Excerpts from the book From Warsaw to Sofia: A History of Eastern Europe, by Henry Bogdan and edited by Istavan Fehervary, printed by Pro Libertate Publishing, Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA, copyright 1989, ISBN 0-9622049-0-0.

“Forward to the English Edition

Sometime in 1978, while looking for source material for my books on Hungary, I discovered a dearth of serious, timely, comprehensive and objective books on the history of Eastern Europe. Millions of Americans have ancestors from countries of Eastern Europe, yet the public, including the policymakers in Washington D.C., show very little interest in what is happening behind the Iron Curtain. Only when some “event” has occurred--a strike, an anti-Soviet demonstration, or the breaking out of revolution--do western officials and the mass media take notice.

Despite the fact that since 1945 Eastern Europe has played an important role in East-West relations, I have learned during my 20 years of involvement with an American college that, with a few exceptions, most college students know little or nothing about Eastern Europe and the Soviet occupation. They are not to blame; the interest to learn and to understand is there. The fault lies, rather, in the educational system in which history plays such a secondary roll.

In 1982, my European friends called my attention to a new book written by Henry Bogdan, a professor of history in Paris. Published in France, the book was entitles From Warsaw to Sofia, (De Varsovie a Sofia, Histoire des Pays de l’Est) and covered the history of the entire Eastern European region from its origin to the present. I found the book very interesting, and a short time later met with Professor Bogdan. We agreed the books should be published in English after being edited for the American public. Furthermore, we agreed that I would be responsible for bringing the book up to date, covering the historical events between the first publication in 1982 and the present, the Gorbachev era. Thus began our work on the English edition. The excellent translation from the French was made by Jean P. Fleming, and in editing and rewriting, I received indispensable help from my daughter, Krisztina Fehervary…

Mr. Bodgan and I believe this book will complete our goal of providing a comprehensive resource for those interested in history or politics, but also for anyone who would like to know more about the background and nations of Eastern Europe. Istavan Fehervary, Santa Fe, 1988.”

“Chapter One: The Human Puzzle of Eastern Europe

More than 140 million inhabitants, eight states, at least a dozen languages, two alphabets in current use and six religions; these facts briefly illustrate the complexity of the human landscape in Eastern Europe at the end of its long history of invasions, civil and foreign wars, forced or voluntary population shifts, and territorial modification and persecutions. Language is one of the principle criteria used to distinguish the peoples that inhabit the East European region, since in Eastern Europe, citizenship is an inadequate description of a population. In historical perspective, the existence of multinational states such as the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, as well as the partition of nations, has created a conflict between linguistic and state borders. The appearance and development of the concept of nationalism as the concept of international law in the 19^th century did have an effect on the birth--or rebirth--of national states, but the gap between ethnic a geographical borders still exists.

Linguistic Diversity

The majority of peoples in Eastern Europe speak Indo-European languages. Among them, the Baltic languages of Latvian and Lithuanian and particularly the Slavic languages are the most prevalent. In 1987, 83 million East Europeans were estimated to be native speakers of a Slavic language, and it is also estimated that three East Europeans out of five are Slavic. There are also some 200 million Slavs from the Soviet Union in the immediate vicinity. While some Slavic peoples exist as scattered groups speaking dialects, the great majority of East European Slavs now live in coherent and homogeneous groups. The Slavic peoples are divided into three major groups:

--the western Slavic group, consisting of the Poles, the Czechs, the Moravians, and the Slovaks.

--the eastern Slavic group. Made up of the Ruthenian minority (directly related to the Ukrainians) who live in the Carpathian Ukraine.

--the southern Slavic or Yugoslavian groups that include the Slovenes, the Croats, the Serbs, and the Bulgars. The latter were originally a tribe of Turanian stock who settled in the Balkans in the second half of the 7^th century, and adopted the Slavic language of the more numerous indigenous populations. Although the Bulgars were the conquerors, their severely diminished numbers encouraged the linguistic adoption.

Several other Indo-European languages are spoken in Eastern Europe. The most important linguistic group after the Slav is Illyro-Balkan, represented by Albanian and Rumainian. Rumanian has been traditionally classed among the Romance languages because it contains a large number of vocabulary words of Latin derivation. Recent studies on the origins of the Rumanian language; however, reinforce the old theory that Rumanian was considered an Illyrian language formed symbiotically with Albanian--as witnessed by the undeniable relationship between the vocabularies of the two languages. Today, Rumanian is spoken by a little over 19 million people and Albanian by over three million.

