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Abstract
This article attempts to draw a general outline of comparative Central and Eastern European sociology. It focuses on the year 1918, when the Great War ended, and it explores the background and continuation of the (re)birth of sociology. The study is justified by the fact that the history of the national schools of sociology has been approached in correlation with Western centres, and therefore a regional approach is needed. First, the study differentiates between countries that were allied to the victorious powers in the First World War and countries that lost the war, between countries where sociology gained momentum and countries where science suffered. In the countries that were at an advantage – Czechoslovakia, Poland, Romania, and Serbia –, sociology was at very different stages of institutionalization, but it registered significant progress until the 30s. The countries that lost – Bulgaria, Russia, and Hungary – were not only more weakened after the war but also plagued by revolutions, civil wars, and retaliations; they were not a fertile ground for sociological production. Apart from Russia, it is only in the 1930s that sociology started to considerably develop in these countries. The article does not only compare the status of sociology in the seven countries, but it also explores the evolution of the relationships between them. After an understandable dependence on the Western academic centres, there was the possibility for a regional identity to form.

In this introductory article, it is emphasized that Professor Henri H. Stahl's birthday is an opportunity to deepen the knowledge of his work and to identify new ways of researching unclear periods. An innovator in both village research and its social history, Henri H. Stahl became well known in the international scholalrly circles too. Research into his work, activity and environment should not only be an act of respect, but a contribution to the modernization of the social sciences.

The purpose of this review is to present an anthology – published in Hungarian – of significant excerpts from the work of Henri H. Stahl. This anthology was edited by the Budapest historian Ambrus Miskolczy, and is the fourth of its kind, after the ones in France, Italy, and the United States. After recalling the influence of the historian Nicolae Iorga and of the social democratic ideology on the young Henri H. Stahl, another decisive impact on Stahl was the rural sociological research led by Dimitrie Gusti, as illustrated in the fragments chosen to be included in the book. The review provides more space to Stahl's original theory of exploring the past from the present towards the past. This approach to historical sociology led Stahl to the conclusion that the Romanian Middle Ages differed significantly from the same period in the West. The anthology also contains articles against unscientific positions, which were current in the 1930s and 1980s. The anthology itself and its introductory study – published in 1992 – remain valid to this day.