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I. The First Wave of the Drang Nach Osten*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 December 2011

F. Dvorník
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Extract

The idea of expansion towards the East runs through the whole history of Germany like a scarlet thread, and often lends its successive phases a similarity of design and a certain consistency. The history of this expansion is one of the most fascinating epics in European history and it is the Germans themselves who started calling it Drang nach Osten, ranking the results of this drive among the greatest achievements of Germany's national past. Truth to tell, there is an audacity about this Drang, a fierce and ominous dynamism that cannot be denied, for it created a new Germany from the Elbe to the Oder and beyond, deep into the Vistula region. No other Western European nation can boast such a feat, though in the East the Russians accomplished something similar, only on a vaster scale, when they spread out the old Russia from Kiev, Novgorod and Moscow towards the Volga, the Urals and the Siberian steppes as far as Vladivostok. It is, indeed, a dramatic and tragic turning-point in modern European history when these two nations, which developed their grandiose eastward expansion in their own independent spheres, come to a head-on crash in the present bloody and merciless struggle.

Type
Research Article
Information
Cambridge Historical Journal , Volume 7 , Issue 3 , 1943 , pp. 129 - 145
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1943

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Footnotes

*

A paper read to the Cambridge University Slavonic Society, 3 March 1943.

References

1 Cf. his Manuel de l'Antiquité Slave (Paris, 1924), 2 vols.Google Scholar, which summarizes his works published in Czech.

2 Especially Prof. Kostrzewski, Czekanowski, L. Kozlowski. Prof. T. Sulimirski has summarized the main arguments of this new archaeological school in a pamphlet, Polish, Najstarsze Dzieje Narodu Polskiego (London, 1941)Google Scholar and in his booklet Poland and Germany (London, 1942), pp. 7–17.Google Scholar

3 Slavische Altertümer (Leipzig, 1843).Google Scholar The original edition in Czech was published in 1837 in Prague.

4 Cf. on this subject Dvornfk, F., Les Slaves, Byzance et Rome au IXe siècle (Paris, 1926)Google Scholar, and Les Légendes de Constantin et de Méthode vues de Byzance (Prague, 1933)Google Scholar.

5 I, L., c. 35, M[onumenta & Glermaniae H[istorica] Script, III, 432Google Scholar.

6 Loc. cit.: Post Pragam adiit cum omni exercitu, Boemiorum urbem, regemque eius in dedi-tionem accepit; de quo quaedam mirabilia praedicantur, quae quia non probamus, silencio tegi iudicamus. Frater tamen erat Bolizlavi; qui quamdiu vixit, imperatori fidelis et utilis remansit.

7 M.G.H.S. 1, 364: Hludovicus quatuordecim ex ducibus Boemanorum cum hominibus suis Christianam religionem desiderantes suscepit et in octavis theophaniae baptizari jussit.

8 M.G.H.S. 11, 229.

9 M.G.H.S. 1, 411.

10 Latest edition by Bresslau, H. in 1934. M.G.H.S. XXXII, pars 2, p. 742Google Scholar.

11 Novotný, Cf. V., Czech History (in Czech, Prague, 1912), I, 459 sqGoogle Scholar.

12 Emler, J., Fontes Rerun Bohemicarum, 1, 267 (Prague, 1871)Google Scholar.

13 Latest edition by Vajs, J., Starosl, Sbornik. Liter. Pamatek o sv. Vaclavu a sv. Ludmile (Praha, 1929).Google Scholar Cf. Fontes Rer. Boh. I, 130.

14 Pekar, J., Die Wenzels- und Ludmilalegenden und die Echtheit Christians (Prag, 1906), p. 111Google Scholar: Cui felix isdem amicus iungebatur assidue.

15 The best study on St Wenceslas, Pekar's, J. work published in Svatováclavsky Sbornik (Prague, 1937), pp. 1–101Google Scholar, especially pp. 18 sq., 38 sq., 71. Cf. also Cibulka's, J. study in the same Sbornik, pp. 232Google Scholar sq., 342 sq.

16 Cf. the discussion on the dates in Novotny's, Czech History, I, 468Google Scholar.

17 Jacob, , Arabische Reiseberichte (Berlin, 1927), pp. 11–14Google Scholar.

18 Cf. Wojciechowski, Z., Mieszko I and the Rise of the Polish State (Baltic Pocket Library, Torun, Gdynia, 1936)Google Scholar.

19 Cf. the illuminative studies published by Prof. Brackmann, A. in the Abhandlungen of the Prussian Academy in 1934, 1939Google Scholar; in the Sitzungsberichte 1934Google Scholar; and in the Hist. Zeitschrift, vol. cxxxiv. A. Brackmann has, however, failed in many important details to find the right solution. Cf. the reply to some of his arguments by Jedlicki, S. M. in Hist. Zeitschrift, vol. CLIIGoogle Scholar.

20 L. I, c. 12. Cf. the English translation of this important document published by Tschan, F. J., The Chronicle of the Slavs by Helmold (Columbia Univ. Press, 1935)Google Scholar.

21 The best contribution to this problem is Schramm's, P. E. book—Kaiser, Rom und Renovatio (Leipzig, 1929).Google Scholar We intend to examine all these problems more thoroughly in a special study.