Historical Atlas of Central Europe: From the Early Fifth Century to the Present

Citation

Rolfe, P. (2003), "Historical Atlas of Central Europe: From the Early Fifth Century to the Present", Library Review, Vol. 52 No. 5, pp. 234-238. https://doi.org/10.1108/00242530310476814

For the generation whose mental geography was formed in the Britain of the Cold War, Central Europe, or Eastern Europe as we called it, was a region of faraway countries of which we knew little, other than that we were unlikely to visit them. Now these countries seem much closer, and are a part of the world where modern historians are quickly overtaken by events. This authoritative atlas, part of the ten volume History of East Central Europe, published by the University of Washington Press, has become an essential item in any reference library. (It is, perhaps, salutary to find that Britain is not central to Europe, and is here relegated to a place off the edge of the map.)

The first edition (1993), with the title Historical Atlas of East Central Europe, had 50 chapters consisting of a map or maps plus explanatory text, and tables in some instances, and covered the period up to 1992. It had as one of its goals, to show in “systematic fashion the political and administrative changes that have occurred in East Central Europe since 400 CE”. The revised and expanded edition, with a small but significant change of title extends the coverage to the year 2000, and has 11 new chapters with 20 new maps. Of these, 12 cover individual countries, and 11 relate to the newly independent or newly created states which emerged from the upheavals and armed conflicts of the past decade.

The arrangement of the atlas is, broadly, chronological, with maps showing the region as a whole, at significant points in its history, with political boundaries. Also included are thematic maps of geographical zones, population densities, industrial development, ecclesiastical jurisdictions, ethno‐linguistic distribution, educational and cultural institutions, migrations, wars and invasions. Because some chapters focus on individual countries in the twentieth century, and others on groups of countries, or on topics affecting the region as a whole, it is unavoidable, firstly that strict chronology cannot always be adhered to, and secondly that there is some overlapping between chapters. This applies particularly to the chapters dealing with the break‐up of the former Yugoslavia, and with the Second World War.

The maps are meticulously sourced and the bibliography is extensive. As befits an atlas, the index consists largely of place names. An extremely useful feature, in a part of the world which is an ethnic and linguistic patchwork, where borders have continually shifted, and many different groups have held power, is that an appropriate abbreviation is used to show to which of 29 language variants any form of a place‐name belongs. The index also lists peoples, battles, organizations and ideologies. My preference, as a reference librarian, would be for more topical entries, or perhaps topical subdivisions under geographical entries. (Under "Great Britain", the index has just nine references, and five under see also Britain.)

Paul Robert Magocsi’s maternal grandparents were Carpatho‐Rusyn immigrants to the USA. He is Professor of Ukrainian Studies at the University of Toronto, works in a number of Western and Eastern (or Central) European languages, and has written extensively on identity formation and nationalism. (See Gabriele Pietro Scardellato and Luba Pendze’s Paul Robert Magocsi: A Bibliography, 1964‐2000.) Running “magocsi” through a search‐engine not only reveals the range of his scholarship, but also retrieves some sites which show that his ideas are of more than “historical” interest.