In the period stretching from the Crimean War to Stalin's death (1853-1953) about thirty million Europeans were victims of forced migration. Entire populations were expelled, deported, and settled elsewhere, or else compelled to emigrate. Mass displacement was particularly widespread in areas of Central Europe that were divided up, until the First World War, among the Tsarist, German, Hapsburg, and Ottoman Empires, and was concentrated in the first half of the 20th century, intensifying during the Balkan Wars and reaching its apex under the great Soviet and Nazi totalitarian regimes. Featuring a wide-ranging perspective extending from Asian Russia to Istrian refugees, this book is the first attempt to address comprehensively set of a dramatic experiences that, with their close ties to ethnic cleansing and extermination projects, have distinguished the difficult and often bloody evolution of Europe and its borders throughout the 20th century.

Antonio Ferrara works at the University of Naples.

Niccol Pianciola teaches at the Lingnan University in Hong Kong.