Yalta Conference Research Articles

The Conversion of Senator Arthur Vandenberg: From Isolation to International Engagement by Lawrence S. Kaplan

Reviewed by: The Conversion of Senator Arthur Vandenberg: From Isolation to International Engagement by Lawrence S. Kaplan Gregory L. Schneider Lawrence S. Kaplan, The Conversion of Senator Arthur Vandenberg: From Isolation to International Engagement. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2015. 294pp. $45.00. Any student of the origins of the Cold War has probably heard about or read a story about a meeting between Michigan Republican Senator Arthur Vandenberg, consummately described as an old Right isolationist, with President Harry Truman. The date was January 1947 and the subject was Soviet pressure on Greece and Turkey. The new Republican majority, skeptical of the containment idea and of an expanded foreign presence in Europe, had to be scared about the threat of communism and the necessity of aiding Greece and Turkey with military and economic aid to resist Soviet pressure. Vandenberg was said to be so scared and wound up eschewing his isolationism and embracing the Truman Doctrine. Nothing in history is ever so neat. Vandenberg, a former Teddy Roosevelt progressive in his youth, had not been so scared. Rather, as this superb biography of the Senator and his transition to internationalism reveals, the transition from isolationism to internationalism was more gradual and evolutionary. It was not Soviet pressure on Greece and Turkey which played the major role in this transition; rather, it was Pearl Harbor six years before which played the crucial role in turning a skeptic about internationalism into an internationalist. Lawrence Kaplan is well positioned to tell this story as the master historian of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and as a student of American–European relations. Vandenberg was a Grand Rapids newspaperman, who spent one year at the University of Michigan before becoming editor of the Grand Rapids Herald. The editorial line was progressive Republican and so were Vandenberg’s politics. In 1928 he was appointed to an open Senate seat to fill a vacancy and during his time in Congress pursued a working relationship with both Herbert Hoover and with Democrat Franklin Roosevelt. While no New Dealer, he was also not a laissez-faire conservative and not a practitioner of the conservative anti-New Deal politics embodied on the political Right in those years. Vandenberg’s true interest remained foreign affairs and he was a committed isolationist. He had been a member of the Nye Committee hearings and had fought against the power of the munitions makers and war profiteers, giving many speeches in Michigan about the desire to keep out of foreign wars. Amazingly, given the drift toward New Deal liberalism in Michigan [End Page 139] and the sight of sit-down strikes in early 1937, Vandenberg easily won reelection as a Republican, showing his fungible manner in representing himself as an isolationist on foreign affairs and as a progressive on domestic matters. World War II changed Vandenberg’s views and moderated his prewar isolationism. He gained significant national attention for a speech reiterating a desire for a strong internationalism given on the floor of the Senate on January 10, 1945, a few weeks before FDR departed for the Yalta conference. The speech showed his growing internationalism and pursuit of clarification of the necessity for a new approach in American foreign policy. (Kaplan considered it such an important turning point that it is republished in the index to the book.) The speech drew notice from the administration and Vandenberg was named a delegate to the San Francisco conference to establish the United Nations. He worked diligently and sought the advice of both John Foster Dulles, the senior delegate to the conference and columnist Walter Lippmann. He took the work seriously and supported the San Francisco Treaty and the establishment of the UN. At the same time he developed a realistic assessment of the Soviet Union and was not prepared to accept the administration’s approach that Josef Stalin could be worked with to shape the peace. In this question regarding the onset of the Cold War it would have been nice to see more engagement with recent assessments of Truman by scholars like Wilson Miscamble’s From Roosevelt to Truman, which shows that the president was not the hard liner on the Soviets until late...

