Abstract
This paper examines the strengths and weaknesses of the Concert of Europe in dealing with the Eastern Question. Throughout the Eastern Question, which regards the fate of the Ottoman Empire, Concert diplomacy was used to solve the various crises that arose. The paper describes and analyzes three of these crises, the Syrian Crisis, the Crimean War, and the Balkan Wars.

From the Paper
"With the defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte in 1815, a system of diplomacy, known as the Concert of Europe, was established between the great powers of the time. This union held underlying norms and regulations that directed the Powers foreign policy for the decades that followed. Although initially developed to deal with European matters, the Concert was faced with dilemmas and crises concerning the interests of the great powers outside of Europe as well. This was particularly true with regards to the "Eastern Question" which was becoming more and more of a heightened issue as the nineteenth century progressed. As J.A.R. Marriott wrote: "European statesmen have persistently sought to "isolate" the politics of the Near East. They have almost consistently failed" (1963: 10). The issues concerning the Ottoman Empire quickly became relevant international issues that stood before the Concert of Europe. The treatment of these issues by the great powers reflects both the strengths and the weaknesses of the European Concert system. The various crises concerning the fate of the Ottoman Empire will be analyzed in order to show the effectiveness of the Concert system to deal with the Eastern Question up to the Crimean War, and its gradual decline and weaknesses until it's disintegration in World War I."

Tags:balkan, concert, crimean, crisis, empire, europe, ottoman, straits, syrian, war

Abstract
This paper presents facts about a one time actual ruler, Vlad the Impalar, of what is now known as Romania. It looks at the actual figure and the similarities between Stoker's character, Dracula and the Romanian ruler. The paper uses the only known resources that are written about Vlad and tells a little of the horrors and history of 15th century Europe.

From the Paper
"Vlad's main goal was to maintain rule. Dracula allied himself with Hungary against his former allies, the Turks, and pledged that he would fight for the Christian cause. Even though Vlad pledged to fight for the Christians, he remained a Romanian Orthodox, in doing so he ensured his position in Wallachia as ruler for the time being."

Tags:dracula, europe, history, impalement, impaler, romania, ruler, tepes, vampire, vlad, wallachia

Abstract
The paper consists of three chapters, an introductory part and conclusions. The introduction defines the topic, the sources, the method and the structure. As the thesis refers to Franciscans and their reports, the first chapter provides a brief insight into their organization, their reasons for coming to the region, the relationship between them and the local power, and among themselves. The second chapter deals with the local clergy and its everyday life, stressing both its way of following church cannons and the coexistence with the clergy belonging to other religions. The third chapter deals with the society and is divided in two subchapters. The first one concern the society itself, focusing on its patterns of behavior in certain occasions, mentality, customs, ethnicity and education. The second subchapter is dedicated to religion, both the official religion and the popular one, which includes local beliefs mingled with Christian dogma and miracles. The last part consists of the conclusions drawn from the paper, highlighting its outcomes.

From the Paper
"Knowledge of the reports written by the Franciscan missionaries is valuable for any historiography of the countries that were comprised within partibus infidelium where the Franciscans were active. Their reports are written in different styles suitable for different approaches, from demographic or culinary history to political history. Naturally, the accounts of the Franciscans proved valuable for Romanian historiography as well. However little use of the new trends was made and they were employed mainly as a source that stressed the political history. Therefore as previous research disregarded the potential of the reports for social history, there is a certain gap in the field."

Tags:catholicism, council, franciscans, moldavia, orthodoxy, popular, protestantism, religion, society, transylvania, trent, wallachia

Abstract
The paper provides an insight on the two centuries that for Bosnia meant the reshaping of the social, ethnic and religious features. By analyzing the process that conducted to that shift, the paper discusses eventually contemporary issues of the area.

From the Paper
"The paper focuses on the ethnic and religious changes that took place in Bosnia during 17th-18th centuries by putting them in the right context. The essay is encompassed within the multiple borderland courses by approaching all the shifts Bosnia encountered as a border province on Triplex Confinium. The aim is to deal not only with the political features of the border but also with its human aspects and to surprise how the border shifts affected the human environment. In order to achieve this a comparative approach based on the consequences of actions."