The third linguistic group is Finno-Ugric, originating form the eastern Ural-Baikal region. Completely unrelated to the Germanic, Slavic, and Indo-European languages, Finno-Ugric languages were introduced into central Europe a the end of the 9^th century as a result of the long pilgrimage that led the Hungarian people from the confines of the Urals to the plains of the middle Danube. The settling of the Hungarians in their present location also separated the northern Slavs from their southern relatives. Today, Hungarian is spoken by over 15 million persons, of which only 10.5 million live in Hungary as defined by its present boundaries. The other Finno-Ugric language spoken in Eastern Europe is Estonian, spoken by about one million persons in Estonia, today occupied by the Soviet Union. Finnish is the third member of the Finno-Ugric family.

Finally, German occupies a special place in the linguistic geography of Eastern Europe. German is of course spoken by the inhabitants of East Germany, but is more or less understood and spoken by many other East Europeans by virtue of long periods of cohabitation with Germans over the course of the centuries. German has more less tended to retain its status as the lingua franca of Eastern Europe, although since 1945 the study of Russian has been mandatory in the schools and universities of most Eastern European countries.

“Chapter Two: A Land of Many Aspects

Geographic Diversity:

The countries of Eastern Europe differ geographically not only by three-dimensional relief, but by climate and landscape. In the north lies the central part of an immense plain that extends from the banks of the North Sea to the Urals. Known as the Germano-Polish plain by geographers, it is 250 to 300 miles wide and comprises most of the territory of the Germany Democratic Republic [what was east Germany] and of Poland.

In the center, extending from the German Democratic Republic to the White Russian border, rise a succession of forested, ancient and eroded mountainous masses alternating with fertile basins. These mountains, most of which contain ferrous and non-ferrous ores, reach elevations of 2,100 to 5,100 feet.

In the South--which includes over half of the Eastern European region--there are large systems of recently formed mountain chains, which are an extension of the Alpine chains to the east and the southeast. At their northernmost point, thy form the Carpathian arc, rising to a maximum altitude of 7,800 feet. In the south, they form the Balkan and Rhodope mountains. These young mountains promote the formation of large depositional basins: the Pannonian plain in the west, the Hungarian great plain--the Alfold--between the Danube and Tisza rivers, and the Vojvodine and Banat plains.

The ancient mountainous masses and the young mountains alike give rise to an abundant hydrographic network. One of major north-south rivers is the Elbe, a natural waterway for Czechoslovakia and particularly for the German Democratic Republic. The Oder provides transportation northward for products from Silesia and from the industrial center of East Germany. The Neisse and the Oder have delineated the eastern border of Germany since 1945. Finally, the Vistula is a pre-eminently Polish river which crosses the country from north to south for a distance of 680 miles, and waters two capitals success Ely--Cracow, the capital of the past, and Warsaw, the present capital.

The Danube flows in the south, and more than 1,200 of its 1,600 mile length is in Eastern Europe. The Danube has always been a connecting link between Eastern and Western Europe,…But, the Danube is above all an important commercial artery for the Eastern countries along its banks--Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Rumania, Yugoslavia, and Bulgaria…

Climatic Diversity:

Eastern Europe differs also by climate, with several differing climatic zones. On the Germano-Polish plain, western winds often serve to mitigate the effects of the Siberian anticyclone of winter, and in summer they bring some cooling air. Their influence, however, decreases from west to east.

Mountainous regions have the distinct and more continental environment, with cold winters, hot summers, and abundant precipitation.

The continental climate is more evident in the countries along the Danube, as the western winds are checked by the Alps and the mid-German massif. On the plains of Hungary to the northeast of Yugoslavia, in Lower Rumania, and on the Bulgarian plains, the winters are harsh, ranging from an average of -2 Celsius in Budapest to -3.5 in Bucharest. The hot summers are sometimes influenced by the Mediterranean climate, especially in Rumania and Bulgaria, where the dryness in interspersed with heavy downpours. In general, however, the annual precipitation is low, averaging about 19 inches per year.

Finally, the shores of the Adriatic and Black seas enjoy a Mediterranean climate, especially in the summer when it remains dry for at least three months. In winter, despite the predominantly mild and sunny weather, the cold wind from the interior--known as the Bora in Yugoslavia--can sometimes cause a sharp, though short-lived, drop in the thermometer.

