East Central Europe in a Century of Challenges. Studies in History and International Relations (eBook)

The concept of East-Central Europe encompasses a wealth of identities, paradoxes, remembrances, hopes, challenges, downfalls and resurrections, forms of hatred and bursts of love. It has been subject of academic debates and stirred the imagination of geographers, historians, ethnographers and not the least cartographers. Milan Kundera argued back in 1980s that “Central Europe is not a state. Central Europe is a culture or faith. Its border is imaginary and it is to be defined in every historical epoch again and again”, while Larry Woolf aptly described the way the notion of Eastern Europe was invented at the time of the Enlightenment. We are not going to provide new definitions or oxymora to a region already disfigured by the flimsiness of the so many classifications ascribed to it. Instead, we are going to contribute to a better knowledge of the region and its historical, cultural and social characteristics with a collection of articles which were first published in Romania-based biannual peer-reviewed magazine entitled Valahian Journal of Historical Studies (VJHS). The review is the mouthpiece of “Grigore Gafencu” Research Center for the History of International Relations and Cultural Studies and is published under the aegis of Cetatea de Scaun Publishing House. This is to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the founding of VJHS and the release of its 20th issue. The volume will also serve as a learning source for the MA programme East Central Europe Region Studies which is going to be taught at Valahia University, Romania, starting with the academic year 2014/2015. The programme was created as an offspring of the ongoing cooperation and signed agreements between Valahia University and the universities of Helsinki and Oulu (Finland), Tartu (Estonia) and Izmir University of Economics. Five of the professors teaching in this study programme have contributed to this volume. We selected articles exploring from various angles the dynamics of international relations and hi