutthe period in question, almostyear afteryear, in relationto all the major educational issues. These include: the socio-culturalcharacteristics of each minority and their impact upon the educational process; alternativestrategiesfor modernization;teaching in the mother tongue or in Hungarian; financial provision; the changing professional background of teachers and their command of the Hungarian language; the role of the different forms of out-of-school activities such as reading circles and youth organizations...