Habersack, Sabine - Puşcaş, Vasile - Ciubotă, Viorel (szerk.): Democraţia in Europa centrală şi de Sud-Est - Aspiraţie şi realitate (Secolele XIX-XX) (Satu Mare, 2001)
Stepan Vidnyansky: Central-Eastern Europe int he Period Between Two World Wars: Between Democracy and Dictatorship
Stepan Vidnyansky Ukraine CENTRAL-EASTERN EUROPE IN THE PERIOD BETWEEN TWO WORLD WARS: BETWEEN DEMOCRACY AND DICTATORSHIP Horrible First World War came into the history, first of all, as the greatest crime against humanity. This War has made a human sacrifice, which are equal to the dissipation in Europe during last two centuries. In addition to hostilities, which last more than four years, illnesses and hunger have brouht disaster: living standards of most of people was awful. So, it is clear why the new generation of young people, which walked through the hell of the First World War have got, in European literature, the name “lost generation”. Moreover, almost all European countries suffered incredible loses, which reached one third of national riches of countries that participated in war - more than 80 million dollars. The end of the 1-st World war, in the same time, was the end of the pre-war evolution of humanity, which as far back as the war started to search effective method of solving its problems. These wars, in particular, proved the unity and interdependency of world civilisation and reduced to the fundamental changes in economy, internal life, international relations, and also in the minds and behaviour of people. Collapse of states-empires, abolishment of imperial thought, creation on this ruin of new independent states and new correlation of forces on the international arena are the main consequences of the World war. They appreciably changed the geopolitical map of the European continent and have brought hopes of the new arrangement of the post-war Europe, based on the national equality, peaceful life of the countries, democratization and humanization of European countries. But, unfortunately, these hopes of millions of people, who were worn out by war, didn’t fulfilled. 1918 - 1919 seemed the beginning of an era of democratization in Europe. But soon the situation has radicaly changed: on the Old Continent was established authoritarian, totalitarian regimes, which in 20 years, during the life of participants of First World war, plunged all countries into new - the Second World war - more horrible and brutal. Why does it happend? Reasons of such kind of evolution of historical events we have to search, first of all, in imperfection of Versailles System of post-war
