The Hungarians: A Divided Nation by Stephen BorsodyReview by: Martyn RadyThe Slavonic and East European Review, Vol. 67, No. 4 (Oct., 1989), pp. 640-641Published by: the Modern Humanities Research Association and University College London, School ofSlavonic and East European StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4210130 .

Accessed: 17/06/2014 23:29

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

.

Modern Humanities Research Association and University College London, School of Slavonic and EastEuropean Studies are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Slavonic andEast European Review.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 185.2.32.109 on Tue, 17 Jun 2014 23:29:12 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

640 THE SLAVONIC REVIEW

producing a co-ordinated foreign and security policy; while the military establishments decided that Trieste was a key base to hold, diplomats and politicians worked for a withdrawal of Anglo-American troops.

The Tito-Stalin split had shifted the line of confrontation between East and West to the east of Trieste. No longer a 'microcosm of the Cold War' (pp. ix and i 68), Trieste became, instead, an example of the difficulties of mediating without antagonizing. The Western Powers' efforts to solve the Italo-Yugoslav impasse over the next five years were embarrassingly counter-productive, however successful the 'open agreement, secretly arrived at' (Anthony Eden, Full Circle (London, I 960), p. i 88) of I 954 finally was.

Dr Rabel has exhausted the British and American diplomatic archives on this topic. One might wonder, however, what treasures Rome and Belgrade have in store for somebody who thinks that half a dozen books on one of the more tiresome side-shows of the Cold War are not enough. Ebenhausen BEATRICE HEUSER

Borsody, Stephen (ed). The Hungarians: A Divided Nation. Yale Russian and East European Publications, New Haven, I988. xxviii + 405 pp. Biblio- graphy. Documents. Appendixes. Tables. Maps. Chronology. Index. $28.00.

GIVEN the renewed interest in the condition of Rumania's Hungarian population, this book of essays serves as a timely reminder as to the fate of those other Hungarian minorities in Eastern Europe. In compiling the collection, the editor has drawn on contributions from a number of East European scholars including Ka6lman Janics, one of the few surviving mem- bers of the older generation of Hungarian scholars who continue to live and write in Slovakia. In this respect, the volume fulfils an important collaborative purpose, made all the more significant by the sensitivity of its subject matter.

The Hungarians: A Divided Nation consists altogether of some sixteen articles supported by appendixes and documentary annexes. The central section of the work outlines recent history and developments among the Hungarian commu- nities of Slovakia, Transylvania, Vojvodina and the Carpatho-Ukraine. Although Steven Vardy's study of the Hungarian population now dwelling in the Transcarpathian oblast' of the Ukrainian SSR is the first substantial offering on this subject in any language, much of the information given in this section is already familiar. Nevertheless, the individual contributors achieve a masterly synthesis both of the current research and of their own previously published findings. George Sch6pflin thus explains the cultural and ideo- logical springs of official Rumanian intolerance; Kalman Janics bravely discusses the issue of post-war population transfers and the continuing process of 'Slovakization'; and Andrew Ludanyi exposes the limits of 'ethnocultural pluralism' in modern Yugoslavia. These essays are prefaced with studies on the historical and political background to the division of the Hungarian nation, and are followed by a concluding section on East European solutions, past and predicated.

This content downloaded from 185.2.32.109 on Tue, 17 Jun 2014 23:29:12 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

REVIEWS 641

It cannot be contested that the lot of the Hungarian minorities in Eastern Europe is a hard one, vitiated by cultural pauperization and by discriminatory pressures. This circumstance is explained by the contributors in largely historical terms: as the product of distrust and insecurity sharpened by the experience of two world wars. Accordingly, the solution advocated in the editor's conclusion is to 'build bridges' between nations and to promote regional co-operation, even to the extent of reviving the ghost of a Danubian federation. The degree to which the present ideological complexion of Eastern Europe has contributed to minority difficulties by disallowing the principle of free association is, however, an issue only obliquely addressed. In this respect, the absence of a comparative survey of the small Hungarian community in the Austrian Burgenland is all the more to be regretted.

London MARTYN RADY

Ascher, Abraham (ed.). Studying Russian and Soviet History. Social Science Education Consortium, Boulder, Colorado, I 987. I 22 pp. Index. $9.95.

THE thirteen essays in this collection originated in a series of 'refresher' seminars aimed at assisting high-school history teachers to tackle the 'daunt- ing task of making Russian history . .. intelligible to young Americans'. The said teachers should consider themselves lucky to have been addressed by such a distinguished team: Edward Keenan with an introduction to the 'deep structures' of Russian history, and Andrzej S. Kaminski, Marc Raeff, Richard Wortman, Abraham Ascher, Robert C. Tucker, and Vojtech Mastny each providing a survey of themes and a bibliographical essay on their specialist area, from Kievan Rus' to the I98os. Despite their expertise, all the authors succeed in being accessible about basics without sounding patronizing or bland, and some take advantage of the opportunity to air pet theories, for example Raeff on the 'well-ordered police state', and Keenan on patrimonial politics. Several of the offerings might 'refresh' even the jaded palates and yellowing lecture notes of seasoned university teachers of Russian history, notably Keenan's, which examines some of the stereotypes and preconceived notions of Russian history, dismissing such cherished concepts as the influence of Byzantium and the Tatars, and focusing on the development of 'group mentality' arising from cultural patterns of subsistence agriculture. Wortman is lucid on intellectual history to I9I7, and Tucker lively on Stalin's 'Red Russian patriotism'; his essay is also garnished with some personal remi- niscences of Moscow in May I945. Mastny's piece manages to include the advent of Gorbachev, although, oddly, glasnost' is mentioned but not peres- troika. It is a pity that the authors did not have time to assess the Gorbachev phenomenon in the light of patterns and themes in their specialist areas. School of Slavonic and East European Studies LINDSEY HUGHES

University ofLondon

This content downloaded from 185.2.32.109 on Tue, 17 Jun 2014 23:29:12 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions