Microcosm: A Portrait of a Central European City [Hardcover]

Before the popular success of his two general histories, Europe: A History, and The Isles, Norman Davies was best known as a specialist on the history of Poland. His 1981 two-volume God's Playground remains the best and most searching study in English of the fluctuating fortunes of that country. Microcosm, written in collaboration with his researcher Roger Moorhouse, is an in-depth account of a city now in Poland and presently called Wroclaw. The city has only been Polish since the Second World War. Before that it was the very German city of Breslau. And before that it was, at various times, part of the kingdom of Bohemia, the Hapsburg Empire and the Prussia of Frederick the Great. In different centuries it has been known as Wrotizla, as Wretslaw, as Presslaw and as Bresslau. Its Polish, German and Jewish communities intermingled to produce both a unique city and one that reflected and embodied all the different currents that have flowed together over a millennium to create the story of Central Europe.

Davies and Moorhouse intend their account of what is today Wroclaw to illustrate the history of one particular city but also to illuminate the general history of Central Europe through this one microcosm. They don't always succeed in their aim. At times the task of yoking together the minutiae of the city's life with its place in a broader history seems an impossible one. It is likely that the general reader will not be as interested in, say, lists of great alumni of Breslau's 19th-century university, as he or she will be in the narrative of Breslau in World War II. The book works best for the general reader when it most justifies its title; it works much less well when it seems most like some kind of official city history.--Nick Rennison

A brilliant exploration of what it means to be Central European by telling the remarkable story of Silesia's principal city.

A brilliant exploration of what it means to be Central European by telling the remarkable story of Silesia's principal city.

The story of Central Europe is anything but simple: as a result of invasions and resettlements, the people of Central Europe have witnessed a profusion of languages, cultures, religions and nationalities. The two most important waves of settlement came from the Germans and the Slavs, but Central Europe also became the great haven for Jews. In the centuries when Jewish people were persecuted, they naturally congregated in the middle, and the Jewishness of Central Europe has been one of its defining features. But most significantly in its recent history, Central Europe has been subjected to 50 years of Fascism and Communism in succession. In order to present a portrait of Central Europe, from AD 1000 to the present, Norman Davies and Roger Moorhouse study the history of one of its main cities - Breslau. Breslau, the traditional capital of Silesia, was one of the great commercial cities of medieval Europe. It later became the second city of the kingdom of Bohemia, a major city of the Hapsburg lands, and a Residenzstadt of the kingdom of Prussia. The third largest German city of the mid-nineteenth century, Breslau's population reached one million in 1945. But in May 1945 the city of Breslau was annihilated by the Soviet Red Army. Much of it was destroyed, thousands of its inhabitants were killed. Breslau surrendered four days after Berlin and was thus the last Fortress of the Reich to fall, and, indeed, one of the very last areas in Germany to surrender. Transferred to Poland after the war, the city has risen from the ruins of the war and is once again a thriving economic and cultural centre of the region. The history of Silesia's main city embodies all the experiences which have made Central Europe what it is - the rich mixture of nationalities and cultures; the German settlement and the reflux of the Slavs; a Jewish presence of exceptional distinction; a turbulent succession of Imperial rulers; and the shattering exposure to both Nazis and Stalinists. In short, it is a Central European microcosm.

Norman Davies is Professor Emeritus of the University of London, a Senior Member of Wolfson College, Oxford, and the author of several books on European history, including God's Playground and Europe. Roger Moorhouse was the researcher for Davies' Europe and The Isles. (20020220)

