> If you think of a "cathedral versus the bazaar" point of view, and that academics are often employed by the cathedral owners, then a missing grass-roots point

> If you think of a "cathedral versus the bazaar" point of view, and that academics are often employed by the cathedral owners, then a missing grass-roots point of view is no surprise. This seems unsupported by anything. Firstly, the history of this time is widely explored. I'm more familiar with this period in Southern Europe than in the North but I recommend Misha Glenny's "The Balkans"[1] which covers this period in that area. > this viewpoint is a new and unexplored academic angle The unexplored angle part of this is arguing the legitimacy of the claims of sovereignty. I suspect the reason this hasn't been explored is because that specific claim is somewhat uninteresting historically - it's a 7 year period at most, and most specific "micro states" lasted a lot shorter period than this, and most were very small in terms of land and population (hundreds of people, with a few exceptions). Generally most people working in this area mention them in passing but since they are absorbed by "the winners" there isn't a huge amount to say about them other than "post war chaos". I'm not aware of any historians who specifically reject the claims of sovereignty, but you'd really need to look on a case by case basis. Some of these micro-states seem to have had a lot more legitimacy than others. As an example there are at least 20 papers mentioning the Tarnobrzeg Republic, and that lasted maybe 12 months at most[2] [1] https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/311471/the-balkans-by-misha-glenny/ https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/311471/the-balkans-... [2] https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=+%22Tarnobrzeg+Republic%22&btnG= https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=+%22...