„Linia królewska Odry” − literackie strategie „pisania narodu” na przykładzie sygnifikacji polskości Ziem Odzyskanych w powieści piastowskiej (od II wojny światowej do 1989 roku)

Artykuł poświęcony jest procesowi sygnifikacji Ziem Odzyskanych na przykładzie tzw. powieści piastowskiej, która jest podtypem powieści historycznej. Proces literackiego i historiograficznego „pisania narodu” odbywa się w literaturze współczesnej zarówno za sprawą dyskursów historii, w tym tzw. polityki historycznej, wspieranej przez instytucje narodowe, promującej określoną, pożądaną przez rządzących wizję, jak i odmiennych wobec powyższych dyskursów pamięci, obejmujących mikrohistorię, autobiografizm, narracje lokalne itd. Wydaje się, że na przykładzie strategii sygnifikacji polskości Ziem Odzyskanych w powieści piastowskiej można wykazać, iż zjawisko „pisania narodu” (Homi K. Bhabha) ma w dużej mierze charakter procesualny, perswazyjny i przygodny, narzucony wymogami polityki. Powieść piastowska jako elementem tzw. „pedagogiki narodowej” (Bhabha) miała dla polskich władz szczególne znaczenie. Poprzez odwołanie do czasów panowania w Polsce dynastii piastowskiej, kiedy to ziemie zwane po II wojnie światowej odzyskanymi wchodziły w skład państwa polskiego, można było na nowo związać je w świadomości społecznej z terytorium kraju. Powieść piastowska umożliwiała więc zakorzenienie postanowień jałtańskich w sferze mitycznych wyobrażeń historycznych i symbolicznych, przez co terytorialne przesunięcia nabrały znamion czytelniejszego, bo historycznie usprawiedliwionego procesu odszkodowawczego. Utwory Karola Bunscha, Antoniego Gołubiewa czy Władysława Jana Grabskiego doskonale wpisywały się w proces związywania północnych i zachodnich terytoriów z resztą kraju i jako takie odpowiadały zarówno na zapotrzebowanie władz, jak i społeczeństwa, stając się elementem budowania fantazmatycznej wspólnotowej narracji fundacyjnej.

The Yalta Conference of the “Big Three” in 1945 and Ukraine’s Appearance on the International Stage

The article analyzes the decisions of the Yalta international conference of the leaders of the Allied States, i.e. USSR, USA and UK, aimed at solving the key issues of the final stage of war with Nazi Germany and its satellites: coordination of military activities, creation of four occupation zones on German territory, declared common goal of unconditional surrender as well as the principles of the post-war demilitarization and denazification of Germany, just punishment of war criminals, compensation for damages caused by the Nazis and creation of the inter-Alliance Control Commission in Moscow.
 The article considers the agreed decisions on establishing a permanent mechanism for regular consultations among the three Foreign Ministers of the Allied States related to post-war arrangement and order in Europe and the world as well as the Allies’ policy on liberated territories. The author analyses the conditions leading to creation of the new system of relations and spheres of influence of the great powers in the world. The article contains a special analysis of Allies’ decisions regarding creation of the UN and inclusion of Ukraine into the number of states-founders of this international organization. The issues related to legal capacity of Ukraine in the post-war decades are also considered.

The strokes that killed Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin

From February 4 to 11, 1945, President Franklin D. Roosevelt of the United States, Soviet Union Premier Joseph Stalin, and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill met near Yalta in Crimea to discuss how post-World War II (WWII) Europe should be organized. Within 2 decades of this conference, all 3 men had died. President Roosevelt died 2 months after the Yalta Conference due to a hemorrhagic stroke. Premier Stalin died 8 years later, also due to a hemorrhagic stroke. Finally, Prime Minister Churchill died 20 years after the conference because of complications due to stroke. At the time of Yalta, these 3 men were the leaders of the most powerful countries in the world. The subsequent deterioration of their health and eventual death had varying degrees of historical significance. Churchill's illness forced him to resign as British prime minister, and the events that unfolded immediately after his resignation included Britain's mismanagement of the Egyptian Suez Crisis and also a period of mistrust with the United States. Furthermore, Roosevelt was still president and Stalin was still premier at their times of passing, so their deaths carried huge political ramifications not only for their respective countries but also for international relations. The early death of Roosevelt, in particular, may have exacerbated post-WWII miscommunication between America and the Soviet Union-miscommunication that may have helped precipitate the Cold War.

