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Zabern affair Crisis within the GERMAN EMPIRE that occurred in December 1913. It originated from the strained relations persisting in ALSACE-LORRAINE, the region of France annexed by the new Reich after the FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR of 1870–1. Following insults to the local population by a German officer, the Alsatian garrison town of Zabern (Saverne, in French) became a focus of unrest. The Reichstag then voted no confidence in BETHMANN HOLLWEG, who, as chancellor and with senior military backing, had condoned the affront. Despite this unprecedented parliamentary rebuff, he survived in office, essentially secured by WILLIAM II'S continuing support. The affair demonstrated the Reichstag's limited power, and further strained Franco-German relations.

zemstva Units of local government in Russia, introduced on January 1, 1864 as part of ALEXANDER II'S reform program. Designed to improve administrative efficiency, outwardly the zemstva (singular zemstvo) were representative bodies, which broke with previous autocratic traditions. There were two categories of zemstva: the district and the provincial. The former comprised delegates elected for a three-year term, the electorate itself being made up of landowners, urban property-holders, and peasants, whose representatives were voted on by the volosti, a type of rural canton. Membership of the provincial zemstva was determined by the lower district bodies. In practice, both forms of council came to be dominated by the gentry, and were a way of conciliating landowners after the abolition of SERFDOM in 1861. Empowered to build roads, improve trade, and raise taxes, among other functions, their effectiveness was undermined by the ministry of internal affairs which did not allow them to work together, though they did markedly improve Russian elementary schooling. After the RUSSIAN REVOLUTION OF 1905, they acquired greater autonomy and were increasingly represented by liberals. However, they earned the scorn of the SOCIALIST REVOLUTIONARY PARTY and of enthusiasts for NIHILISM who saw them merely as talking shops and playthings of the gentry. After the BOLSHEVIK seizure of power in the RUSSIAN REVOLUTIONS OF 1917, the zemstva were superseded by the SOVIETS.

Zentrum Term for the Centre Party which, after the creation of the GERMAN EMPIRE in 1871, emerged to champion Catholic interests (see CATHOLICISM). Initially it played a key role in the KULTURKAMPF, organizing resistance to the anti-Catholic legislation of Adalbert Falk and BISMARCK. However, it also became a rallying point for all those minorities that felt unfairly disadvantaged within the new Germany. By the 1880s, when the Kulturkampf was over, Bismarck was prepared to collaborate with the Zentrum in the Reichstag, despite his strong personal dislike of its dominant figure, WINDTHORST. The party soon featured as an element in most of the significant parliamentary coalitions, and played a pivotal role after 1918 in governing the WEIMAR REPUBLIC. Despite its hostility to NAZISM, the Zentrum agreed to compromise with HITLER and vote for the ENABLING ACT of March 1933 in return for guarantees of Catholic rights. However, under the pressures of Nazi GLEICHSCHALTUNG, the party dissolved itself early the following July.

Zhdanovshchina (1946–1953), literally the “era of Zhdanov,” is the name given to the post-1945 purge conducted in the SOVIET UNION against intellectuals, artists, and writers, condemned for their supposed “bourgeois” sympathies. When in 1946 the COLD WAR worsened, Andrei Zhdanov was a secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party. From that position this BOLSHEVIK stalwart and ardent supporter of STALIN issued the so-called Zhdanov decree, suppressing the literary journals Zvezda and Leningrad, and expelling the authors, Anna Akhmatova and Mikhael Zoshchenko, from the Union of Writers. This unleashed a savage cultural offensive designed to demonstrate the moral, ideological, and artistic superiority of Soviet COMMUNISM over Western values. 1n 1948 it was the turn of musicians – among them Shostakovich, Prokofiev, and Khachaturian – to suffer from this campaign, which resulted in a special conference of the Composers' Union (April 1948) where there were public apologies for supposed decadence. Though Zhadanov died in 1948, the crusade continued until Stalin's demise in 1953, having been extended to further areas of cultural endeavor. These included science, where selected Russian researchers, notably the biologist Trofim Lysenko, were exalted, even though their theories, driven by Marxism, lacked any empirical basis. The Zhdanovshchina was a vicious, xenophobic, and stultifying campaign, often reflecting an ANTISEMITISM that remained publicly unacknowledged.

