New Books in Eastern European Studies

In The Intellectual as Hero in 1990s Ukrainian Fiction (University of Toronto Press, 2012), Mark R. Andryczyk takes his readers to an intriguing territory of dense narratives, arising from a complex network of literary, political, and philosophical connections that were accompanying the history of the countries constituting the USSR. Mark Andryczyk’s research offers an insightful analysis of Ukrainian literature that was taking shape right after the collapse of the Soviet Union and during the emergence of Ukraine as an independent state. The Ukrainian literary scene of the 1990s was to some extent responding to a new political and social environment, revealing, and at times instigating, paradigmatic transformations. Becoming open to the West after almost seventy years of international isolation, Ukraine appeared to be building dialogues that involved identity and self-identification concerns locally and globally. In this process of awakened nationalconsciousness, which undoubtedly entailed a number of controversies, Andryczyk identifies a hero that communicates a diversity of searches and pursuits in the realm of ethics, aesthetics, philosophy, politics, etc. The intellectual, as the author argues, is a hero that gives a unique tint to the Ukrainian literature of the 1990s: although present in the literary scenes of other time periods, the intellectual acquires a stronger and a more eloquent voice in the 1990s. In his research, Andryczyk discerns a few types of the intellectual: The Swashbuckling Performer, The Ambassador to the West, The Sick Soul. Although distinct, their voices intermingle and echo each other: they may agree and/or argue with each other but they all mark an unrestrained impetus to make themselves heard. After decades of propaganda control, establishment suppression, and Communist Party’s directions for artists, in post-Soviet Ukraine writers were seeking ways to exercise their freedom to write and to think. The Intellectual as Hero in 1990s Ukrainian Fiction is an in-depth investigation of how a text/narrative responds to a changing environment; how an artist finds a way amidst a captivating chaos in order to discover his/her truth and create a world of subtle harmony–fragile and yet vital. Mark R. Andryczyk teaches Ukrainian literature at the Slavic Department at Columbia University. He also administers the Ukrainian Studies at the Harriman Institute of Russian, Eurasian, and Eastern European Studies (Columbia University). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/eastern-european-studies

Jessica Greenberg’s After the Revolution: Youth, Democracy, and the Politics of Disappointment in Serbia (Stanford University Press, 2014) explores a dual tension at work in Serbia in the early 2000s. She reveals young people’s disappointment in what they saw as a betrayal by their parents’ generation that led to the collapse of Yugoslavia and the failure of democracy in Serbia, as well as adults’ disappointment that young people did not live up to expectations of what student activists should be. This “politics of disappointment”opened up new understandings of democratic engagement on the part of Serbian students, resulting in activism that utilized “quality” protests, expertise in administrative reform, and procedural participation in politics. Greenberg draws on ethnographic research with three student groups to demonstrate young people’s frustration with the practicalities of life in Serbia and the consequence that student activists rejected utopias, “whether socialist, nationalist or revolutionary.” Although Greenberg argues throughout the book that lived democracy is profoundly contradictory and flawed and that it will never live up to idealized moments and normative expectations, she also demonstrates that democratic engagement can take a variety of forms in post-socialist, post-Cold War Eastern Europe. Jessica Greenberg is Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Amanda Jeanne Swain is executive director of the Humanities Commons at the University of California, Irvine. She received her PhD in Russian and East European history at the University of Washington. Her research interests include the intersections of national, Soviet and European identities in the Baltic countries. Recent publications include articles in Ab Imperio and Cahiers du Monde Russe. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/eastern-european-studies