Rethinking the Yalta Conference

Rethinking the Yalta Conference

Первая Крымская (Ялтинская) конференция геоботаников

Первая Крымская (Ялтинская) конференция геоботаников

Russians at the Gates

Russians at the Gates Durs Grünbein (bio) Translated by Karen Leeder (bio) For the most part they were unobtrusive, almost invisible—our occupying power. Their day-to-day life carried on behind closed doors, as if someone were trying to shield them from us, or maybe us from them. They lived a hidden life in the barracks, behind the crooked fences and walls that were made impenetrable by skeins of barbed wire, like a hedge of rose thorns. But anyway, who would have dared try to climb over, who would have had the courage to infiltrate the forbidden zone on the other side? Not even we children were brave enough to give each other a leg up over the wall, though our knees were sometimes itching to. It wasn’t hard to imagine what it was like behind the walls—over there with the Ivans—as people called them ironically behind their backs. Or the Russians, as was said, though still sotto voce, since the word was strange and chauvinistic too—and we all knew it. But talking about Soviets wasn’t the answer either. Those who used the phrase on official occasions or at school felt immediately that there was something embarrassing, something not quite right about the hypocritical turn of phrase. The problem was that there was no suitable designation for these strangers in our country. Everyone knew that they were one of the victorious occupying powers at the end of the Second World War; their dominance in our country was such a dirty open secret that no one dared say it out loud. Our own country: nothing but a Soviet satrapy? An idea scarcely to be admitted, even in a dream. Instead, one put on a diplomatic face, mumbled some desultory words about friendship between peoples, and every so often, on high feasts and holidays, spoke with due pathos about our Soviet brothers. This kind of comradeship—the sort acted out at parades rather than genuinely felt—was in the spirit of Lenin. Right at the start of the revolution Lenin had made internationalism the duty of every enlightened communist. It was his successor who was forced to change direction and restrict it to the Motherland—because the rest of the world was lagging hopelessly behind. There was a second chance after victory over Germany, the “deadly foe” or, for the time being at least, “necessary ally.” But this was also a chance to pick up again where they had been forced to give up the previous time, owing to lack of enthusiasm on the part of the German working class. This time they wanted to export the Bolshevist order, completely and without illusion, and build on the collapse that made the idealism of its participants superfluous. A few marks scribbled on a map of Europe at the Yalta conference decided in which zone of influence the people of the defeated nation would live from now on and who [End Page 112] were the new masters in this fragmented land. And so one day, shortly after the end of the War, the Russians entered Dresden. They took over the old complex of barracks to the north of the city, set up an exercise area on the Heller heath, distributed themselves among various quarters and official buildings throughout the various districts of the city, and were there to stay. Soon it was as if they had always been there. They belonged to the city like the women trailing home with their shopping bags at teatime, the red coaches of the Tatra trams, and the trash bins made of gunned concrete. Only later, long after the troops had been withdrawn from the eastern part of Germany, did it become apparent how rarely one of their soldiers was to be seen on the postcards of the period. Their day-to-day activities never even got a mention in the local section of the newspaper. They remained a foreign tribe among the Germans. It was, with them, the same as with certain neighbors who never become more than strangers even though we see them every day. They always presented an exotic sight, mostly turning up in small groups, uniformed...