Climate and landscape are mainly responsible for the uneven distribution of the population and the inequalities of economic development is still evident in these regions, although of course it is impossible to separate these from the roles of circumstance and history.

Part One, Chapter Three: The Distribution of Peoples

Early History of Eastern Europe

The area known today as Eastern Europe was populated over a prolonged period of time, as a number of tribes migrated from the east to the Danubian plain and surrounding areas. Our knowledge of this subject is often imperfect, as until the beginning of the first millennium B.C., there regions were completely separated from the Mediterranean civilizations.

With the exception of the ancestors of the present-day Finns and Estonians, who arrived in small groups and settled on the shores of the Baltic between the Nieman and Neva valleys through the first millennium B.C., the first known populations in East Europe were the Indo-Europeans. In the third millennium B.C., the Indo-Europeans tribes still lived in the steppes extending from the Carpathian mountains to the south of the Urals. While two tribes--the Cimmerians and the Scythians--stayed until the first centuries A.D., most of the Indo-European tribes had begun to disperse 3,000 years before. Some groups, including the Hellenes, cam into contact with the early Mediterranean cultures sometime during the second millennium B. C. Others, such as the Thraco-Illyrians, did not quite reach the warm seas. The Illyrians settled between the Sava and Danube rivers and the Black Sea; and the Thracians settled in the Balkans. Thus, they were all more or less in contact with Greek civilization. The great majority of Indo-Europeans, however, settled far away from the Mediterranean world. Several tribes migrated to Scandinavia, where they merged with the ancestors of the Germans. The Early Balts--about whom we know very little--settled between the Oder and Neman (Nemel) rivers. Beginning about the middle of the second millennium B.C., the heart of Europe was home to several civilizations started by the early Celts--civilizations about which we are well informed because of abundant archeological material uncovered. From the third millennium forward, the Celts slowly extended their zone of influence to the south and southwest by assimilating the local Thraco-Illrians. This gave birth to the mixed ethnic group, the Celto-Scythians in the eastern part of Europe, and the Celto-Thracians in the Balkans. By the end of the first millennium B.C., only present-day Hungary possessed a homogenous Celtic population.

The Hellenization and Romanization of the Balkan and Danubian Countries

From 1000 B.C. onward, the Greeks attempted to control the mountainous regions to the north of their country. In the 5^th and the 6^th centuries B.C, they succeeded in doing so by establishing colonies in Epirus on the Adriatic coast, on the Thracian coast, and on the shores of the Black Sea as well. Through these colonies, Greek civilization slowly penetrated the Balkans. Rome replaced Greece in the region in the second century B.C., and with the creation of the province of Macedonia and the submission of Thrace, the destiny of the southern part of Eastern Europe became closely associated with Rome. Under the emperors Augustus and Tiberius, Rome subdued the territories located south of the Danube. The Danube became the northern frontier of the Empire. Also under the Romans, the provinces of Noricum (Austria), Pannonia (western Hungary) and Dalmatia (present-day Croatia) were created, and the protected state of Thrace became a province in 46 A.D. To the east, the countries south of the Danube became provinces of Upper Messia (Serbia) and Lower Messia (Bulgaria). To the west, Romans briefly occupied the banks of the Weser river, but in reality it was the Rhine and the Neckar that marked the limits of Roman penetration into the Germanic world. Along the Danube, the Romans came into violent contact with other Germanic peoples--the Quades of Moravia, the Marconans of Bohemia, and the Scythian peoples, the Lazges and the Sarmates. The latter two were living in the heart of the Hungarian plain between the Danube and the Tisza rivers along with the Dacians, who by the end of the first century A.D., had created an organized state under their king Decebale. The Dacians repeated forays into the Roman provinces of the Lower Danube, until the emperor, Trajan, overcame Dacia in two campaigns (101 - 102 and 106 - 107 A.D.), and made it a Roman Province. A large portion of the Dacian population was massacred and the rest scattered around the Empire as slaves. Dacia was repopulated with colonists from all the provinces, particularly the Asian ones. Through its gold and silver mines, Dacia contributed to the prosperity of the Roman world.