As the most populous country in Eastern Europe as well as the birthplace of the largest anticommunist dissident movement, Poland is crucial in understanding the end of the Cold War. During the 1980s, both the United States and the Soviet Union vied for influence over Polands politically tumultuous steps toward democratic revolution. In this groundbreaking history, Empowering Revolution: America, Poland, and the End of the Cold War (University of North Carolina Press, 2014), Gregory F. Domber (Professor of History, California State Polytechnic University in San Luis Obispo) examines American policy toward Poland and its promotion of moderate voices within the opposition, while simultaneously addressing the Soviet and European influences on Poland’s revolution in 1989. With a cast including Reagan, Gorbachev, and Pope John Paul II, Domber charts American support of anticommunist opposition groups–particularly Solidarity, the underground movement led by future president Lech Walesa–and highlights the transnational network of Polish emigres and trade unionists that kept the opposition alive. Utilizing archival research and interviews with Polish and American government officials and opposition leaders, Domber argues that the United States empowered a specific segment of the Polish opposition and illustrates how Soviet leaders unwittingly fostered radical, pro-democratic change through their policies. The result is fresh insight into the global impact of the Polish pro-democracy movement. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/eastern-european-studies

Starting with Metternich’s declaration that the Balkans begin at Rennweg (a street in the Third District of Vienna), Ana Foteva draws on novels, plays, librettos and travelogues from the 19th through the 21st century to explore the various forms the Balkan region has taken in Europe’s political and cultural imagination. Her analysis of these literary works reveals concepts of belonging, multi-belonging and unbelonging among Serbians, Bosnians, Croatians, Slovenes and even Austrians. Ana Foteva applies postmodern geography, literary, and colonial theories to demonstrate the relationship between the development of national identity, the pull of Habsburg imperial identity, the shaping of Yugoslav identity, and the fracturing of the Balkans in the 1990s. In our podcast conversation, she discusses and challenges stereotypes of the Balkans as a region of perpetual conflict. Do the Balkans Begin in Vienna? The Geopolitical and Imaginary Borders Between the Balkans and Europe (Peter Lang, 20speaks to complex identities in the region rarely seen in contemporary media accounts. Ana Foteva received her PhD in German literature at Purdue University. Currently she holds the position of Visiting Assistant Professor in German Studies at St. Lawrence University. Amanda Jeanne Swain is executive director of the Humanities Commons at the University of California, Irvine. She received her PhD in Russian and East European history at the University of Washington. Her research interests include the intersections of national, Soviet and European identities in the Baltic countries. Recent publications include articles in Ab Imperio and Cahiers du Monde Russe. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/eastern-european-studies

I don’t often have a chance to read books that focus solely on Belarus, which is exactly why I was intrigued by The Rise and Fall of Belarusian Nationalism, 1906-1931 (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2015). Per Anders Rudling‘s study seeks to answer a basic question Why is there today an independent Belarus and how did this state appear? He begins by noting that Belarusian statehood was declared and re-declared no less than six times between 1918 and 1920, despite the fact that Belarusian territory was occupied by Germany during World War I and then divided between the Soviet Union and Poland in 1920. Rudling traces the activities of few hundred intellectuals as they attempted to shape a Belarusian national identity and political state. At the same time, he demonstrates the extent to which the these nationalists cultural and political achievements were dependent on the support of external powers Germany, the Soviet Union and Poland all of whom who saw Belarusian nationalism as a tool for undermining an opposing state. Amanda Jeanne Swain is executive director of the Humanities Commons at the University of California, Irvine. She received her PhD in Russian and East European history at the University of Washington. Her research interests include the intersections of national, Soviet and European identities in the Baltic countries. Recent publications include articles in Ab Imperio and Cahiers du Monde Russe. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/eastern-european-studies

In The People’s Game: Football, State and Society (Cambridge University Press, 2014), Alan McDougall looks at football from the top-down and bottom-up: as a tool of the state, as forming regional identities in East Germany and in a reunified Germany, and as a popular pastime. Although characterized by mediocrity compared to other sports in East Germany, McDougall demonstrates the ways in which football gave people a means of expressing identities that were separated from and even opposed to that endorsed by the state. At the same time, he argues, this was a “constrained autonomy,” one that was shaped by the tensions between Eigen-Sinn and conformity. The East German state has been viewed as a monolith, but recent scholarship – including this book – reveals its fractures. McDougall’s analysis exposes the limits and dysfunctionalities of the state and the communist party’s leadership. The People’s Game not only adds to our understanding of communist Eastern Europe, it also contributes to the growing field of sports history. Amanda Jeanne Swain is executive director of the Humanities Commons at the University of California, Irvine. She received her PhD in Russian and East European history at the University of Washington. Her research interests include the intersections of national, Soviet and European identities in the Baltic countries. Recent publications include articles in Ab Imperio and Cahiers du Monde Russe. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/eastern-european-studies