France in Soviet Foreign Policy, 1943–45

Using a new evidence from the Russian, French and British archives and the recently published diplomatic documents, this paper explores the main trends of the Soviet policy with respect to France between the “decisive turn” in the War in 1943 and the Yalta conference in 1945. Reappraising the traditional narrative about the successful and friendly Soviet-French cooperation, author underlines the pragmatic reasons which governed Moscow’s diplomacy. Stalin’s and Soviet diplomats’ attitude to de Gaulle wasn’t static and evolved during the war, though the basic features persisted. Stalin attuned his French policy to the dynamics of the relations inside the “Grand Alliance”. The aim of the Soviet-French rapprochement for Moscow was to provide a possible ally in a case of new war against Germany; to support de Gaulle, whom Moscow preferred to British and American proteges; to facilitate a work of the French communists and a growth of their influence, to prevent an anti-Soviet drift of France and to strengthen the Soviet positions in the “Polish question”

Yalta 1945: the Black Sea Straits and the War in the Far East

In the scientific literature on the Yalta conference of leaders of the three powers of the coalition there are no studies that reveal its naval aspects. Meanwhile, among the issues that had significance for the Soviet delegation, they held even if not the first priority, but were quite prominent. In the Russian historiography attention to these matters appeared only in the early 1990s, most likely because the Soviet side in negotiations had a negative impact on the formation of the post-war world order. Contemporary Russian historians are in line with the tradition, a feature of which was a lack of attention to the maritime policy of the Soviet Union, especially in the 1921 - 1955. It is clear, however, that projects of this scale, which required the mobilization of all resources of the Soviet state, creation of the most advanced shipbuilding and entirely new industries for the country and high-tech industries, could not arise in a vacuum. Behind this processes were certain political goals, and when the war began Stalin stopped work on the first "big shipbuilding program" though it did not mean that he refused them. This hypothesis is based and presented in this article.

The Eagle Unbowed. Poland and the Poles in the Second World War by Halik Kochanski (review)

THE EAGLE UNBOWED. POLAND AND THE POLES IN THE SECOND WORLD WAR Halik Kochanski. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2012. xxxi + 734 pp.World War II is the most traumatic event in the history of a catastrophe of biblical proportions. Thousands of books and articles have been devoted to the contribution to this but most of them concentrate on particular events, military operations, organizations, diplomatic negotiations, and other individual phenomena related to World War II. All these publications cannot substitute a general panoramic history of Poland during the war. There are only a handful of books of this kind and most of them are either outdated or unimpressive. situation is particularly difficult if one looks for publications in English. appearance of the book under review awoke great expectations by scholars, educators, and general English language readers. To most of them a history of Poland during World War II is an unknown topic. Eagle Unbowed can change this. Unfortunately, due to many shortcomings, it cannot be accepted as a definite work in this field.The book, supplemented with two appendices (Order of Battle of the 1939-1945 and Principal Personalities), is divided into 18 chapters. first, The Rebirth of Poland, offers a history of Poland in a nutshell. next three chapters depict the unfolding events in a chronological order: Polish Foreign Policy, 1920-1939, The September 1939 Campaign, and The German and Soviet Occupation of Poland to June 5, Exile in the Soviet Union, describes the tragic fate of the citizens deported to Siberia and Kazakhstan. next chapter, Escape from the Soviet Union, shows how a part of these deportees moved to Iran with the Army formed in Russia in late 1941. 7, Poland's Contribution to the Allied War Effort, 1940-1943, reviews participation in the French campaign, the Battle of Britain, and the Allied intelligence. 8, Polish Non-combatants Outside 1941-1943, portrays refugee communities all over the world and is followed by chapters The Dark Years: Occupied 1941-1943, The Holocaust, 1941-1943, and Sikorski's Diplomacy, 1941-1943. 12 and 13, Threats to the Standing of the Government-in-Exile and the Underground Authorities and The Dilemma: Retreat of the Germans and the Advance of the Red Army, describe the worsening of the situation in 1943 and 1944. 14, Poland: Inconvenient Ally, describes a desperate diplomatic fight for the postwar borders and sovereignty of Poland. In chapter 15, Fighting under British Command, 1943-1945, the author returns to military history but chapter 16, The End of War, is again about diplomacy, the Yalta Conference, and the Allied compromise on a new government in Poland. 17, The Aftermath of the War, depicts the post-1945 near civil war in Poland and the situation of the Poles in the West. The Final Chapter is devoted to the struggle for the truth about the Katyn massacre and to the contemporary reckoning with the history of World War II. …

