Following the wave of renewed interest in the wake of the First World War centenary, recent years saw an increasing number of studies devoted to the peace settlement and new order in Europe, post 1918. Some of these studies offer new perspectives on previously understudied questions, such as concepts of non-territorial autonomy, cultures of defeat, and expert cultures. Others capitalize on more traditional research aiming at recapitulation of the state of the art in diplomatic and political history of the interwar period. The volume edited by Miloš Řezník, director of the German Historical Institute in Warsaw, and Dariusz Makiłła, co-head of the Management Board of the Foundation for Polish-German Cooperation, and with contributions by a couple of other high-ranking representatives of the Foundation, belongs to the latter category. Originating from a conference held in 2019 in Poznań, it is not an attempt at a coherent interpretation of the pivotal moment in the history of central Europe but rather a collection of summaries and small contributions.
The volume consists of a short preface, fifteen articles, and a list of contributors, roughly half of whom are Polish. There seems to be no clearly identifiable common explanation to their selection, besides, probably, having taken part in the 2019 conference. Among the contributions to the volume, most general are those of Vittoria Calabrò on Italy's war and postwar history; Dušan Kováč's German language description of the transformation of the Slovak society in the wake of the First World War; Marek Kornat's bulky text on the Polish minority treaty and its reception by political elites of the country; Ralph Schattkowsky's (again, German-language) article on Polish-German post-1919 relations; and Małgorzata Gmurczyk-Wrońska's contribution on French internal politics after the war. More specific topics are dealt with by Miloš Řezník (Ladins, Kashubians, and Lusatians in the context of the Paris Peace Conference); Ellena and Gennadiy Matveev (Soviet newspapers’ coverage of the Paris negotiations); Deona Çali (Turkish Albanians’ part in the Albanian representation in Paris); Dariusz Makiłła (the Danzig question); and Wojciech Morawski (a succinct economic account of war reparations in Europe).
A couple of articles do not fit into either of these categories. Grzegorz Kucharczyk offers a stunningly Polonocentric (and insufficiently edited) account of German and Polish reactions to the Versailles Treaty, wherein no place is given to the antisemitic background of German postwar frustrations (otherwise analyzed in length), and both countries are counted among the winners of the Peace Conference. One of the most characteristic (and frustrating) features of Kucharczyk's article seems to be the overuse of the ethnic plural: the author's view of history is reduced to an interplay between “great men” and “nations,” the latter treated as uniform bodies. On another note, Michael S. Neiberg's interesting study focuses on the American failure to secure peace on the territories and between the nationalities of the nascent Poland, and identifies blind spots in Woodrow Wilson's thinking. Michał Kuź's surprisingly short contribution, opening with a lengthy quotation from Donald Trump, leaves the reader perplexed as to its actual meaning. If, as the author claims, his aim was to offer a history-based view on the viability of the nation-based world order, than this aim remains unfulfilled. Detached from the overarching topic of the volume, Krzysztof Rak describes Józef Piłsudski's foreign policy in the 1920s and 1930s. Finally, the volume closes with a witty and readable piece by Lothar Höbelt on the Anschluss debate in interwar Austria.
It seems rather futile to try to establish a logical link between all the texts in the volume. The editors themselves offer no more than vague hints that might facilitate such an understanding, citing the international impact of central Europe as a hotbed of global instability in the interwar period. In fact, the haphazard nature of this selection of articles probably represents its weakest spot. But there are also brighter spots. High-quality traditional diplomatic history, represented by Gmurczyk-Wrońska, Neiberg, and Kornat, is one of them. Some of the minor contributions deal with understudied topics in a sound and well-informed manner: articles on Albanians, Ladins, Kashubians, and Sorbs among them. Both groups of texts would benefit from a more carefully designed construction of the volume. Also of benefit would be greater openness towards social and cultural phenomena other than states and nations. Fortunately, this volume does not represent the current trends in historiography of post-1919 central Europe. With all its flaws and lacunae, the latter is much richer and livelier than readers of this book might assume.
