The Theatre of Nationalism
Martin McCauley on a wide-ranging survey of national identity and politics in Eastern Europe
National Minorities in Eastern Europe 1848-1945 by Raymond Pearson
x + 249 pp. (Macmillan, 1983)
Eastern Europe has provided the spark which has ignited two world wars during our present century. Whereas it was the West's cordon sanitaire against Bolshevik expansion between 1917 and 1944, it is today the Soviet Union's cordon sanitaire against the West. The perception of the present US administration is that Moscow would go as far as nuclear war to defend its hegemony over the region. Almost certainly this is correct. What is so significant about this region to permit it to influence so deeply the evolution of Europe and the world in the twentieth century?
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