A Critical Foray into Postwar Europe: An Analysis of Political and Economic Transformations in Tony Judt’s Postwar

My Ambivalent History with History

As I continued heading through my summer reading series, I could not deny reading solely about what had drawn me to the field of international relations in the first place: European history.

As I’ve grown up—constantly hyper-fixating on a variety of topics around me—one of my many interests resides in Ruta Septy’s novels, and although I wasn't initially intrigued by the intricacies of global wars and political tensions, I soon found myself thrust upon the topic as a result of chance.

Moreover, while the novel’s contents were fictional, I credit many of them to being my semi-formal introduction to my vaguely familiar sense of history, which had primarily consisted of superficial Texas and U.S. history classes in my middle school years. 

I particularly had taken interest in Septy’s Fountains of Silence as a child, as it reflected some parts of Spanish history that resonated with my family lineage, but books such as Salt to the Sea and I Must Betray You were additionally memorable to me. Nevertheless, my increasingly frequent encounters with the themes of history didn’t necessarily spark much interest until completing AP World History this year. 

I had spent my entire life obsessed with geography and global cultures—spending hours memorizing atlas books in elementary school—which assisted AP Human Geography in engaging my interest over the course of my freshman year, but extensive reviews of history felt equally captivating as opening the world’s largest, dustiest closet.

Likewise, in all honesty, I did not feel intrigued by the contents of my AP World History class until the final few units—likely due to my disinterest in themes and worlds that felt entirely remote from my life in the 21st-century. It wasn’t until my class had begun reviewing the contents of the 20th century that I had felt, as a student, any sense of curiosity or passion. 

For whatever reason, my curiosity had piqued once delving into the Cold War and the fallout of WWII. Regardless of the significance of these events, I had no prior knowledge revolving around these topics, and therefore, I felt a satisfaction in finally knowing more about these phrases than simply their onomastics.  

Since my perception of history had diverted from stuffy, suffocating-inducing storage closets primarily composed of dates and names needing to be memorized, I aspired to understand more about this time period—even if I could only retain the smallest margin.

Subsequently, my own academic history had led me to Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 by Tony Judt. 

Now, although I was determined in my pursuit of knowledge, once coming to the realization of the book’s breadth, I decided to choose the novel’s fourth part, “After The Fall (1989-2005).” This was largely a result of my desire to gain a fundamental idea of recent events that would be more attributable to present times. With these ideas in mind, here are my points of focus from my first of many case studies of Postwar.

Lessons from Postwar

The sheer degree of multi-ethnic parties in Yugoslavia was unexpected:

Similar to the above, I was unfortunately uneducated of the sheer depth of historical context in the late 20th century. However, learning about a specific region in such profundity—one of which I had limited knowledge in—was incredibly enthralling. Personally, I felt that one of my main takeaways was the sheer amount of multiethnic entities throughout the country. 

Firstly, the novel does an excellent job of introducing the sheer amount of diversity—whether linguistically, religiously, or ethnically—that was prevalent amongst the Yugoslavian state, foreshadowing its later conflicts and geopolitical tensions. Specifically, on page 665—the first page of which illustrates Yugoslavian late 20th-century history—Judt states that the state “consisted of a much-cited bon mot, of six republics, five nations, four languages, three regions, and two alphabets” and that the state’s events following 1989 were similar to a “lid having been removed” (Judt 665). Moreover, the novel discusses the varying economic strengths of the collective regions, where Slovenia was responsible for 29% of the state’s exports whereas Kosovo was responsible for a mere 1% despite having the same, despite Slovenia only having a greater population of 100,000 people than the latter. 

As the following passage reflects, there were a multitude of differences amongst the states that I was entirely unaware of its astonishing scale. Additionally, I didn’t come to the realization that within each and every province lay multiple multi-ethnic parties, rather than just each province having its own ethnic characteristics. 

For instance, I’ll refer to the former Republic of Bosnia, whose multi-ethnicism is well addressed in the novel through references to its varying Cyrillic and Latin alphabets in addition to its significant number of intermarriages amongst Bosniaks—Bosnian Muslims—and Croat Bosnians.

Throughout Judt’s novel, there’s a plethora of references to the relations of the Bosnian Serbs, Bosnian Croats, and Bosniaks in the former Yugoslavian province of Bosnia in the 1990s. Likewise, he describes the much controversy that occurred between the two groups. Slobodan Milosevic, who served as the president of the Yugoslavian province of Serbia, closely worked with Bosnian military officer Ratko Mladic to encourage the growth and creation of Republic Srpska in retaliation to Bosnia’s calls to independence in 1992, which was led by the Bosniaks and Bosnian Croats. 