The Ghosts of Appeasement: Britain and the Legacy of the Munich Agreement

This article is concerned with British foreign policy and the legacy of the Munich Agreement during and after the Second World War. It argues that contemporary policy requirements necessitated an unapologetic attitude to the past that often entailed the adoption of evasive legal formulae. Thus, while West Germany and Czechoslovakia achieved a modus vivendi in 1973, the British refused to repudiate Munich ab initio and applauded the West German decision to do likewise. London steadfastly maintained this position until 1992, three years after the end of the Cold War. This article explores the reasoning in British policy formulation and demonstrates that while historians discussed the ‘shame’ of Munich, policymakers rarely experienced feelings of guilt – seeking instead to derive the maximum possible benefit from the continuing significance of Munich. Furthermore, many of the actions of the British government during the Second World War, not least with regard to the Katyń massacres and the Yalta Conference, reinforced the idea that Munich had been a creature of its time and a ‘necessary evil’. Drawing extensively on primary sources, this article will make a contribution to the historiography of British foreign relations and that of collective institutional memory and appeasement.

Lviv in the U.S. Polish Emigrants’ Press after World War II

The article discusses occurrences of topics related to Lviv in Polish opinion-forming newspapers in exile in the United States after World War II. The author followed the New Diaryin the years 1971–1999, together with its appendices, Polish Week (1971–1981) and Polish Review (1981–1999), published in New York. These titles had a wide scope of influence. The analysis of the newspapers’ contents revealed that a small, dispersed community from Lviv, who emigrated to the United States and centered around the Lviv Circle, made their works public regularly in the pages of the New Diary. However, compared with the incidence of the same themes in the Polish emigrants’ press in Western Europe during the same period, it was a marginal phenomenon about accidental topics. The texts mainly focused on unmasking the Soviet authorities’ actions to eliminate traces of Polish culture from Lviv, the devastation of the Lviv Eaglets Cemetery. Additionally, they posted pictures of the Poltva, poems devoted to the city, and anniversary reminiscences of the Lviv defense of 1918. Topics related to Lviv abroad were mostly the domain of its former citizens, who had been forced to leave the city without possibility of return (thanks to the provisions of the Yalta Conference)—journalists, academics, and activists in exile, regularly associated with magazines from the British Isles (the White Eagle, News, Polish Diary, and Soldier’s Diary) as well as Culture from Paris.

La politique soviétique envers le Japon pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale

AbstractThis paper argues that Soviet policy during World War II in Europe was from the very beginning integrally connected with its policy toward the Far East. At the Yalta Conference, Stalin agreed to join the war three months after Germany surrendered in return for the war trophies promised by Franklin D. Roosevelt. In April, the Soviet government notified the Japanese government that it had no intention to renew the Neutrality Pact, but assured the Japanese that the pact would be in force until it expired in April 1946. Hiding behind the cloak of neutrality, the Soviet Union transported troops and equipment to the Far East in preparation for the war against Japan. In July, the Japanese government sought Moscow’s mediation to terminate the war. Stalin took advantage of the Japanese request to prolong the war. Despite his expectations, however, Stalin was excluded from the Potsdam Declaration at the Potsdam Conference. The race began between Harry S. Truman, who wanted to force Japan to surrender with the atomic bomb, and Stalin, who intended to enter the war before Japan’s surrender.

WHAT DID ROOSEVELT AND CHURCHILL REALLY AIM TO ACHIEVE FOR POLAND AT YALTA? WAS YALTA THE PRICE OF PEACE?

