A History of Eastern Europe
Overview
Discover the complex tapestry of Eastern Europe—a region of shifting borders, diverse cultures, and pivotal world events—in this 24-lecture course.
Course No. 8364
From medieval migrations to Cold War struggles and the Ukraine crisis, explore how this “Other Europe” shaped—and was shaped by—a millennium of invasions, empires, and revolutions.
Course Content
Foundations & Early Conflicts
- The Other Europe: Roots of Diversity (30 min)
- Geographic and cultural introduction to the region
- Formative Migrations (31 min)
- Germanic tribes, Slavs, Vikings, and Mongols
- Clashing Empires (1389–1772) (30 min)
- Battle of Kosovo to the rise of Prussia
Age of Empires & Nationalism
- Partition of Poland (31 min)
- How Europe erased a sovereign state
- 19th Century Nationalism (31 min)
- Romantic poets vs. imperial rulers
- Jewish Life in the Shtetl (30 min)
- Lost world of Eastern European Jewry
World Wars & Totalitarianism
- WWI: Destruction & Rebirth (29 min)
- Collapse of empires, birth of new nations
- Between Hitler & Stalin (29 min)
- Nazi-Soviet Pact and its consequences
- Holocaust in Eastern Europe (30 min)
- Nazi racial empire and local collaborations
Cold War & Collapse
- Behind the Iron Curtain (31 min)
- Stalinist control and Yugoslav resistance
- Solidarity Movement (28 min)
- Lech Wałęsa and Poland’s worker uprising
- Fall of Communism (31 min)
- 1989 revolutions that changed the world
Modern Challenges
- Yugoslav Wars (31 min)
- Ethnic cleansing and Milosevic’s crimes
- Ukraine-Russia Crisis (32 min)
- Historical roots of current conflicts
- Eastern Europe Today (32 min)
- EU expansion and lingering divisions