Tags:bosnia, ethnicity, habsburgs, ottomans, uskok

Abstract
The paper reviews and analyzes Sergei Eisenstein's 1925 historical film, "The Battleship Potemkin" which tells the story of a revolution in 1905 which began with the revolt of the sailors on the Battleship Potemkin, in the Odessa harbour. The paper discusses the historical accuracy of the film and Eisenstein's filming techniques.

From the Paper
"The film also suggests that the soldiers of the tsar were especially brutal and that there was a long-standing conflict between the people and their rulers. This is most evident as the soldiers march down the Odessa steps, firing indiscriminately into the crowd of citizens, showing that the citizenry is thought of as completely subservient to the power structure and that the power structure in no way sees it necessary to respond to the desires of the people. This sequence is especially affecting as Eisenstein selects certain specific figures from the crowd and makes the viewer identify with them as they are shot by the almost faceless troops. Notable as well is the baby carriage drifting down the steps out of control, a symbol of the way the people are left to themselves in the danger zone that is their life in Russia. The mother is killed so that she can no longer protect her child, representing the future of Russia."

Tags:Soviet, Vakulinchuk, 1917

Abstract
Laszlo Moholy-Nagy is widely considered to be one of the twentieth century's most important and influential artists. This paper discusses him as a photographer, painter, designer, writer, sculptor printmaker, film-maker and teacher. It shows how his influence reached into many aspects of the arts, from his native Eastern Europe, to the Western part of the Continent, across the Atlantic to the United States. The paper also explains how Moholy-Nagy was an important figure in the Western European Constructivism movement.

From the Paper
"Moholy-Nagy was born in 1895 in Baac's-Borsod, Hungary. He left school in Budapest to fight in World War I in 1916. It is during the war that he began sketching and taking his work as an artist seriously. In 1917, while recovering from a wound, he founded the artist group MA and started a literary magazine called "Jelenkor". In 1919 he moved to Vienna. It was there he began to make photograms and collages."

Tags:art, paint, designer, photographer, hungary, jelenkor, collage, war, sketch

Abstract
This essay argues that the Russian revolution of 1905 was a protest against the Tsar's refusal to make political concessions, and that once the concessions were given, the revolution was doomed to failure. It argues that the opposition was disorganized and not united in its objectives, and that generally the people of Russia still revered the Tsar, despite his faults.

From the Paper
"On 9 January 1905, a worker's procession in St Petersburg calling for social and political reform was fired upon by panicked troops and two hundred people were killed. A resultant wave of strikes and protests across the country threatened to overthrow the monarchy; indeed, as most of the army was engaged in the war against Japan, the Tsar had little protection. Opposition to the Tsar had been building up for many years, and was made up of a broad range of political groups, including peasants and workers, moderates and revolutionaries, liberals and socialists."

Tags:1905, bloody, communist, duma, manifesto, nicholas, october, petersburg, revolution, russia, tsar, witte, russian

Abstract
This paper looks at the nature and long duration of Ottoman rule in the Balkans. The writer reviews the deep and long lasting effects on the nations which today make up the Balkan Peninsula. The first part examines how during the first several centuries of Ottoman rule, its legacy was conducive to the maintenance of order, prosperity and ethnic and religious toleration. The second part explores how certain facets of Ottoman policy and practice, also contributed to the stunting of the area's political, economic and intellectual growth.

From the Paper
"The term Balkans, which means in Turkish 'chain of wooded mountains,' refers to the southeastern peninsula of Europe, the largely mountainous lands which lie between the Adriatic Sea on the west, the plains of Central Europe to the north, the steppes of Russia/Ukraine to the east, the Black Sea and Asia Minor to the southeast and the Mediterranean Sea to the south. It contains the modern nations of Albania, Bulgaria, Greece and Romania and all of the nations which have emerged from the breakup in the 1990s of the former Yugoslavia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Serbia and Slovenia."

