The origins of this book lie in a conference held at the University of Bradford in March 1990 to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the outbreak of the Second World War. Originally scheduled for September 1989, the conference was unavoidably delayed, happily with no adverse effects on interest and attendance. The success of the meeting encouraged the editors to believe that the papers might be of interest to a wider audience. We are grateful to the Syndics of the Cambridge University Press for concurring with this opinion and agreeing to publish this volume.

Five of the following chapters (by Hiden, Prażmowska, Ahmann, Salmon, and Lane) were originally presented as lectures at the Bradford conference. They have subsequently been expanded and revised. Two of the remaining three contributions were to have been conference papers but unavoidable difficulties prevented their authors travelling from Eastern Europe. We are delighted that their papers will now make a belated appearance, also in revised and expanded form.

The Bradford conference was organised by the Baltic Research Unit at Bradford University. The unit has developed close relations with academic and government representatives in the three Baltic republics and Poland. The editors have thus been able to draw upon the ideas and discussions currently underway amongst the emerging generation of historians in the Baltic region.

The editors wish to thank Richard Fisher of Cambridge University Press for his prompt encouragement of our proposal to publish and his sound advice.