Eastern and Central Europe (Eyewitness Travel Guides)

(Ben Green) #1

36 EASTERN AND CENTRAL EUROPE AT A GLANCE


1914 Gavrilo Princip
assassinates Austrian Archduke
Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo,
sparking World War I

ART AND ARCHITECTURE
Eastern European art was at the forefront of
the Modernist movement in the early 20th
century, before the combined effects of war
and authoritarian rule disrupted its develop-
ment. After the political changes of 1989,
however, Eastern and Central Europe is
gradually re-establishing its position at the
heart of European culture.

THE 20TH CENTURY TO THE PRESENT
War and revolution destroyed the multinational empires
of the 19th century, and after 1918, independent nation
states were re-established throughout Eastern Europe.
With the onset of World War II, however, the region was
first conquered by Germany, then by Soviet Russia,
which imposed Communist regimes on the seized
territories. Communist rule collapsed in 1989 but the
transition to democracy was not smooth every where;
Yugoslavia, in particular, was riven by conflict before the
emergence of new, internationally recognized states.


ART NOUVEAU ART DECO AND MODERNISM

AGE OF IMPERIALISM
1910 1920 1930 1940 1950

1917 Revolution in
Russia brings Lenin’s
Bolsheviks to power

1918–19 The end of World War I
brings independence for Estonia,
Latvia, Lithuania, Poland,
Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia

1924 Soviet leader
Lenin dies; Stalin
emerges as
his successor

1937–8 Stalin unleashes the
Great Purge, killing an esti-
mated 2 million citizens

1938 The Munich Agreement
allows Germany to take hold of
large parts of Czechoslovakia

1939 Germany and the Soviet Union
secretly agree to divide Poland
between them, triggering World War II

1941 Germany mounts a
surprise attack on the
Soviet Union

1945 Collapse of
Germany leaves
the Soviet Union
in control of
Central and
Eastern Europe

1953 The death of
Stalin eases
political terror

1956 An anti-
Communist uprising
breaks out in Hungary
but is crushed by
Soviet tanks

1928 Croat sculptor Ivan Meštrović’s
best-known work, The Victor (see p550),
is erected in Belgrade

1929 Slovene architect Jože Plečnik
redesigns the riverside quarter in
Ljubljana (see pp420–21)

1931 Alfons Mucha designs sumptuous
stained-glass windows for St Vitus’s
Cathedral (see pp236–7) in Prague

1935–8 The Moscow Metro opens,
featuring palatial stations, such as
Arbatskaya and Komsomolskaya,
full of mosaics and frescoes

1952 Work begins on Warsaw’s Palace of
Culture and Science (see p181), Eastern Europe’s
best example of Stalinist Baroque

1903–6 Mikhail
Eisenstein designs
Art Nouveau apart-
ment blocks in
Rīga (see pp74–5)

1900–10 Rihard Jakopič, Ivan Grohar
and Matej Šternen spearhead the Slovene
Impressionist Movement (see p423)

1907–11 Lithuanian painter Mikalojus
Konstantinis Čiurlionis develops the
quasi-mystical, Symbolist style

1911 Completion of Municipal
House (see p256) in Prague, a high
point in Art Nouveau architecture

1915 Kazimir Malevich
paints his most iconic
work, The Black Square
(see p154)
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