The Routledge History Handbook of Central and Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century - Volume 4: Violence

Violence analyzes both the violence exerted on the societies of Central and Eastern Europe during the twentieth century by belligerent powers and authoritarian and/or totalitarian regimes and armed conflicts between ethnic, social and national groups, as well as the interaction between these two phenomena.

Throughout the twentieth century, Central and Eastern Europe was hit particularly hard by war, violence and repression, with armed conflicts in the Balkans at the start and end of the period and two world wars in between. In the shadow of these full-scale wars, ethnic, social and national conflicts were intensified, found new forms and were violently played out. The interwar period witnessed the emergence of authoritarian states who enforced their claim to power through continued violence against political opponents, stigmatized ethnic, national and social groups, and were themselves fought with subversive or terrorist techniques. This volume focuses specifically