The best books for understanding your Eastern European Grandma

Barry Cunliffe is a celebrated British archaeologist who specializes in both Europe’s and Britain’s origins.

Admittedly, Barry gets into the weeds a bit which can be challenging for those just looking for an introduction, but what he does better than most is connect the dots that bind Europe, Asia, the Middle East and North Africa together.

Most histories of Europe pretend that Europe is an island, separate from Asia and everything else, as if it developed in a vacuum – but Barry reminds us that Charlemagne and Columbus are only part of the full European story.

Barry is a great place to start to understand the Eastern European, Asian, and Middle Eastern side of your British or Irish heritage – and yes, they are connected in some very direct ways.  

In his exploration of East Prussia in its final stages, author Max Egremont noted, “This is a part of Europe where boundaries are vague, where names deceive.” (2011; Pg. 220)

It is true across all of Europe but more so in Eastern Europe that ethnic and cultural boundaries often overlap – though nationalists try to claim exclusive domain.

This is a book about one city, today known as Wrocław (in southwestern Poland) which has a rich Polish history – but whose background includes strong German (“Breslau”), Czech (“Vratislav”), Jewish (ברעסלוי /Bresloi), Romany, and even more layers. Often these cultures coexisted, and mixed.

This book is a wonderful introduction to the ethnic complexity of Eastern Europe, and how today’s political borders can give the false impression of simple, clear ethnic boundaries.   

Again, this may be a bit dense reading but Wolff tackles the very notion of “Eastern Europe.”

The Enlightenment was a philosophical movement that began in the mid-17th century and lasted until about 1800, and it focused on remaking politics. Enlightenment thinkers believed in change and progress, that Europeans were not doomed to suffer under the tyranny of feudal kings.

Wolff explores how these Enlightenment thinkers celebrated an Age of Progress in Western Europe – but were less impressed with the Eastern half. For thinkers like Voltaire, “Eastern Europe” came to mean backward, under-developed, superstitious, and violent Europe.

These thinkers began using this term, “Eastern Europe” in the 1770s to mean “the Other Europe,” like an embarrassing, unwanted sibling. Wolff describes how these attitudes shaped Western policies towards Eastern Europe. 

Look, Eastern European history is messy and complicated, and involves an almost non-stop parade of border changes.

Countries emerge and even dominate, only to disappear two centuries later. (Ever hear of the Avar Khanate, or medieval Halych?)

British historian Eric Hobsbawm noted once how a person born in 1900 in what is today Mukachevo, Ukraine who lived to be 91 years old would have collected over their lifetime the passports of 5 different countries – without ever moving from the house they were born in.

The Magocsi atlas is a wonderful and well-organized introduction to Eastern Europe’s political, ethnic, economic, and etc. borders, laid out in colorful maps that are easily understood. This is a must-have for anyone delving into the region. 

This book recommendation is admittedly driven by current events.

Snyder describes the rock-and-a-hard-place situation Eastern Europe found itself in over the 20th century, trapped between two aggressive imperial powers.

He uses this exploration to, in part, blunt common Western criticism of Eastern European policies and decisions from this era – but there is a subtext that goes deeper, using the example of Hitler and Stalin to also present an Eastern European perspective on notions like security.

Going back to the 18th century the West has often been frustrated with Eastern Europe, but Snyder is presenting a stark picture of how Eastern Europe’s past might be relevant (and helpful) for the modern West. This was written before the current Ukraine war – but you’d swear it was written for it.