By the beginning of the second century A.D., the part of eastern Europe conquered by the Roman Empire consisted of well-administered territories with prosperous cities where Roman officials and the more or less Romanized indigenous elite lived. It was from the cities that Roman culture reached out to the non-Roman peoples of the countryside where Romanization remained fairly superficial, although this varied by region. Even the indigenous peoples serving the auxiliary Roman army remained proudly loyal to their ethnic origins, be they Dalmations or Pannonians. The most lasting of the Roman presence, however, was the introduction of Christianity beginning in the 3^rd century A.D. Christianity spread widely during the 4^th and 4^th centuries, principally in regions neighboring Greece along the Dalmation coast, and in Pannonia.

The First Wave of Great Invasions (2^nd --5^th Centuries)

From the 3^rd century on, the Roman Empire periodically suffered barbarian raids that devastated the provinces of the Rhine and the Danube. This marked the beginning of what historians have termed the “Great Invasions,” but which are better described as migrations--the Volkerwanderung of the German historians.

The first attacks began with the death of Marcus Aurelius in 180 A.D. The situation was temporarily contained by the first soldier-emperor, Septimus Severus, and his sons, but only with constant battles fought along the Rhine and the Danube rivers. With the death of Alexander Severus in 235, the situation became critical again. The barbarians of central and western Europe were beginning a lengthy series of transformations. It was at this time that the long-isolated Germanic tribes began to form groups which eventually lead to genuine federations of peoples: the Alamains, Burgones, and Francs in the West, the Angles and Jutes in present-day Denmark, and the Saxons and the Lombards between the mouths of the Weser and the Elbe. The Vandals were also coalescing in Galicia and in the northern Carpathian mountains, where they bordered the proto-Slavs, the Goths, and the Gepides between the Dniester and the Don. Taking advantage of the difficulties in the Roman world, the Germans intensified their attacks between 235 and 270. The Goths were particularly aggressive in the Balkans and in Dacia. It was under these conditions that the emperor, Aurelia (270 - 275), decided to evacuate the province of Dacia. According to the Roman historian, Eutrope, the evacuation of Dacia was total:

He made a desert of Dacia that Trajan had established beyond the Danube, because the devastation of all of Illyria and Messia robbed him of any hope he had of being able to keep it; having called back the Romans from the cities and country of Dacia, he settled them in Central Messia (Eutrope, IX).

This text has been challenged by Rumanian historians seeking to demonstrate that the Rumanians of today are the descendants of the Dacians and the Romans who remained in Dacia after 270. Largely inspired by political motives, however, this theory lacks substance. In fact, after 270, Roman names for the cities, mountains, and rivers disappeared altogether, contrary to the case in other Romanized provinces conquered by the barbarians.

At the end of the 3^rd century, the re-deployment of troops by Aurelian following the abandonment of Dacia succeeded in containing the barbarian advance. With Diocletian (285 - 305) and Constantine (306 - 337), a Roman Empire seemingly at peace drew up treaties with the barbarian chiefs, making them confederates with the duty of policing the Empire’s borders.

Beginning in 370, however, the arrival of the Huns from Asia put an end to peace and cooperation. The first to suffer the Hun’s assault were the Alains--Indo-European people between the Don and the Dniester. Many Alains and Ostrogoths were massacred in the clash of 375, but a number did manage to escape towards the West. The remaining Ostrogoths joined th retreating Visigoths in seeking refuge in the Roman Empire. In the autumn of 376, most of them were settled in Thrace by the emperor, Valens II. After Valen’s death, his successor, Theodosius I, encouraged the Goths to move westward. The Visigoths under Alaric moved into Italy, where they briefly occupied Roma before moving on to Gaul, and from there into Spain. After 378, the Ostrogoths settled in Pannonia.

After forcing the Visigoths and the Ostrogoths west, the Huns became masters of the steppes and plains from Turkistan to the Carpathians. In order to keep them away from Constantinople, Theodosius encouraged them to settle in Pannonia, were the appeared around 390. The territory that is now Hungary slowly became the center of the Hunnish empire--the capital of Buda was named for Attila’s son, while on the opposing bank of the Danube, Pest was named for the plague. In 434, Attila became the master of the empire, which he governed jointly with his brother, Bleda, until 445, then alone after his death in 453. For nearly thirty years, the Huns carried out devastating raids from the plains of the Danube against the East Roman Empire. They pushed as far as Salonica in 447, and then from 449 on, turned toward the barbarian kingdoms of the West. There, the joint forces of the Roman and barbarian armies hurt them badly at the battle of Catalonie in 451, erroneously called the battle of Chalons by several historians. The defeat. However, did not prevent Attila from assaulting Rome the following year.

