In his recently published book, Central European Crossroads, historian Pieter C. van Duin broaches the subject of social democracy and national revolution in East Central Europe. Thus, the author deals with a region that, until today, is often overlooked by Western European social historians because of language barriers or the tendency to focus on the ‘core regions’ of the Western world. In Czechoslovakia itself, during the communist era, an extensive literature was produced concerning working-class movements, but its one-sided interpretation frame is hardly sufficient for contemporary scholarship. With his work, van Duin has now provided a detailed and much-needed study on the origins and development of the national revolution leading to the establishment of the Czechoslovak Republic and its consolidation in Bratislava and Slovakia.

In his book, the author applies a multidimensional approach, both in temporal and spatial terms. Part I of the study presents a broad historical context to the 1918–1919 national revolution, spanning the half century 1867–1918. It focuses on the issues shaping social and political life in pre-1918 Hungary and Pressburg, the evolution of the Hungarian social democratic movement, and the preconditions for national revolution. However, the focal point of the author’s attention goes out to the six months of revolutionary and immediate post-revolutionary events between October 1918 and March 1919, which are analysed in detail in Part II. Finally, Part III of van Duin’s study looks at the three years during which the new political constellation resulting from the national revolution in Bratislava was consolidated. The author also combines two spatial dimensions – the microcosm of the city of Bratislava and the wider world of Hungary, Czechoslovakia and the former Habsburg empire. These two dimensions are constantly intertwined and shown in their mutual interaction.

In contrast to his western colleagues and the traditional non-political focus of their work, van Duin stresses the fundamental importance of the ‘national question’ and ethnic nationalism when studying labour history and the history of the social democratic movement. This is especially true in the case of the multi-ethnic region of East Central Europe. Van Duin argues that the cultural and political roots of ethno-national differentiation, conflict, and hierarchy dating back to the 19th-century national emancipation movements helped to shape working-class movements in Central Europe. The reality of ethnic hierarchy and national inequality in pre-1918 Hungary (and the Habsburg Empire as a whole) and the increasingly politicized ethno-national consciousness, made it difficult to create a multi-ethnic working-class movement focusing exclusively on economic interests, class struggle, and the socialist objective. Moreover, language barriers and attachment to one’s own cultural identity represented considerable obstacles to interethnic cooperation.

The importance of the national question is, furthermore, convincingly argued and well-documented in van Duin’s scrupulous reconstruction of the history of the social democratic movement of Pressburg/Bratislava within the timeframe of the study. The city, located at the crossroads of three ethnic territories (German-Slovak-Magyar: hence the book’s main title), with its own multinational population reflecting this reality, serves as a perfect example of the complex multi-ethnic Central-European society at the time. Van Duin demonstrates how, both before and after the First World War, the national cleavage played an important role in Pressburg’s social democracy, although occasional pragmatic forms of cooperation between the German-Magyar and Czechoslovak working-class movements occurred.

Crucial, however, was the radical change in power structure in Central Europe after the First World War, caused by the defeat of the Central Powers, and the subsequent transformation of interethnic relations in the region (including in Pressburg/Bratislava). While the Magyar and German populations of Pressburg were suddenly faced with the threat of becoming ethnic minorities in the newly created Czechoslovak republic, the Slovaks were lifted to an unprecedented social status. For the social democratic parties, these international developments meant the collapse of (the Austrian and Hungarian) multi-ethnic organizations and further disintegration along national lines.

Although both the role of the Magyar, Slovak and German social democrats in Pressburg are discussed, the position of the latter receives special attention. After all, the Germans occupied a sociologically ambiguous position in local Pressburg society both before and after 1918 and their role in both Hungarian and Czechoslovak history has, according to the author, too often been treated as a marginal subject by Slovak and Hungarian historians. In addition, the German social democratic perspectives provide an insight into the understanding of interethnic relations in pre-revolutionary, revolutionary, and post-revolutionary Pressburg/Bratislava.

When analysing the German and Magyar resistance to the incorporation of Upper-Hungary into the Czechoslovak State, the ‘post-factual’ viewpoint of the author becomes transparent. Several times the future German–Czech antagonisms – i.e. ‘the Munich threat’ – and also the problematic relationship between Magyars and Slovaks seem to emanate from the pages of van Duin’s study. The future conflicts between Czechs and Slovaks are just as well anticipated and traced back to this time period when discussing the ‘Czech demographic invasion’ of Slovakia, consisting of the arrival of growing numbers of Czechs taking the jobs of Magyar and German former government employees.

The range of sources used is impressive. The focus area of the study – the period of revolutionary change between October 1918 and March 1919 – is mainly based on primary sources. On the basis of discourse analysis of newspapers, van Duin examines the biased and moralistic political rhetoric following the series of national revolutions at the end of the First World War. He does this first of all for the different social democratic parties, but also includes reactions of other political and ethnic groups in the city. For his reconstruction of the wider context, the author relies on an extensive collection of the most important secondary literature in Slovak, Czech, German, English and other languages. He demonstrates a thorough knowledge of the existing studies on the topic at hand, which he moreover submits to a critical evaluation.

The chronological structure within each chapter has both its advantages and its disadvantages throughout the reading process. On the one hand, it causes frequent repetitions and only gradually provides the reader with ‘the pieces of the puzzle’ needed in order to complete the full picture of the discussed events. On the other hand, considering the complexity of the topic, these repetitions can be very useful, especially when reading the book over a longer period of time. Finally, this ‘double chronological structure’ builds up suspense toward a climax – e.g. the national revolution in Bratislava and the tragedy of 12 February 1919 – that only enhances the reader’s interest.

As befitting, van Duin shows himself sensitive for transcription, translation and spelling issues that go together with studies of the region. Exemplary in this respect is the careful use of geographical terminology and parallel existing place names in all languages involved, the distinction made between the terms ‘Hungarian’ and ‘Magyar’ and the different notations for ‘Czechoslovakia’(with or without a hyphen) according to their different ideological implications.

With his recent book, social historian Pieter C. van Duin has made a valuable contribution to the historiography on the national revolution in Central Europe after the First World War as well as to the history of the social democratic movement in the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Czechoslovakia. The study has definitely broken some new ground, but, as the author states himself, further research is needed. This could, among other things, involve additional inquiry into the relationship between denationalization and the growing nationalism among different ethnic groups, and the functioning of local politics and of the Czechoslovak administration in Bratislava.