Law and Politics of the Danube: An Interdisciplinary Study

ISBN-13: 9789401185196 / Angielski / Miękka / 1964 / 173 str.

Stephen Gorove

Opis

The Danube has been for two centuries the great connecting link between the European West and the European East. Most commercial and cultural exchanges between the two parts of Europe took place with the help of or along the Danube. The West involved was, above all, southern Germany and the cisbithynian part of the Habsburg monarchy. The East was the formerly Turkish ruled territories, the Balkan peninsula and the Black Sea. The latter was, for the last two centuries, the center of conflict between Russian and Turkish hegemo nial aspirations. The events of the Balkan wars and of World War I almost ex tinguished Turkish influence, an event long expected: The outcome of World War I fortified, to an unexpected degree, the influence of Russia, which now became almost synonymous with the term of the European East. For a few years the middle and lower Danube threaten ed to disappear behind the Iron Curtain which marked the extent of Eastern influence."

Spis treści

I. The Danube: Its Role and Significance.- Geographical Setting.- Benefits and Deprivations.- Economic Interests Prior to 1945: Some Facts and Figures.- Struggles for Control Prior to World War I.- World War I and Its Aftermath.- II. Goals and Interests: American and Soviet.- Objectives of American Foreign Policy.- Objectives of Soviet Foreign Policy.- III. The Background: Nazi Germany vs. Soviet Russia.- Russia’s Acquisition of Bessarabia, A Gateway to the Danube.- Liquidation of the International and European Commissions.- IV. Encounters and Methods: American and Soviet.- The Armistice Agreements.- Allocation of Zones of Occupation in Austria.- From Potsdam to Paris.- The Peace Treaties of 1947.- Preparations for Belgrade.- V. Further Encounters and Methods: American and Soviet.- The Question of the Danube Barges Before the Economic and Social Council.- The Interpretation of “German Assets” as a Tool of Soviet Diplomacy.- The Device of “Joint Companies”.- Showdown at Belgrade.- VI. Changed Setting: Law and Politics of the New Danube Commission.- Dissension.- Rapprochement.- Cooperation.- Retrospect and Prospect.- A Selective List of Works on the Danube.- Name Index.