Woodrow Wilson and the Reimagining of Eastern Europe

by Larry Wolff

At the 1919 Paris Peace Conference, where the victorious Allied powers met to reenvision the map of Europe in the aftermath of World War I, President Woodrow Wilson's influence on the remapping of borders was profound. But it was his impact on the modern political structuring of Eastern Europe that would be perhaps his most enduring international neither Czechoslovakia nor Yugoslavia exist today, but their geopolitical presence persisted across the twentieth century from the end of World War I to the end of the Cold War. They were created in large part thanks to Wilson's advocacy, and in particular, his Fourteen Points speech of January 1918, which hinged in large part on the concept of national self-determination. But despite his deep involvement in the region's geopolitical transformation, President Wilson never set eyes on Eastern Europe, and never traveled to a single one of the eastern lands whose political destiny he so decisively influenced. Eastern Europe, invented in the age of Enlightenment by the travelers and philosophies of Western Europe, was reinvented on the map of the early twentieth century with the crucial intervention of an American president who deeply invested his political and emotional energies in lands that he would never visit. This book traces how Wilson's emerging definition of national self-determination and his practical application of the principle changed over time as negotiations at the Paris Peace Conference unfolded. Larry Wolff exposes the contradictions between Wilson's principles and their implementation in the peace settlement for Eastern Europe, and sheds light on how his decisions were influenced by both personal relationships and his growing awareness of the history of the Ottoman and Habsburg empires.

Genres: History, Politics, American History, Biography

304 pages, Paperback

First published January 21, 2020

Reviews

[Jake · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wilson saw America as a "melting pot" of ethnic diversity that made the US more resilient but the ottomans religious diversity as a "hornets nest". Easily coerced by academics he trusted into redrawing maps in Eastern Europe that made these countries easily manipulated by the great powers.

[Alex Broughton · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book provides a detailed analysis of Woodrow Wilson's role in creating the post-1918 map of Eastern Europe. While there is discussion of the post-Ottoman region, the book's main focus is on the former Austro-Hungarian empire and (what was) Eastern Germany, with more discussion of Poland than any other single country.

The Wilsonian notion of national self-determination was challenged by the reality of regions with ethnically mixed populations. Pre (and) post WWI Borders did not always correspond with ethnic divsions, which led to the imposition of rules by the western powers for the protection of minorities in the emerging states of Eastern Europe. These issues would arise again in 1938 with the Sudeten German minority providing a pretext for Nazi Germany's seizure of Czechoslovakia and the (less well known) brutal expulsions of Germans, Ukrainians and Poles throughout North Eastern Europe after the fall of Nazi Germany (although not covered in this book).

The book is not for the general reader seeking to learn about Eastern Europe, but is more designed for those who already have some knowledge of the region's history looking for more details of this formative period in the modern history of Eastern Europe.

[Dennis Murphy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Woodrow Wilson and the Reimagining of Eastern Europe by Larry Wolff is quite the new experience for me. I have little knowledge of the reimagining of Eastern Europe that took place around and after The Great War, so most of this was new to me. The story itself is a bit of a story of devolution, with Wilson's optimistic vision for Europe steadily falling apart due to complications of ethnography, geography, and the awakened ambitions of the new states. There's a touching story referenced a couple of times about a Polish group of people walking by foot to ask that their village be counted as part of the new state of Poland, not Czechoslovakia. There's also a genuinely good relationship that emerges between Wilson and the Czechoslovak leadership. But little Montenegro vanishes from the map, and Romania and Bulgaria competed in Wilson's mind as the most greedy and avaricious of the smaller, newer states. Italy also, definitely, does not come off well. The first two chapters revolve around the dismemberment of the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian state, while the later two chapters center on shepherding the new states into the community of nations near and following the end of the war.

The book is pretty positive of its portrayal of Wilson, which seems to be increasingly out of fashion these days. And Wolff draws a contrast between Wilson's support for gradualism and slow change in the United States, while demanding near instant change in Europe in the construction of the postwar order. Though his apparent sympathies tied to ethno-nationalistic identity (called 'race') prejudiced him against multinational states (like Austria-Hungary) and has a link to the troubles that plagued postwar Europe, particularly in the East.

Interesting book, and worth engaging with.

[Susan Leigh Connors · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow. This was a fascinating history. Book didn’t know much about this and once I started listening, I couldn’t stop.

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/review...

[Dylan · Rating 3 out of 5]

only read for a historiography paper but found it useful to understand wilson’s worldview going into the first world war and the later paris peace treaties. the theme of fantasy that wolff also highlights in Inventing Eastern Europe was very interesting.

[Gregp · Rating 3 out of 5]

6 out of 10

[Nicole]

UPDATE: My formal scholarly review will appear in an upcoming volume of the American Historical Review.

I'm refraining from giving stars or writing too much here, in case I do a formal review of the book for an academic journal.

In general, though, it is a fairly sympathetic take on Wilson based primarily on the Wilson papers and those who want to see Wilson painted as a thorough racist will, I think, be disappointed. There is also a relative absence of secondary literature that would help contextualize the primary sources. The book does provide another example of Prof. Wolff's excellent writing style, and there are some really excellently phrased analytical passages.