The Peace of Passarowitz, 1718

Charles W. Ingrao is Professor of History at Purdue University

Slavic Review The Peace of Passarowitz, 1718. Ed. Charles Ingrao, Nikola Samardz ic, and Jovan Pesalj. Central European Studies. West Lafayette: Purdue University Press, 2011. xiii, 310 pp. Notes. Index. Illustrations. Photographs. Figures. Tables. Maps. $39.95, paper. $19.99, e-book. This collection brings together eighteen essays initially presented at an international conference held in Poz arevac, Serbia, in November 2008 on the occasion of the 290th anniversary of the 1718 Peace of Passarowitz (Poz arevac). Having missed an opportunity to mark the 300th anniversary of the Peace of Karlowitz (Sremski Karlovci) due to "the tragic events of 1999" (viii), and anticipating that 2018 will be swamped with conferences on 1918, the organizers chose to proceed a decade ahead of a round number anniversary. The project, initiated by the director of the National Museum in Poz arevac, Milorad o ordevic, and organized by members of the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Belgrade, Nikola Samardz ic, Jovan Pes alj and Jelena Mrgic, as well as Purdue University's Charles Ingrao, while taking the Peace of Passarowitz as its centerpiece, actually covers the larger problem of war and peace in the Balkans between 1699 and 1739. The volume is divided into four sections. In the first section, entitled "General Outlook," Ingrao opens the collection by arguing that the Peace of Passarowitz marked a missed opportunity to bring the majority of Serbs and Romanians into the Habsburg monarchy, which would have been advantageous to the locals and would have prevented subsequent "magnet states" from engaging in nationalist irredentism. Samardz ic's subsequent broad narrative survey of developments from 1699 to 1739 shows how the treaty laid the foundations for prosperity on both sides of the new border between the Habsburgs and the Ottomans and "contributed to the breakthrough of new economic and political ideas" (28) in the Balkans. Fi A conference was held in Pozarevac, Serbia to mark the 290th anniversary of the treaty, which helped shape modern international relations, international law, and international borders in southeastern Europe. Historians and museum curators present 18 papers from the conference on general matters; international relations, diplomacy, and warfare; society, economy, and trade; and ideas, art and culture. Specific topics include the Habsburg-Ottoman wars and the modern world, the Peace of Passarowitz in Venice's Balkan policy, the Crimean Tatars and the Austro-Ottoman wars, and the emergence of the baroque in Belgrade. (Annotation C2011 Book News Inc.Portland, OR)reviews: Awards: Reference Research Book News October 2011