Tags:turkish, turkey, adriatic, rule, peninsula, tanzimat

Abstract
Copsa Mica is a small town in the Carpathian Mountains of Transylvanian central Romania. Originally a small Lutheran hamlet built in 1402 and known for its Saxon churches, it descended into hell under the communists; a hell comprised of poorly built concrete housing caked black with the leaden fumes of a nearby smelting plant. The paper shows that Copsa Mica gained international notoriety in 1990, following the downfall of the Ceausescu regime, for being one of the most heavily polluted cities in Eastern Europe. According to a CNN report, two out of every three children suffered from a form of mental retardation due to the devastating effects of the town's carbon plant and metal works. The paper shows that this real tragedy reflects the legacy of Transylvania, an area of Romania known to the West for the Dracula legend. Since the conquest of Constantinople in 1453, this area has been a point of conflict between empires, ethnicities, religions and ideologies.

From the Paper
"The aftermath of the First World War also gave rise to Communism. Communist agitators had first arrived from Germany to destabilize Romania. Russian communists, who wished to expand communist influence after 1917, complimented their numbers. Romanian communism was originally small and limited to academic circles, but agitators were backed by the powerful Soviet regime and managed to blow up the Senate building in Bucharest. Their efforts served but to cauterize Romanians against Communist influence. However, the Russians seized Bessarabia in 1940, compelling Romania under Marshal Ion Antonescu to join the Germans. The Germans, in turn, allowed Hungary to re-annex part of Transylvania including Copsa Mica. Romania regained this territory after the Soviet Union invaded Hungary, causing Romania to switch sides and ally with the United Nations."

Tags:Ottoman, Counter-Reformation

Abstract
This paper examines the nature of the threat that the Ottoman Empire posed to 16th century European states. The author finds that the reality of the menace is accepted during the reign of Suleyman the Magnificent, but the magnitude of the danger is, however, questioned.

From the Paper
"At first glance it is tempting to view the Ottoman Empire in the 16th century as posing a very serious threat indeed to Europe. From the reign of Mehmet II, the achievements of the Sultans mounted, so that in order to understand the menace of the Ottomans one must place due emphasis on the capture of Constantinople by the aforementioned Sultan in 1453. From this point the momentum driving the Ottoman state to becoming a major power seemed to generally increase, through the reigns of Bayezit II, Selim I and culminating in the reign of the "lawgiver" Suleyman, known by the West as the ?Magnificent.? Indeed, it is clear that the threat posed was a real one, and at times serious enough to provoke a sense off panic from European peoples, especially following moments such as when the army of Suleyman laid siege to Vienna for some 3 weeks before withdrawing before the winter of 1529. There were also some impressive victories for the Ottomans: Rhodes, described by Ann Williams as "the thorn in the Sultan's flesh" was taken from the Knights of St. John in 1522, and Belgrade the "gateway to central Europe" captured in the same year as the defeat and slaughter of the army of Louis II of Hungary. Barbarossa, as Lord Admiral of Suleyman's formidable fleet ravaged the coastline of Italy and North Africa and pitched himself against Dorea, and posed a serious distraction for Charles V. However, the reality of the threat the Ottomans posed has been inordinately presented, a process which began in the interpretations made by contemporary 16th century commentators whose knowledge of the east was often incomplete. An examination of Knolles "General History of the Turks" praises aspects of the Ottoman Empire such as its military and political organisation and unified faith whilst revealing the author's lack of acquaintance with it in his portrayal of the Turks as a society primarily militaristic, uncultured, corrupt and unstable. Thus whilst communicating the strength of the Islamic adversary in order to encourage Christian unity in the face of danger, he is loath to credit the Ottomans to highly as a race of foreign ?others.? His prejudices and motivations therefore dictates that his source by treated with caution, and indicates to the historian the dangers of accepting 16th century interpretations of the threat posed by the Ottomans too highly."

Tags:magnificent, ottomans, suleyman, warfare