Eastern European History

Final Exam Review

What was the Nazi ideological concept of 'Judeo-Bolshevism'?

It was a conspiracy theory that framed the Soviet Union and communism as a Jewish plot for world domination, justifying a war of annihilation.

The Nazi concept of acquiring 'living space' in Eastern Europe, known as _, was a core component of their ideology.

Lebensraum

What was the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, signed in August 1939?

A non-aggression treaty between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union that contained secret clauses to partition Poland and other Eastern European territories.

The Western policy of granting concessions to Hitler to avoid war, which culminated in the 1938 Munich Agreement over the Sudetenland, is known as what?

Appeasement

What event marked the beginning of World War II in Europe on September 1, 1939?

Germany's invasion of Poland.

What was the name for the Nazi special action squads, first used in Poland, tasked with murdering political and racial enemies?

Einsatzgruppen

The massacre of thousands of Polish officers by the Soviet NKVD in 1940 is known as the _.

Katyn massacre

What was the name of the conflict between the Soviet Union and Finland from 1939-1940?

The Winter War

What was the codename for the German invasion of the Soviet Union, which began on June 22, 1941?

Operation Barbarossa

The term used by the Nazis for the conflict on the Eastern Front, signifying a war of extermination, was _.

Vernichtungskrieg

What was the significance of Polish military intelligence in the context of WWII Allied efforts?

They obtained and helped crack the German Enigma codes, a project known in the UK as Operation Ultra.

Who was Ion Antonescu?

The dictator of Romania during WWII who allied his country with the Axis powers and participated in the invasion of the USSR.

Which battle, lasting from August 1942 to February 1943, is considered the major turning point of World War II on the Eastern Front?

The Battle of Stalingrad

In the Soviet Union, World War II was referred to as the _.

Great Patriotic War

What was the 'Hunger Plan'?

A German occupation policy in Eastern Europe designed to seize food from the local population to feed the German army and populace, resulting in mass starvation.

What term was used for slave laborers from Eastern Europe forced to work for Germany during WWII?

Ostarbeiter

Who was Reinhard Heydrich?

A high-ranking Nazi official and a main architect of the Holocaust, assassinated by the Czech underground in 1942.

What was the Polish Home Army?

The dominant resistance movement in German-occupied Poland during WWII, loyal to the Polish government-in-exile in London.

Who was Josip Broz Tito?

The communist leader of the Yugoslav Partisans, the most effective resistance movement in occupied Europe, who later became the leader of Yugoslavia.

The Croatian fascist, ultranationalist organization that collaborated with the Nazis and ran a puppet state responsible for mass murder was called the _.

Ustase

What was the 'Final Solution'?

The Nazi plan for the systematic, industrial-scale genocide of the Jewish people.

What was the 'Generalplan Ost'?

The Nazi German government's secret plan for the genocide and ethnic cleansing of vast areas of Eastern Europe to create Lebensraum for German colonization.

What is the central argument of Jan Gross's book 'Neighbors' regarding the Jedwabne massacre?

It argues that the massacre of Jews in Jedwabne, Poland, was carried out by their Polish neighbors with little German compulsion, highlighting widespread local collaboration in the Holocaust.

What was the Warsaw Uprising of August 1944?

An operation by the Polish Home Army to liberate Warsaw from German occupation, which was ultimately crushed as the Soviet Red Army deliberately halted its advance.

The _ Conference in February 1945 sealed Poland's postwar fate, moving its borders westward and placing it within the Soviet sphere of influence.

Yalta Conference

What was the informal agreement between Churchill and Stalin in October 1944 that divided parts of Eastern Europe into spheres of influence?

The Percentages Agreement

The forced relocation of 12-16 million ethnic Germans from Central and Eastern Europe after WWII is known as the _.

German expulsions (Die Flucht und Vertreibung)

What was the Brno Death March of May 1945?