Zhivkov, Todor (1911–98), General Secretary of the Communist Party of BULGARIA (1954–89), and State President (1971–89). As those dates suggest, Zhivkov was his country's leading political figure during the period when COMMUNISM monopolized power. He had joined the Party in 1932, and had assisted the anti-fascist guerrilla forces during WORLD WAR II. From 1944 onwards he was prominent in the purges of opposition that ensured a communist hegemony. Through most of his long tenure as General Secretary, he adhered faithfully to whatever policy orientations Moscow happened to be promoting from time to time. This enabled him to serve BREZHNEV as readily as KHRUSHCHEV. Not until the reformist efforts of GORBACHEV did Zhivkov begin disputing the Kremlin's wisdom. That made his fall from power all the more inevitable once the European REVOLUTIONS OF 1989–91 got under way. In 1992 Zhivkov was found guilty of corruption and embezzlement, and only his advanced age saved him from beginning the seven-year jail sentence then imposed. The verdict was annulled in 1996, by which time the communists (now rebranded as the Bulgarian Socialist Party) had regained considerable influence as the leading force in a coalition government.

Zhukov, Georgi (1896–1974), Soviet soldier, and earlier a non-commissioned officer in the tsarist army, who eventually reached the rank of Marshal in January 1943. At the outbreak of WORLD WAR II Zhukov was fighting against the Japanese in Outer Mongolia. From January to July 1941 he served as chief of the general staff. Though soon dismissed from that post by STALIN, Zhukov was thereafter pivotal in preparing the RED ARMY'S resistance to the German siege of LENINGRAD, and then in defending Moscow. In late 1942, as deputy supreme commander, he organized the relief of STALINGRAD, completed by February 1943. Zhukov played a leading role in the battle of KURSK and in the subsequent Russian advances on Germany. Having secured the fall of Berlin, he became military governor of the Soviet occupation zone and the Russian representative on the Allied Control Council. Some have attributed his almost unbroken sequence of victories largely to military genius; others have more aptly suggested that they stemmed from his increasingly ruthless expenditure of the superior quantities of manpower available to him in the later stages of the war. After 1945 Stalin came to distrust his popularity, and relegated him to a regional command. In 1955 Zhukov was made minister of defense by KHRUSHCHEV, but the appointment proved short-lived since the latter too became suspicious of the rival political ambitions that might be fuelled by the Marshal's stature as an outstanding war-hero.

Zinoviev, Grigori (1883–1936). This Russian revolutionary, with modest origins and lacking formal education, gravitated early into left-wing politics and helped to found the BOLSHEVIKS in 1903. Until 1917 he was closely associated with LENIN, but he opposed plans for an armed insurrection in the autumn of that year (see RUSSIAN REVOLUTIONS OF 1917). After a brief period in disfavor, he was made head of the Petrograd Revolutionary Committee in 1918. The following year he assumed a leading role in the COMINTERN, and in 1921 became a full member of the POLITBURO. In 1924 he sided with STALIN and KAMENEV in the power struggle against TROTSKY, and later that year his name became infamous in the UK when newspapers printed the “Zinoviev letter” urging British communists to revolution. The document was a fake, but its sentiments matched those of its alleged author. Two years later, as Stalin consolidated his own position, Zinoviev was ousted from his Comintern post and expelled from the Communist Party. Though eventually readmitted to the latter, he (along with Kamenev) was falsely linked to the 1935 murder of KIROV. A year later, Zinoviev was tried and executed in one of the first show trials of the GREAT PURGES. His posthumous rehabilitation came only in 1988, during the SOVIET UNION'S final phase.

