A Shadow on the Center of the World

Martyn Rady, The Middle Kingdoms: A New History of Central Europe

Readers my age will remember “Central Europe” primarily as a principal front in the Cold War. The Berlin Wall, the border between Austria and Hungary, and the proxy fight for control of the Italian government defined the struggles between the aggregated NATO and Warsaw nations. Urbane Western Europe, and countries under its cultural influence, have long disdained Central Europe as a cultural and political backwater, not entirely without cause.

Emeritus history professor Martyn Rady has dedicated his career to Central Europe generally, and Hungary specifically. Now retired, one suspects he’s written this massive, panoramic one-volume history as a career capstone document. His chosen subject is huge, both in terms of geography and timeline, and hindered by the limited early documents of his chosen region. Rady crafts a readable introduction to regional history, but delves into little with greater depth.

The umbrella term of “Central Europe” is vaguely defined, even herein. Rady mostly focuses on the nation-states now found in Germany, Austria, Hungary, Poland, and the bumper states between them. His narrative spills somewhat into Lithuania, Romania, Northern Italy, and the crazy quilt of former Yugoslavian member states. He starts with the Western Roman Empire’s dying throes, and in around 700 pages, brings us to approximately last week.

Rady’s early chapters deal fleetingly with entire centuries. Limited documentation exists on the rampaging Huns, emerging proto-German states, and various invading peoples. Rady dedicates a few pages to the Avar nation, which didn’t exist, then was mentioned intermittently for centuries in Latin histories, then apparently disappeared again. This signifies the difficulties Rady faces in compiling authoritative history in vernacular language for non-specialist readers.

German “nations,” like the Saxons and Ostrogoths, arose not as states, but as confederations of clans and tribes. This set the pattern for future national identities, such as Poles and Czechs, which organized themselves from isolated regions with local needs. The Frankish Charlemagne tried to impose a unitary culture on these loosely related confederations, but died frustrated, and his empire returned to insular tribes. Again, this pattern would repeat itself.

Professor Martyn Rady

Regional aristocracy, some of whom styled themselves kings, found ways to temporarily unify swaths of land. Many had grandiose nation-building aspirations, which often involved establishing colonies in conquered regions. Most modern states, named for their majority populations, are riddled with minority communities speaking German, Polish, Slavonic, and countless new languages that arose when peoples muddled under the neglectful hands of slipshod dynasties.

If one theme dominates Rady’s history, it’s the conflict between governments that want to homogenize their states, and ethnic groups reluctant to change. Rady acknowledges that most individuals residing in Central Europe have a smorgasbord of ethnic backgrounds to choose from, and many speak multiple languages. The more that states strive to eliminate regional and ethnic differences, the more they created the conditions they strove to prohibit.

As Rady approaches the present, his history becomes more detailed, as you’d expect when the production and preservation of documents becomes cheaper. Early chapters sometimes cover multiple centuries, but Napoleon and the World Wars each merit their own chapters, as well as the interregnums between the wars. Some chapters are arranged thematically—industrialization in the Rhine valley under Bismarck, for instance—and others chronologically.

Culture isn’t really part of this book. Rady has a chapter dedicated to the profusion of German popular culture in the years between Napoleon and Kaiser Wilhelm, but this is an outlier. Perhaps Rady writes this chapter because pre-Reich German literature is frequently political; Rady parallels this entire chapter with a novel by E.T.A. Hoffman. But mainly, Rady focuses on politics, statecraft, and nation-building. Culture matters only when it illuminates politics and government.

He also largely elides certain topics, which presumably exceed his perceived remit. He mentions Germany’s colonial empire in the late 19^th century, for instance, but having mentioned it, largely moves on. Rady apparently considers himself hemmed by geography; events outside his physical domain only matter to the extent that they influence inside events. German colonial history still matters in, say, Tanzania and Rwanda, but isn’t within Rady’s self-appointed scope.

Rady probably writes to leave a legacy outside the Ivory Tower. He’s dedicated thirty-five years to Central Europe, and to offers generalists like me an opportunity to share that knowledge. His narrative is often overly concise, and I wish he lingered on certain topics; for a book the size of a cinder block, it feels remarkably short. Rady offers a plain-English introduction to the topic, sure to whet your appetite without leaving you feeling full.

See also: A Brief History of Germany Before “Germany”