The death of Attila in 453 soon led to the breakup of his empire. The peoples conquered by the Huns--notably the Goths of Pannonia and the Romanized Pannonians--seized the opportunity to revolt. While most of the Huns withdrew toward Central Asia, some undoubtedly remained. A Hungarian legend documented by the 15^th century humanist, Bonfini, asserts that the Sicules (Szekelys) of the eastern Carpathians are the descendants of the Huns who remained in Europe. Most likely, they are the descendents of Hungarians who accompanied the Huns on their initial migration to the West.

With the crumpling of Attila’s empire the first period of migrations into east-central Europe ended. Its end was accompanied by the fading of the Western Roman Empire. Which officially disappeared in 476. The Eastern Empire was more successful in withstanding the barbarians. Its authority stopped at the Sava and Danube Rivers to the north, while to the west its boundaries were more flexible, although theoretically the Illyric territories defined its western border. The former provinces of Pannonia and Dacia had been emptied of a large portion of their populations by successive waves of invasions. Beyond the Carpathians and the Bohemian mountains existed the still unstructured domain of the Slavs.

The Second Wave of Major Invasions (6^th - 7^th Centuries)

At the end of the 5^th century, the Lombards--a Germanic people of Scandinavian origin living in the low valley of the Elbe during the 3^rd century--appeared first in Lower Austria and then in Pannonia. Under their king, Wacho (510 - 540), and his successor, Audoin, the Lombards created a state linked by treaty to the Roman Empire, reconstituted by Justinian. They participated in the Justinian reconquest of the Ostrogothic Italy in 522 under this treaty. At the same time, new invaders appeared from the western steppes of Asia--the Avars. The Khan, Bayan, first collaborated with the Lombards to conquer the Gipides, who then controlled the region between the Tisza and the Black Sea. In 567, the defeated Gipides were integrated into the emerging Avar empire. Considering such close proximity to the Avars to be a risk to his people, the Lombard king, Albion (561 - 572), left Pannonia in April of 568 to the conquest of Italy. From then on, the Avars dominated the middle valley of the Danube.

In many ways the Avars resembled the Huns. They were both nomadic horsemen who spoke an early Turkish language, and both were accompanied by a horde of peoples from the steppes. The Avar empire extended to the entire Carpathian zone and also to the lands of the Elbe and the Oder, while their border was delineated by the Sava and Danube. The capture of Sirmium in 582 marked their southernmost advance; the defeat of the Avars at Constantinople in 626 signaled the end of their conquering power.

The momentary lessening of Avar power gave the Slavs an opportunity to emerge. Until the 6^th century, the Slavs had occupied an area between the Vistula and the middle course of the Don. By the time the Lombards and the Slavs came into conflict, the Slavs had already occupied present-day Bohemia and Moravia. In addition, several tribes had penetrated into Pannonia. From there, they broke apart, and one segment descended toward the Adriatic, where in 634 they destroyed the city of Salona, the administrative center of Byzantium in Dalmatia. At the beginning of the 7^th century, Illyria and most of the Balkans were in the hands of the Slavs--the ancestors of the present Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs. The occupied areas began to adopt the Slavic ways.

The defeat of the Avars in 626 by Constantinople emancipating the Slavs of Bohemia and Moravia, The northern Slavs (from whom the Czechs and Moravians are descended) remained more or less autonomous, alternately subjects to German or Avars, while the southern Slavs became increasingly established in the former Byzantine territories of Illyria and Messia, with the reluctant consent of the Eastern Empire.

The Avars who remained on the plains of the middle Danube were reinforced by new arrivals from Central Asia after 670. Among them were undoubtedly some proto-Hungarian tribes, as demonstrated by the Hungarian historian, G. Laszlo, in a comparison study of Hungarian and Avar gravesites. From the 7^th century forwards, however, the Avars played only a minor role due in part to a series of successful campaigns led against them by the Carolingians from 792 to 796. After 882, no more was heard of them.

The 8^th century witnessed the arrival of the Bulgars in Europe. In the 6^th century, the Bulgars had possessed a vast empire in the northwest Caucasus mountains. Locked in a struggle with the Khazars, a segment of the Bulgars moved to the west, crossing the lower Danube in 679 and finally settling in Messia under the leadership of Knan Asparuk. Of Turkish orign, the Bulgars slowly adopted the Slavic ways through contact with the populations of the Balkans; eventually, a Slavo-Bulgarian state emerged at the expense of the Byzantium.

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