Much has been written over the last sixty-five years on the Big Three Yalta Conference of February 1945; there are many studies and documentary publications as well as ? except for Russia ? unrestricted access to archival sources. S. M. Plokhy,1 a historian born and educated in Ukraine and Moscow, professor of Ukrainian History at Harvard University and author of several books on Russian and Ukrainian history, has written another study, but this time within a broader framework than those published up to now. In the introduction to the book under review he stresses the need to set the Yalta Conference in its historical context as a wartime summit when victory over Germany was close, but not yet achieved. He also believes that the three Allied statesmen ? President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill and Joseph V. Stalin ? helped end the war and established the conditions for a negotiated peace, however imperfect that peace turned out to be. Their agreements, he claims, helped preserve the longest peace in European history (xxvi). As he admits, these agreements did, however, involve the sacrifice of principles dear to the Western statesmen because the price was the subjection of half of Europe to a totalitarian r?gime (xxvi). Plokhy interweaves background information with a lively account of the discussions and agreements on the issues facing the Big Three at the Yalta Conference of February 4-11, 1945: Western-Soviet military cooperation in the final phase of the European war; the dismemberment of Germany; reparations; the membership of and voting procedure in the U.N. Security Council; Soviet cooperation with the United States in the war against Japan; Soviet POW repatriation and what appeared to be the major political problem: the make-up of a new Polish provisional government and

Simulating the Cold War: The Yalta Conference

Many of our students would rather be anywhere else on earth than in our classrooms. With the aid of the latest technologies, they have developed skills that allow them to be physically present, but mentally in another world, taking on a series of other identities—email correspondent, movie viewer, photo editor, social network commentator, and consumer, among others. Rather than despair in the face of this behavior, however, teachers can channel those escapist desires for educational purposes. This historical simulation on the 1945 Yalta Conference keeps students in the classroom but encourages and, indeed, requires them to take on new roles. Students talk, act, and walk like world political leaders, all the while paying careful consideration to an event that shaped the direction of world history for the next forty-five years. The aftermath of World War II is critical to an understanding of how the Cold War developed. As the Allied powers approached victory over Japan, Germany, and Italy, nations began diplomatic negotiations with each other which would profoundly shape the contours of the Cold War. At Yalta, the leaders of the three major Allied powers— President Franklin Roosevelt of the United States, Prime Minister Winston Churchill of Great Britain, and Premier Joseph Stalin of the Soviet Union—met in February 1945 to discuss the postwar world. These leaders sought to defeat Nazi Germany as rapidly as possible, but they were also concerned about the future. Anticipating conflict with each other, American and Soviet leaders sought to establish a postwar world in their own best interests, while the British, uncomfortable as a second rate power, hoped to protect their power base and so emerge as the leader of a powerful postwar western Europe. Many Cold War disputes have their origins in the agreements and disagreements at Yalta.

Formulas of the Settlement at the Yalta Conference STURY ON PEACE AND WAR II

Formulas of the Settlement at the Yalta Conference STURY ON PEACE AND WAR II

The status and the future of Baltic States and Romania in the strategy of Western Allies in the early years of the Second World War: a comparative view

The fate of Lithuania and Romania as well as future of the whole Central and Eastern European region was determined in the years of the Second World War. The common origin of their tragic and painful history was the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact – the secret deal between Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, which divided Central and Eastern Europe between two totalitarian regimes. In June 1940 the three Baltic States and a part of Romania were directly occupied and annexed by the Soviet Union. The main objective of this paper is to identify, analyze and compare the attitudes of the United States and Great Britain with respect to the annexation of the Baltic States and the Romania territory and discussed the post-war future reserved to them. During the early years of the Second Word War (1940-1942) few interesting international discussions about possible post-war arrangement plans existed. The analysis of the Western attitude would enable us to give answers to certain questions: What could have been done by the Western states for the benefit of Central and Eastern European region; what have they, in fact, done and what did they avoid doing? The year 1943 witnessed the consolidation of the Western attitude with regard to Soviet Union’s western borders, which resulted in the fundamental fact that Moscow did not intend to retract its interests in the Baltic States, Eastern Poland, North Bucovina and Bessarabia while the West did not intend to fight for these territories. Considering the fact that at the Teheran conference (1943) the Western states agreed upon turning the Baltic states into a Soviet interest sphere, the United States and Britain entered the Yalta conference (1945) with no illusions as to the fate of Central and Eastern Europe in general.