The two leaders supported the Bosnian Serbs in ethnically cleansing the region in order to restore and strengthen Yugoslavia while maintaining it as a primarily ethnically Serb state. In order to expel the Croat and Bosniak majorities, I had learned that the Bosnian Serbs, supported by Milosevic, had committed multiple cases of genocide, which included the Srebrenica genocide, in addition to great amounts of genocide and sexual violence that took place in facilities such as Keraterm and Foca. These actions led to eventual Western intervention, such as NATO’s declaration of war on Belgrade in 1999.

Furthermore, the province of Kosovo in Serbia fared much additional controversy within the time period as well. This was primarily due to the region’s great ethnically Albanian majority—noted to be the fastest-growing group—within the primarily Serbian state. Due to this contrast, Judt ensures to educate on much of the perceptions held by the Serbian north towards the Albanian south, which included a distaste and dislike due to the disparity of economics and prosperity amongst the two regions. 

As I continued my learning more, I came across that despite the Serbians' aversion, their activity sought to limit the province’s independence, and despite the region gaining independence in 2008, they still do not recognize the state. Additionally, I had been educated on the presence of the NATO-led Kosovo Force (KFOR), which was deployed in 1999 and still resides in the Balkan state.

Lastly, in relevance to Yugoslavia in particular, I believe that one of my greatest takeaways illustrated by Judt was the events paralleling the infamous characteristics of WWII. This is particularly reflected upon on page 685, where Judt emphasizes how the Croat and Bosnian wars consisted of such high multitudes of serial abuse and physical violence induced by great degrees of propaganda towards what were believed to be their ‘Utashe’ neighbors, stating that “ordinary people committed quite extraordinary [hate] crimes” (Judt 685).

Development of post-communist economics:

To conclude what is to be considered a thorough history briefing on post-Soviet states, I fortunately gained a perspective on how the alterations in statehood prompted new economic opportunities for Eastern Europe. As the iron curtain fell, the transition to capitalism, as illustrated by Judt, appeared to result in staggering ways. 

As stated by the author himself, “no one had thought to offer a blueprint for the transition from socialism to capitalism,” and therefore, the following developments of history were bound to intrigue me (Judt 685). 

Firstly, it appeared that many states, such as Russia, faced much trouble. For instance, under Boris Yeltsin, the Russian economy shrank drastically, but with these circumstances present, it was understood that states had to develop new economic models soon in order to persist, especially amongst a globe where Western foreign investment appeared to be tentative. 

Judt describes how the post-Soviet states began various economic programs, where aspects such as foreign trade and privatization were emphasized in development. Although, one significant point illustrated in the novel that enticed me was the contrast between post-communist capitalism and Western capitalism. 

The novel ensures to inform readers about how the Western world’s capitalist markets had many laws and regulations to instill a balance of power, whereas in Eastern Europe, there was great absence of these entities. As someone still with little knowledge in this domain, I found it fascinating that despite years of developments in these states to align themselves more closely with the West (examples), there still were such conventional diversions. 

Hence, many oligarchs had developed in Russia and Ukraine, and therefore, Judt emphasizes that the Russian oligarchs had controlled one quarter of the country’s domestic product by 2004.

Furthermore, the novel taught me of the various economic schemes that began to arise in a multitude of Eastern European nations, such as Romania’s ‘Caritas scam,’—which was a Ponzi scheme that was marketed to “financially assist” Romanian civilians and attracted three billion US dollars—in addition to the voucher scheme that arose in the Czech republic, where Czech civilians had the capability to purchase stock in public enterprise but only led to greater controversies revolving its concentration of wealth and enterprise tunneling. 

At last, my experience with Postwar was nothing short of an incredibly educational journey, but I’m well aware that my knowledge in foreign history is just beginning, and in the following few weeks, I have great hopes that this novel will continue to expand my understanding. I’ve taken note that the following chapter will cover nationalist and decentralization movements, and therefore, I’m preparing for my future analyses. 

Bibliography

Judt, Tony. Postwar: A History of Europe since 1945. Penguin Books, 2006.

"The Conflicts." The United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the

     Former Yugoslavia, www.icty.org/en/about/what-former-yugoslavia/conflicts.

"Bosnian Civil War, 1992-1995." EBSCO, 2021, www.ebsco.com/research-starters/

     history/bosnian-civil-war-1992-1995.

Barber, Tony. "Romanians Storm City as Scam Ruins Millions." The Independent, 16

     Jan. 1994, www.independent.co.uk/news/world/

     romanians-storm-city-as-scam-ruins-millions-1407128.html.