[AH] Vesper & Cywinski, Two centuries of Prussia: The cosmopolitan spirit survives

[rfmcdonald]

This one's for lemurbuoy.

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Vesper & Cywinski, L. N. (Eds.). (2008). Two centuries of Prussia: The cosmopolitan spirit survives. Port Vancouver: International Studies Editions/Bass-Liebermann.

This provocative book-length exploration of the vicissitudes of Prussia as had the luck to be published on the two hundred year anniversary of the constitution of the modern Prussian state with the definitive annexation of Galicia that defined this state's eastern frontiers for the next two centuries. Even now that an associated broad Europe has allowed for a certain pan-nationalism, Prussia remains unique as a successful multinational state in north-central Europe, more effective in satisfying nationalist demands than, a perennially unstable Russia that keeps shedding provinces or a Swedish realm that no longer exists at all.

How did this happen? A variety of compelling articles explain how.

• Vesper and Cywinski's introduction, "Prussia Between Russia and Germany," properly situates the origins of modern Prussia in the unique positions of both Prussia and Poland between a threatening Holy Roman Empire of fragile German states and their menacing Great Power allies and an expansive Russia. The travails of the Polish Partitions that saw ethnic Poland placed under Prussia control may have occurred with the intent of creating a broader Prussian realm, the authors note, but it also had the effect of creating a Prussian monarchy with a citizenry concentrated in lands once belonging to the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth. Napoleonic promises of liberation to Prussian Germans and Poles had their effect, but the Russian armies also ready to be massed on the states eastern frontier also counted. Is it any wonder, the authors ask, that the 1817 proclamation of the union of Polish notables with the Hohenzollern dynasty was made sincerely?
  
• Chapter 3 by Kempel, "The Constitution of the Prussian Populations," is a compelling statistical analysis of the population trends, marking the relative intensification of Polish migration (and Polish assimilation) in most of German-populated Prussia apart from the famously pluricultural region of Silesia, and the diffusion of Poland's Jews westwards following typical patterns of chain migration. Wozniak and Dombrowski's Chapter 4, a survey of the major constitutional developments in Prussia history, makes the telling point that the territorial Estates active on the ground since 1897 have been quite functional, united by the relatively strong presence of the monarchy as symbolic guardians of the untidy of the realm--guardians, it might be added, whose role has been sanctified by first the Great Northern war then by the Wars of Austrian Dissolution earlier in the 20th century.
  


• Foreign policy is treated by Kostova at length (Chapter 9, "Prussia In A Changing World"), as she examines the multipolarity that allowed Prussia to remain at a profitable equidistance from the European republic's alliance around France and Germany, the northern monarchies' of Sweden and especially Britain, and a Russia resentful of Prussia's notable economic success. Yager's Chapter 10, "Prussian Militarism In The Post-Napoleonic World," particularly the role of the nobility in a professionalized military as titular and sometimes more-than-titular heads of the famously efficient Landeswehr. The treatment of Prussia's atomic weaponry program is brief, but modern force levels, especially on the eastern frontier and with the hypersonics, are covered at length.


• The populations of smaller minorities apart from the Prussian Germans and the Poles are treated spottily neglected. Prussian pragmatism did, as explored in Chapter 9 by Savukynas et al., "Lithuania Between Grand Duchy And Nation," allow Prussia to manage the absorption of its Lithuanian conquests into the Prussian realm more efficiently than Sweden did its Baltic and Karelian acquisitions. Although there were explorations of the effects of Prussia on Jews in in Chapter 11 (Todorsky et al, "Yiddish Or German? Debates On the Jewish National Language") and Chapter 12 (Braunstein and Kaplan, "The Jews of Olystyn and Berlin: A Study In Migration") this collection is lacking. Finally, Czechs, Lemko and Masurians are no treated at all.


• Finally, the concluding Chapter 15, Soderström's "Prussia In The Future," is a worthwhile survey of continuing trends--the Bund's increasingly notable loudness on Palestinian affairs, ongoing disputes about the coincidence of ethnic with political frontiers, new migration trends from the wider world (the chain migration of Thais is given prominence in this), and declining economic growth--that is nonetheless bullish on Prussia's prospects. If nothing else, the latest convulsions to the east will serve as a deterrent to the few separatists.
  

This book is a necessary acquisition for any library of note--not only unviersity libraries, but people's libraries and even personal libraries. How do you run a multinational society deriving its legitimacy from tradition? The Prussians will show you how.


- R. McDonald, Simcoe University