Ukraine and Russia: Representations of the Past (review)

Reviewed by: Ukraine and Russia: Representations of the Past John-Paul Himka Plokhy, Serhii — Ukraine and Russia: Representations of the Past. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008. Pp. 391. This is a readable, stimulating collection of articles on issues relating to the intersection of Ukrainian and Russian historiography. Of the 16 chapters, 13 had been previously published, but they have been modified for the present volume, and they fit together well. Themes on which Serhii Plokhy has previously published monographs figure prominently in this collection, especially Cossacks (chapters 2, 4, 6, 7, 9, 11, 15), but also the Ukrainian historian Mykhailo Hrushevsky (chapters 5 and 6) and iconography (chapter 4). The chapters are insightful essays based on published sources rather than monographic articles based on archival research. The last essay in the book, written especially for this volume, is entitled "Beyond Nationality." It analyses the pluses and minuses of writing in the national paradigm, particularly with reference to Ukrainian history. Not only does it sort out what national history captures and misses, but it explains how it positions practitioners in contemporary Ukraine. "Writing traditional national history today means contributing to the isolationism and provincialism of East European historiography," while "younger historians want to be part of the larger European and world community of historians" (p. 284). Plokhy also feels that the multi-ethnic, territorial approach is little better, since it too "is liable to lapse into primordialism, a teleological approach, and the marginalization of non-ethnic groups and institutions" (p. 293). He himself leans towards "transnational history," which operates with larger zones and larger polities. Most importantly, he sees Ukraine as a borderland "not only between Eastern and Central Europe but also between Eastern Europe and the Balkans, the Mediterranean world, and the Eurasian steppelands" (p. 301). I understand this last essay to be a reckoning with or conceptualization of directions his work had been taking earlier, but perhaps more intuitively. Indeed, there is much in the previous 15 essays that is transnational. The penultimate chapter is in fact entitled "Crossing National Boundaries." This essay argues the utility of studying Ukrainian and Russian Cossacks also within the framework of Cossackdom and not just within the frameworks of Russian or Ukrainian history. Chapter 12 on "Remembering Yalta" is also particularly transnational. It concentrates on the commemoration and lack of commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of the Yalta Conference in 1945, but it examines the [End Page 509] local contexts that produce the varying attitudes toward the anniversary on the part of Russia, Latvia, Poland, Ukraine, and the United States. Russia, which has "refused to separate its heroes from its tyrants and condemn the atrocities committed in the name of communism," was the most enthusiastic about Yalta, the Big Three including Stalin, and VE Day, which, after all, "initiated the era of Soviet domination of Eastern Europe" (pp. 219, 214). This was a perspective none of the other countries could share. The Latvian president considered the Soviet period to be one of occupation and did not want to attend celebrations in Moscow at all. Only under pressure from George Bush did she attend. The stances of Poland and Ukraine were more ambivalent: Poland because, although Yalta brought Soviet domination, it also confirmed the borders of Poland's Western expansion; Ukraine because it is a divided country where some think like Russians and others like Balts and also because of complications with Tatars and the Crimea. The stance of the United States was bedeviled by the conflict between Republicans and Democrats over the legacy of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. As for President Bush, he had a clear agenda. He used the occasion "to support the countries of the new Europe that showed loyalty to the United States and embarrass President Putin" as well as "to legitimize his war in Iraq and his policy in the Middle East" (p. 237). Plokhy demonstrates that, at least sometimes, "historical debates are parochial or determined by local (national) agendas, traditions, fears, and complexes" (p. 234). The debates themselves, however, are transnational. Also, throughout this book are strewn little landmines for historians of the unreconstructed national persuasion. Chapter 14, for example, celebrates the brilliant Kyivan early modernist Natalia Yakovenko...