Zionism Movement aimed at founding and protecting a sovereign Jewish state. Though partly driven by older aspirations, it was only amidst the challenges of the 1890s that Zionism emerged in Europe as a properly organized political campaign, led from Vienna by the journalist HERZL. By that stage the limitations of an assimilationist strategy for European JEWS were becoming evident, especially through the ANTISEMITISM that was growing not only in Russia and the Habsburg empire but also further west, as shown by the DREYFUS AFFAIR. Many Jews were coming to believe that such hostility enhanced the case for a secular NATIONALISM focused on acquiring their own territorial homeland. Against that background Herzl convened the first Zionist Congress at Basel in 1897. While some supporters were flexible about the location of a Jewish state, most of them favored its establishment in Palestine (where Jerusalem's Mount Zion provided a central symbol). At the end of 1917 the Balfour Declaration signaled British support for that approach. Thereafter the experience of NAZISM and its so-called FINAL SOLUTION gave added urgency to these Zionist aspirations. The upshot was the formation in 1948 of the state of Israel – achieved, however, only in the face of vigorous and continuing opposition from Arab peoples who viewed it largely as the product of Europe's desire to export unresolved Jewish problems to their own region.

Zog (1895–1961), self-proclaimed King of ALBANIA (1928–39). Originally known as Ahmet Bey Zogu, the future ruler was born into a family of feudal chieftains. Having been prominent in the national resistance to Italian occupation during WORLD WAR I, he subsequently led the reconsolidation of Albanian independence and became prime minister in 1922. Two years later a revolution forced him to flee, but he returned to assume the presidency of the new Albanian republic in 1925. Already a virtual dictator, in 1928 he proclaimed himself King Zog, bestowing royal titles on family members too. Hugely extravagant in his own lifestyle, he did little towards alleviating his country's grave poverty. Zog attempted to improve the situation through Italian assistance, initiated at the Treaty of Tirana (1926). He could not withstand MUSSOLINI'S interference, however, and in April 1939 Italy re-invaded. Forced into exile in London, Zog initially set up court at the Ritz hotel. In 1945 HOXHA'S establishment of a communist republic prevented the ex-monarch's return. After his son was proclaimed king-in-exile (Lexa I), Zog spent his final years in Egypt and France struggling to maintain his luxuries. Memories of the waste and ineptitude that characterized his reign may have influenced Albanian electors when in 1997 they rejected a monarchical restoration.

Zollverein German word for “customs union.” It is most frequently encountered with reference to the arrangement initiated on January 1, 1834 under the leadership of PRUSSIA, which influenced the course of GERMAN UNIFICATION. When the GERMAN CONFEDERATION had been inaugurated in 1815, clause 19 of the Federal Act had foreseen the creation of a common policy on trade and navigation. Yet little had resulted, partly because Austria (see HABSBURG EMPIRE) as the leading power of the region saw no advantages for itself. Thus trade within and between the 39 states of the confederation remained greatly hindered by internal tariffs. Prussia was frustrated by such constraints, particularly because of the sprawling nature of its territory and its wish to increase the international competitiveness of its new industries (see INDUSTRIALIZATION). In 1818 it passed a law abolishing the majority of restrictions within its boundaries and reducing taxes on imported goods, although crippling transit duties remained. These arrangements were gradually extended to the smaller territories immediately adjoining Prussia's borders, while elsewhere other states, notably BAVARIA and WÜRTTEMBERG, which had already toyed with free trade in the 1800s, made their own dispositions. In 1828, a Middle German Commercial Union was launched under the guidance of SAXONY. It was generally recognized, however, that cooperation with Prussia was vital. Relevant negotiations commenced in 1830, and the Zollverein was formed four years later. Initially it comprised 18 states, though the economic advantages were so obvious that by 1842 it embraced 28. Its creation is generally seen as a turning point in the history of German unification. This was the first occasion on which the German states had compromised their particular sovereignties for the greater good, a move which was not lost on the liberals. The Zollverein also contributed significantly to Prussia's growing economic strength (for example, by helping to center the new German railway network on Berlin), an advantage that BISMARCK skillfully used against Vienna. Significantly, Austria always remained outside the union, though it did make a failed bid to join in the early 1850s so as to reinforce further its position after the OLMÜTZ AGREEMENT. Nonetheless, the impact of the Zollverein should not be overstated. It was not founded with national unification directly in mind, and did little to assuage the political jealousies that pervaded the Confederation, especially those felt towards Berlin. Such tensions meant that most of the Zollverein's members backed the Habsburg side in the AUSTRO-PRUSSIAN WAR of 1866.