The Nation Should Come First

This book is a thorough analysis of Marxist-Leninist historiographies in East Central Europe. It covers the period of Stalinism, from the late 1940s up to the early 1960s. The author's main interest lies in the Marxists' attitudes towards the traditions of German, Polish, Czech, and Slovak national movements and historiographies.

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By the second half of the 1940s, newly conquered nations of Central and Eastern Europe were expected to adjust multiple professions, including those related to the historical sciences, to the Soviet model. However, Marxism, soon to become the only acceptable methodology, was no longer understood in the same way as in Bolshevik Russia. Its Soviet variation borrowed heavily from the tradition of Russian historiography and the Russian national tradition. The variations formulated in the satellite countries were also less likely to break away from existing traditions than to revise and re-evaluate them, along with the perspectives on Russia's role in the history of Central and Eastern Europe.