Myrna Loy: Co‐Principal Investigator

Myrna Loy: Co‐Principal Investigator

'Ich bin jetzt hier und das ist gut so.' Lebenswelten von Flüchtlingen und Vertriebenen in der Lausitz. Lětopis by Ines Keller (review)

i78 SEER, 86, I, 2008 denies responsibility for theKatyn massacre, more or less directly questions Roosevelt's good faith over Himmler's attempts to arrange a surrender and settlesmatters in Eastern Europe without regard for eitherRoosevelt or Churchill. Butler, in her otherwise helpful commentary, sometimes betrays a hagio graphical desire to impute toRoosevelt an influence he did not have, as when she speculates that Stalin's re-opening of Orthodox churches in 1943 was prompted by Roosevelt (p. 159). Elsewhere, Butler's grasp ofmilitary events seems less than absolutely certain as, for example, when she appears to believe that the final offensive inTunisia was thework ofMontgomery's 8th Army assisted by Patton (p. 117). But these are trivial points. In one important respect, however, she might have usefully extended the scope of the background information she supplies. US-Soviet relations in this period cannot be properly understood without some reference to the New Deal and the revolution in thinking about the socio-economic functions of the state that it introduced. This generated considerable sympathy for the Soviet Union among American intellectuals and Roosevelt's advisers included a very large number of unpaid and very well-placed Soviet sympathizers who, managed by Soviet agents, secretly passed information to the USSR government. When Stalin arrived at the Yalta conference he was fully informed about the American negotiating position on the basis of briefing provided to theGRU by Alger Hiss. This correspondence is an account of Roosevelt's supper with the devil. There is no doubt that it involved him in hideous moral compromise; Poland went to the slaughter bench of history. But Roosevelt's fundamental calculation was sound. He did not fail. At the expense of the enormous sacrifices he enabled Stalin to demand of Soviet soldiers,Roosevelt's steadfast ness of purpose saved Western Europe and the lives of millions of Allied soldiers. London A. H. Walker Keller, Ines. (Ich binjetzt hier und das istgut so.' Lebenswelten vonFl?chtlingen und Vertriebenen in derLausitz- Utopis. Zeitschrift f?r sorbische Sprache, Geschichte und Kultur. Sonderheft. Gesamtband 52. Domowina Verlag, Bautzen, 2005. 193pp. Notes. Bibliography. 12.00 (paperback). In August 1945 by the terms of the Potsdam Agreement theOder-Neisse line became Poland's provisional western frontier; but already, in the final stages of the war, millions of Germans from the territories east of the line had fled westwards. Millions more were later expelled and forced to seek refuge west of the line.The frontier of Czechoslovakia was also redrawn, involving the expulsion of Germans from the Sudetenland. By 1950 therewere about 12.5 million refugees in the four occupation zones. Part of Lusatia was now in Poland, but virtually the entire Sorbian speech-area lay west of the new frontier. REVIEWS 179 In the early days of peace the Sorbs gradually discovered they could now without fear use their language inpublic. InUpper Lusatia Sorbian was even fostered. In schools Sorbian came into use almost immediately, and before long in the churches too, both Catholic and Protestant, itwas heard once again. Sorbian priests and teachers, who had been deported by theNazis to other parts of Germany, came home. In Lower Lusatia progress was much slower, but here too the Sorbs were at least free again to speak their language in public. Simultaneously, however, in both Upper and Lower Lusatia, they discovered that their restored linguistic freedom was inhibited by the huge influx of German refugees. The new arrivals were in some cases surprised to find themselves in a part of Germany where the vernacular was not German. Some thought theywere in Poland. Many refugeesmade theirway furtherwestward, but others, believing the new frontier tobe temporary, settled for the timebeing inLusatia, where they believed theywould be well placed to return home at the firstopportunity. Interacting with the natives, they found that most of them could speak German quite well, if necessary, but preferred to speak Sorbian among themselves. There was a suspicion that they did so deliberately to exclude outsiders. Generally speaking, however, the Sorbs were ready to adapt to the new circumstances, and the linguistic situation began to change. In villages that hitherto had been Sorbian-speaking the vernacular changed to German. The second half...