The forced expulsion of ethnic Germans from the city of Brno, Czechoslovakia, during which thousands died.

What was the Kielce Pogrom of July 1946?

A violent massacre of Jewish Holocaust survivors in Poland, which highlighted the persistence of anti-Semitism after WWII and prompted a mass Jewish exodus.

What term did Winston Churchill use in a 1946 speech to describe the division between Soviet-controlled Eastern Europe and the West?

Iron Curtain

The gradual method used by Communist parties to seize total power in Eastern Europe after WWII, by dismantling multi-party governments piece by piece, was called _.

Salami-slice tactics

What was 'Finlandization'?

The policy of a country maintaining national sovereignty but accommodating a more powerful neighbor's foreign policy, as Finland did with the USSR.

What was the Truman Doctrine of 1947?

A US foreign policy stating that the United States would provide political, military, and economic assistance to all democratic nations under threat from authoritarian forces.

The event from June 1948 to May 1949 where the Western Allies flew supplies into a Soviet-blockaded city was known as the _.

Berlin Airlift

The _ was a military alliance of Eastern Bloc socialist republics, formed in 1955 as a counterbalance to NATO.

Warsaw Pact

What was the Tito-Stalin Split of 1948?

The political break between Yugoslavia, led by Tito, and the Soviet Union, led by Stalin, which resulted from Tito's refusal to submit to Soviet dominance.

The concept of tailoring communist ideology to specific national circumstances, which Stalin feared after the split with Tito, is known as _.

National Communism

What was the Slansky Trial of 1952?

A show trial in Czechoslovakia where high-ranking communist officials, most of whom were Jewish, were purged on charges of being 'Titoist' and 'Zionist' conspirators.

Who was Nicolae Ceausescu?

The dictatorial communist leader of Romania from 1965 to 1989, known for his extreme personality cult and repressive secret police, the Securitate.

The notoriously pervasive East German secret police force was called the _.

Stasi

What was 'bunkerization' in Albania?

A program under dictator Enver Hoxha starting in 1967 that constructed hundreds of thousands of concrete bunkers across the country out of paranoid fear of invasion.

What was the 'Arbeiteraufstand' of June 1953?

An uprising of East German workers against work quotas that spread to demand political reforms, but was crushed by Soviet tanks.

What was Nikita Khrushchev's 'Secret Speech' in 1956?

A speech denouncing Stalin's personality cult and crimes, which initiated a period of de-Stalinization and 'The Thaw' across the Eastern Bloc.

What was the Hungarian Revolution of 1956?

A nationwide revolt against the communist government and Soviet domination, led by Imre Nagy, which was brutally crushed by a Soviet invasion.

The Hungarian economic policy from 1969 onward that introduced some market mechanisms and improved living standards was nicknamed _.

Goulash-Communism

The _ was constructed in August 1961 by the GDR to prevent its citizens from fleeing to the West.

Berlin Wall

What was the Prague Spring of 1968?

A period of political liberalization in Czechoslovakia under Alexander Dubcek, aiming for 'Socialism with a Human Face,' which was ended by a Warsaw Pact invasion.

What was the Brezhnev Doctrine?

A Soviet foreign policy, articulated after the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia, that asserted the right to intervene in any socialist country to preserve communist rule.

The underground publication and distribution of censored literature in the Eastern Bloc was known as _.

Samizdat

What was Charter 77?

A Czechoslovak human rights association and dissident initiative, co-founded by figures like Václav Havel, that criticized the communist government for failing to implement human rights provisions.

Who was Václav Havel and what is the central idea of his essay 'The Power of the Powerless'?

A Czech dissident and future president; his essay argues that even under a totalitarian regime, individuals can resist by 'living in truth' and refusing to conform to the system's lies.

What was Solidarity (Solidarność)?

A Polish trade union and social movement founded in 1980 at the Gdansk shipyard, led by Lech Walesa, that grew to 10 million members and challenged communist rule.