The City was the offspring of the River and the Plain. It was conceived at a point where people moving up and down the River met others who were following trails across the plain. Historians do not usually recognise events for which there is no definitive evidence, but it is reasonable to deduce that some time long before recorded history a small settlement came into being at the river crossing. In fact, there are many circumstantial indications to suggest that the site was repeatedly, if not permanently, occupied from very remote times. There is also good reason to assume that the first settlers were not connected in any way with the Slavonic and Germanic peoples who would later dominate. The earliest trace of Stone Age habitation, about half an hour's stroll from the left bank of the river, has been dated to more than 300,000 years ago. The first substantial prehistoric settlement, which has been identified on the right bank of the river, dates from the eighth century bc. Two rich prehistoric hoards have played an important role in scholarly ruminations. One of them, from the first century bc, discovered about five kilometres to the south-west, contained no less than 2.75 tonnes of Baltic amber. The other, discovered about three kilometres to the north-east, came from a princely gravesite of the fourth century ad .It containe dan extraordinary collection of utensils and jewellery fashioned in gold, silver, bronze and fine glass.
Archaeologists have drawn very conflicting conclusions from the fragmentary information that is available. Yet most would agree that a marked decline in human activity occurred around the middle of the first millennium of our era. In the region as a whole, the population fell to perhaps one-quarter of the preceding level. According to a recent opinion, life on the middle reaches of the River 'virtually stopped'. If this is correct, one must accept that the new wave of settlers who began to make their presence felt in the sixth to seventh centuries ad had little in common with their many predecessors. Equally, the urban community, which henceforth was to enjoy an unbroken history, could not be seen as a simple continuation of earlier settlements on the same site. It would not be out of place to talk of a new beginning.
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Historical geography underlines two crucial factors in the early stages of development. The first relates to the intersection of the two ancient trade routes - one on the east-west axis of the Plain linking Western Europe with the Black Sea, the other following the north-south alignment of the River from the watershed of the Danube Basin to the Baltic. The second factor relates to a much more specific and local feature. Immediately upstream of a long, marshy and impassable stretch of the River, a cluster of perhaps a dozen riverine islands provided a natural crossing point and refuge for the graziers and fishermen who frequented the riverbanks. Of course, it is impossible to say whether the crossing point was manned by an unbroken series of ferrymen from the days of the amber hoard to those of the earliest medieval dwellings. But it is not inconceivable. What is certain is that the riverine islands would have proved more attractive than other locations in the vicinity. It is!
the islands that lent this place its most outstanding characteristic. (The siting of Paris on the islands of the Seine is but one of many parallels to prove the point.)
The presence of the nearby mountains exercised a powerful influence. Subalpine in character, the highest ridge in the 'Giant Mountains' rises to a height of 1,602 metres at the peak of 'Snowy Head', some 100 kilometres to the south-west. Icebound for half the year, it forms a formidable barrier that can only be crossed with ease through one or two passes. At the same time, it encourages life-giving falls of rain and snow on the Plain below. Importantly, too, the rocks of the mountains contain an unusual variety of valuable minerals. Deposits of iron, which first attracted the Celts, are matched by a rich coal basin, and by numerous mines yielding lead, tin, copper, gold and silver. In addition, there are several famous mineral springs, whose waters have brought in a continuous stream of visitors, from nature worshippers in prehistoric times to modern health tourists. All these attractions are situated within eighty kilometres, or two to three days' walk, of the City, which naturally became the focus for related trade and transport. At a similar distance to the north lies a lower range of limestone heights, the 'Cats Hills', which became an important source of high-quality stone in the age of permanent building. Most interesting of all is a curiously isolated peak, which rises magnificently from the surrounding plain less than forty kilometres from the City, and which lent its name to the province. A holy mountain and a cult centre from the earliest times, it added a sense of the sacred to the district over which it presides.
The Great Northern Plain, Europe's largest geographical feature, stretches from the oceanic seaboard to the heart of Eurasia, a distance of many thousands of kilometres, broken only by rolling hills and broad rivers. One of those rivers, the Odra (or Oder), rises in the mountains of Central Europe at a height of 640 metres, initially flowing north-east through the Moravian Gate, before turning north-west and forming the main artery of the province of Silesia. On approaching the Baltic Sea, it adopts a northerly course, crossing the lowest and flattest expanse of the Plain and finally reaching the coast through the arms and lagoons of its delta. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.