East Central Europe Trivia Quiz

Answer: Valeria and Pannonia

Valeria is in modern Hungary. Pannonia is in modern Hungary, Austria and Croatia. Epirus Nova is modern Albania. Dalmatia (the Illyrian provinces) is modern Croatia and Bosnia. Scythia (in terms of Roman provinces instead of the broad Herodotian geographic area) is located in Romania along the Black Sea coast. Dacia is also in modern Romania (so called because of their pride in their Roman-ness).

Answer: The Avar Khanate

Th Avars were a nomadic warrior people displaced by the Bulgars (who at this time were established in modern Romania and a thin northern slice of Bulgaria) by 814 A.D.

The Dulebians/Volhynians settled in modern Ukraine. The Moravians inhabited the modern Czech/Slovak lands.

Answer: From Bremen to the Gulf of Taranto and Thessaly

Emerging from Southern Ukraine the Magyars swept through modern Germany, Italy and Greece. They were turned back from Constaninople and defeated by Imperial forces at Lechfeld, in the Holy Roman Empire in 955 A.D.

Answer: Waldemar II

Mieszko (990 A.D.) was the first ruler of Poland. Boreslaw I (said the Lame, 992-1025 B.C.) was his son and successor.

Iaroslav (1019-54 A.D.) was ruler of Kievan Rus at its cultural peak.

Stephen (997-1038 A.D.) was the Magyar king who ruled Hungary and converted to Christianity.

Waldemar II was a Danish king who entrenched the Danes in Northern Estonia.

Stanislaw August Poniatowski was the last king of Poland.

Answer: 1241

In 1236 the Mongols crossed the Volga from the East. In 1236 Kievan Rus was put to the sword (or should I say the bow?) and Kiev, according to some the greatest Medieval European city of its day, burned to the ground.

In 1241 the Mongol force split in two, half entering Hungary, the other half savaging Poland. Then, as suddenly as they had come, the Mongols withdrew to the steppes.

Answer: Teutonic Order

Ambition, wealth and land were much more important factors in deciding who the Order fought. They succeeded notoriously in wiping the ancient Prussians off the face of the earth - but strangely enough, adopted their name with time.

Knights from all over Europe went on 'reyses', or Eastern crusades, with the Order, including a young Henry IV of England. Not even Papal decrees could make the Grand Masters relent in their aggression against the Polish Kingdom: they wanted to control the Baltic Sea coast.

Answer: Their laws, their technology and a new merchant class

The embodiment of the famous "Drang nach Osten" or "drive to the East" of the German people, which was seen either as enlightening and civilising the rugged East or subjugating and supressing it. The uglier flipside were the activities of the Teutonic Knights.

Answer: Jagiello

Jagiello was the Lithuanian who converted, married the Polish Queen Jadwiga and took the united Polish-Lithuanian kingdom throne as a result. This provided the Teutonic Order will a plum excuse to recommence hostilities with Poland.

Vitold, Jagiello's ally in the victory, was his cousin. He was a brilliant Lithuanian general, but has been forgotten by history.

Stefan the Great (1457-1504) asserted the independence of Moldavia, fighting off Poles and Ottomans to do so.
Corvinus was a ruler of Hungary (died 1490) who held Austria, Bohemia, Croatia and Slavonia.

Answer: Hussites

Seeing as medieval nationality was determined by a common religion and blood, the followers of Jan Hus (a preacher from Prague burned at the stake in 1415) can claim to have led the first truly modern nationalist revolution. The Hussite armies, comprised mostly of peasant infantry, campaigned in Slovakia, Moravia and the Baltic coast in attempts to ensure that its Catholic neighbours left it alone. Ultimately, the failed.

Answer: The Swedish occupation

"Potop" is a novel by a famous Polish writer Henryk Sienkiewicz that highlights these times (much later made into a movie). Eventually, the Swedish tide ebbed and faded away after Peter the Great routed the Swedish continental forces and their last warrior king, Charles XII.

Answer: Lithuania

The Commonwealth was the biggest state of its time in Europe: Lithuania covered modern Byelorussia and the Baltic states, and Poland ruled Kiev and much of modern Ukraine.

Answer: The Czechs

Bohemia and Moravia ('Czechia') were to remain under Hapsburg rule till 1918.

Answer: Hungary

After the battle of Mohacs (1526), Sultan Suleiman was able to seize Hungary, which his sucessors would keep until the late 1600's.

Answer: Prussia and Russia

The idea to partition up the Polish state was a diplomatic coup of genius instigated by Frederick the Great. The Russians wanted to expand in the Balkans and continue the process of driving the Ottomans out of Europe. The Austrians resisted this; Christians or not, the Russians were their rivals, and Catherine the Great had spooked them by entertaining ideas of setting up a new 'Greek' Orthodox Empire (to which end she named her son Constantine). To prevent another general European war Frederick suggested that all the big boys on the block stop beating on each other and start dividing up Poland.

There were three paritions in all (1772, 1793, 1795) but Austria did not participate in the second.

Answer: Grand Duchy of Warsaw/King of Saxony

Poniatowski and Dobrowski served under Napoleon: Dombrowski's men fought in Italy against the Austrians (the nationalist movements of amongst the Italians and Poles were born almost at the same moment), whereas Poniatowski was a cavalryman, and proved himself so impressively as to be made a Marshal of France.