The West German policy of normalizing relations with Eastern Bloc nations, initiated by Chancellor Willy Brandt in 1969, was called _.

Ostpolitik

Who declared martial law in Poland in December 1981 to crush the Solidarity movement?

General Wojciech Jaruzelski

What were Mikhail Gorbachev's twin policies of 'openness' and 'restructuring' in the Soviet Union?

Glasnost (openness) and Perestroika (restructuring).

What was Gorbachev's 'Sinatra Doctrine'?

The policy of allowing Warsaw Pact nations to determine their own internal affairs ('My Way'), effectively repudiating the Brezhnev Doctrine in 1989.

What was the 'Northern Pattern' of communist collapse in 1989?

A swift and largely bloodless transition from communism in countries where it was externally imposed, such as Poland, Hungary, GDR, and Czechoslovakia.

What was the 'Balkan Pattern' of communist collapse?

A more violent and prolonged transition where communism had deeper national roots and became entwined with nationalism, as seen in Romania and Yugoslavia.

The _ in Poland from February to April 1989 led to the legalization of Solidarity and semi-free elections, initiating the collapse of communism.

Roundtable Talks

What was the 'Velvet Revolution'?

The non-violent transition of power in Czechoslovakia in late 1989 that saw the overthrow of the communist government.

What was the Baltic Way of August 1989?

A peaceful political demonstration where approximately two million people joined hands to form a human chain spanning Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania to demand independence.

Who was Slobodan Milošević?

The President of Serbia who rose to power on a nationalist platform and was a central figure in the Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s.

What was the significance of Milošević's Gazimestan speech in 1989?

Delivered on the 600th anniversary of the Battle of Kosovo, it invoked Serbian nationalism and historical grievances, setting the stage for interethnic conflict.

The _ was a series of ethnic conflicts, wars of independence, and insurgencies fought in the former Yugoslavia from 1991 to 2001.

Yugoslav Wars

The most brutal conflict within the Yugoslav Wars, characterized by widespread ethnic cleansing, occurred in which former republic?

Bosnia and Herzegovina

What was the Srebrenica massacre of July 1995?

The genocidal killing of more than 8,000 Bosniak Muslim men and boys by Bosnian Serb forces under General Ratko Mladić.

What were the Dayton Accords?

The 1995 peace agreement that ended the Bosnian War and divided Bosnia and Herzegovina into two entities: the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Republika Srpska.

The _ was an ethnic Albanian separatist militia that fought against Serbian forces in the late 1990s.

Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA)

The rapid and jarring transition from state-controlled to free-market economies in post-communist countries, as exemplified by Poland, was known as _.

Shock Therapy

Who is Viktor Orbán?

The Prime Minister of Hungary known for promoting an 'illiberal democracy' and invoking nationalist sentiments, such as through maps of 'Greater Hungary'.

What was the Ausgleich of 1867?

The compromise that established the Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary, granting Hungary more autonomy.

The conflict between Russia and an alliance of France, Britain, the Ottoman Empire, and Sardinia from 1853 to 1856 was known as the _.

Crimean War

What were the First and Second Balkan Wars?

Two conflicts in 1912 and 1913 that saw the Balkan states first seize Ottoman territory and then fight among themselves over the spoils.

What was the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk?

A 1918 peace treaty between the new Bolshevik government of Russia and the Central Powers that ended Russia's participation in World War I.

The post-WWI treaty that imposed harsh terms on Germany was the Treaty of , while the treaty that dismantled the Austro-Hungarian Empire and led to huge territorial losses for Hungary was the Treaty of .

Versailles; Trianon

What was the 'Miracle on the Vistula'?

The decisive Polish victory in 1920 during the Polish–Soviet War, which halted the Soviet advance into Europe.

The _ was the name for the great famine in Soviet Ukraine from 1932 to 1933, now widely recognized as a man-made famine or genocide.

Holodomor