This image is the cover for the book Shatterzone of Empires, Encounters: Explorations in Folklore and Ethnomusicology

Shatterzone of Empires, Encounters: Explorations in Folklore and Ethnomusicology

“Anyone who studies nationalism, genocide, mass violence, or war in these regions, from the Enlightenment through the mid-20th century, needs to read [this].”—Central European History

Shatterzone of Empires is a comprehensive analysis of interethnic relations, coexistence, and violence in Europe’s eastern borderlands over the past two centuries.

In this vast territory, extending from the Baltic to the Black Sea, four major empires with ethnically and religiously diverse populations encountered each other along often changing and contested borders. Examining this geographically widespread, multicultural region at several levels—local, national, transnational, and empire—and through multiple approaches—social, cultural, political, and economic—this volume offers informed and dispassionate analyses of how the many populations of these borderlands managed to coexist in a previous era and how and why the areas eventually descended into violence. An understanding of this specific region will help readers grasp the preconditions of interethnic coexistence and the causes of ethnic violence and war in many of the world's other borderlands, both past and present.

Omer Bartov, Eric D. Weitz, Larry Wolfe, Gregor Thum, Dan Diner, Theodore R. Weeks, Gary B. Cohen, Pieter M. Judson, Frithjof Benjamin Schenk, Elke Hartmann, Patrice M. Dabrowski, Robert Nemes, Yaroslav Hrytsak, Tomas Balkelis, Taner Akçam, Eyal Ginio, Keith Brown, David Gaunt, Peter Holquist, Alexander V. Prusin, John-Paul Himka, Pamela Ballinger, Myroslav Shkandrij, Paul Robert Magocsi, Kai Struve, Philipp Ther

Omer Bartov is the John P. Birkelund Distinguished Professor of European History at Brown University. His books include Erased: Vanishing Traces of Jewish Galicia in Present-Day Ukraine and Mirrors of Destruction: War, Genocide, and Modern Identity.Eric D. Weitz is Dean of Humanities and the Arts and Professor of History at City College, City University of New York. His books include A Century of Genocide: Utopias of Race and Nation and Weimar Germany: Promise and Tragedy.

Indiana University Press