Description: Drawing on newly accessible archives as well as memoirs and other sources, this biographical dictionary documents the lives of some two thousand notable figures in twentieth-century Central and Eastern Europe. A unique compendium of information that is not currently available in any other single resource, the dictionary provides concise profiles of the region's most important historical and cultural actors, from Ivo Andric to King Zog.

Those who enjoyed power and prominence as well as those who were suppressed and vilified, those who survived as well as those who disappeared--all are remembered here in their true light. This is a work of recovery and correction of the historical record that will stand the test of time. Coverage includes Albania, Belarus, the Czech and Slovak Republics, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Moldova, Ukraine, and the countries that made up Yugoslavia, and such varied individuals as Tomas Masaryk, Imre Nagy, Janusz Korczak, Jaan Kross, Mykhailo Denisenko (Metropolitan Filaret), and Karol Wojtyla (Pope John Paul II).