The History Department welcomed celebrated historian, author, and professor John Lukacs to campus on Thursday. Luckacs’s lecture, entitled, “The Division of Europe, 1940-1945,” was a part of the department’s series of seminars on World War II.
Lukacs proposed that WWII inevitably led to the division of Europe and to the Cold War due to the rise of Communism. He believes that given the atmosphere of the time, Communism was going to rise but not necessarily survive; however WWII paved the way for Communism’s rise.
Britain defended the continent from Adolf Hitler’s German army without significant aid from other European nations. Because Britain was without many allies, Russia gained power.
“We are fighting by ourselves, but not for ourselves alone,” Lukacs said, quoting Winston Churchill, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during the war.
Those European nations who successfully battled the German Nazis were subsequently claimed by either Britain or communist Russia, which was led by General Secretary Joseph Stalin. By the end of WWII, Stalin had succeeded in dominating the majority of Eastern Europe and consolidating it under the Soviet Union. What resulted was a political and ideological division between the eastern and western halves of the continent, leading quickly to the Cold War.
“What was theirs was theirs, what was ours was ours,” said Lukacs, a native of Budapest, Hungary, which was a Communist nation.
The Cold War lasted from 1947 to 1991, when the Soviet Union was collapsed due in part to an alliance including the United States, the United Kingdom, and several other western nations.
In closing his lecture, Lukacs returned to the certainty of this 20th century chain of events.
“Nothing is inevitable in history, but something like this could not have been avoided,” Lukacs said.
Lecture attendees praised Lukacs’ lesson.
“The professor did a good job of counteracting the myth that the Soviet Union was intent on world domination,” said Matt Lesser ’08, referencing Lukacs’s point that Stalin had no interest in conquering Western Europe.
“I was interested to hear a military history that took into account personality as a force,” said Tristan Chirico ’06, speaking of Lukacs’ focus on the characters of Churchill and Stalin. “When we think of military history, we tend to think only of battles as decisive.”
Lukacs has been retired for ten years. He is currently working on a new account of WWII, to be published by the Yale University Press.
“I hope that listeners took from this the breadth and subtlety of the mind of a great historian,” said Professor of History Ronald Schatz, who coordinated the event.
Lukacs has penned more than twenty historical and political books, many of which address WWII, and has taught most recently at the University of Oregon.
The History Department’s WWII series will host its next scholarly historian, Akira Iriye of Harvard University, on May 4. The series of seminars includes scholars from outside the University, like Lukacs, as well as University faculty.
“We want to make [the seminars] available to the entire community,” said Schatz.
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