Starting at the turn of the twentieth century, nationalistic parties arose everywhere in East Central and South Eastern Europe. This was part of a development toward a broad party system with extreme and moderate left- and right-wing parties in the great empires. All of these parties were concerned with national issues, but the right-wing parties especially were rooted in national movements and ambitions for autonomy or independence. They had not only nationalistic party platforms, but were also anti-Semitic and strongly anti-Socialist or anti-Communist. Due to their party platforms, many could not operate legally before the end of World War I, but they were nevertheless somewhat successful. After World War I the newly created states had to cope with the problems resulting from their establishment; immediate political crises and underlying crises of legitimacy in these states pushed the ideological development of the right-wing parties.

The Fascist parties tried to subvert the given political system with a “movement” articulating the (imagined) nation's will and by creating a new kind of secular religion. Thus, their leaders were stylized as the symbols and articulators of the nation's will, and frustrated groups especially saw them as personifications of their own wishes and aims. These parties had a hierarchical structure adjusted to the particular leader, and the leadership principle was the main principle of government. A “natural” and “charismatic” “direct personal relationship” with the leader replaced parliamentary and democratic legitimacy.

While historical research has focused on Adolf Hitler, the leading figures of the right-wing parties in Eastern Europe have been ascribed minor roles as tools or as agents of Hitler. They have not been seen as important political actors in their own right. Thus historical research in general, and Anglophone works in particular, have not adequately recognized the roles of these leaders individually and in a comparative perspective. Such is the starting point of this volume, which argues that the personalities in question were not simply Hitler's or Mussolini's agents and subordinates.

Comprising eighteen essays, the volume stems from a series of seminars at the UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies held between 2003 and 2008. After Rebecca Haynes's introduction to the topic and framing of the volume's overarching questions, Roger Griffin's essay takes a theoretical approach. Griffin argues that the personalities of the leaders in question are culturally made and that they are characteristically defined as charismatic authorities. The seventeen biographical articles that follow deal with personalities with conservative-authoritarian or radical-Fascist ideologies in East Central and South Eastern Europe. The authors try to escape from the “Shadow of Hitler” because that “shadow” limits interpretation of the deeds, motives, and “genuine” attitudes of the leaders. The essays present personalities from Germany to Ukraine and Finland from the last decades of nineteenth century until the end of World War II. Thus, most of them deal with the dynamics after the breakdown of the empires in 1917–18 and legacies for the successor states. They give attention to relatively well-known personalities such as Ion Antonescu, Josef Tiso, Konrad Henlein, and Roman Dmowski and to relatively little heeded personalities like Theodor Fritsch, Georg von Schönerer, Gyula Gömbös, and Dimitrije Ljotić. Only one essay presents an influential woman (Cécile Tormay), which shows that the right-wing conservative or Fascist parties had a patriarchal character. Unfortunately, the articles solely present the personalities' biographies, political attitudes, important deeds for the party, and, where applicable, key positions and actions in the government. This gives the impression that some of the authors are not really familiar with the theoretical fundamentals of “personalities” and thus with the concept of this volume. For example, Georg Christoph Waldenegg, author of the article on Edmund Glaise von Horstenau, argues that Glaise was only a personality for having left a great legacy of papers and for being a “fairly typical Austrian” (314). Another great caveat is the fact that all of these biographical essays are merely descriptive.

To conclude, on the one hand the volume as a whole gives a perspective on political leaders of the right and offers a chance for comparisons and contextualization, but on the other the essays do not have further impact; they do not advance theoretical understanding of the concept of leaders and personalities.