Some books fly high above the field, making sweeping generalizations about big questions. Other books circle over a specific problem, analyzing it in great detail to say something important about a single subject. Joshua Zimmerman‘s The Polish Underground and the Jews, 1939-1945 (Cambridge University Press, 2015) shows how important and valuable books that adopt the latter approach can be. The book is an exceptionally rich account of the attitudes, politics, policies and actions of the Polish Underground regarding Polish Jews during the Second World War. Zimmerman, Associate Professor of History at Yeshiva University in New York, spent years exploring archives, memoirs and secondary sources in preparing the book. Nearly every page of the book displays this research, with extensive quotes from newspapers, internal communications and leaders within the army. Zimmerman is well-aware of the historical and political stakes involved in his question. His answers are careful, nuanced and balanced. I can imagine people disagreeing with his conclusions (although I personally am convinced), but it’s hard to imagine a more thorough attempt to approach the question. The book is a must-read for anyone interested in the interaction of Polish Jews and Polish institutions and individuals during the war. Kelly McFall is Associate Professor of History and Director of the Honors Program at Newman University in Wichita, Kansas. His research and teaching concentrates on the history of violence and human rights, focusing especially on the history of genocide.  His writing centers around a pedagogy titled Reacting to the Past.  Here he has written, among others, The Needs of Others: Human Rights, International Organizations and Intervention in Rwanda, 1994. He can be reached at mcfallk@newmanu.edu.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/eastern-european-studies

Written Here, Published There: How Underground Literature Crossed the Iron Curtain (Central European University Press, 2014) is a richly detailed description of the social practices, debates and discourses that were part of a transnational literary community created by tamizdat – literary works written in communist Europe but published in the West. Friederike Kind-Kovacs, Assistant Professor in the Department of History of Southeastern and Eastern Europe, University of Regensburg, demonstrates the permeability of the “Iron Curtain” through a study of the practicalities of book smuggling and publishing houses. More importantly, she reveals the motivations of non-conformist writers who sought publication in the West and the Western intellectuals, emigres and activists who facilitated publication – along with the tensions inherent in these relationships. Kind-Kovacs focuses as well as on how literary transmission between communist Europe and the West was shaped by and contributed to the human rights movement. Amanda Jeanne Swain is executive director of the Humanities Commons at the University of California, Irvine. She received her PhD in Russian and East European history at the University of Washington. Her research interests include the intersections of national, Soviet and European identities in the Baltic countries. Recent publications include articles in Ab Imperio and Cahiers du Monde Russe.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/eastern-european-studies

It’s rare when an academic historian breaks through and becomes a central part of the contemporary cultural conversation. Timothy Snyder does just this with his book Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning (Tim Duggan Books, 2015). He does so by boldly arguing that we don’t really understand what happened during the Holocaust. He argues in favor of an emphasis on ideology with Adolf Hitler at the center. But he also stresses the importance of the experience of occupation and the role of state structures, incentives and punishments. It was, he suggests, the persistence or disappearance of states that made all the difference in the way the Holocaust emerged over time. Because of our misunderstanding of the nature of the Holocaust, we’ve misunderstood the lessons that it should teach us. Because the world of our time rhymes with that of the Holocaust, this misunderstanding poses real threats to our world. It’s a tremendous book, fully worth of the extensive praise it has received. It will no doubt lead to many conversations among holocaust and genocide scholars alike. We only had time to touch on the big themes of the book in this interview. Hopefully you’ll get a feel for the flavor of his argument and why it’s so challenging to the discipline. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/eastern-european-studies

In the late 1980s, the Baltic Soviet Social Republics seemed to explode into song as Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian national movements challenged Soviet rule. The leaders of each of these movements espoused nonviolent principles, but the capacity for violence was always there – especially as Soviet authorities engaged in violent repression. In The Power of Song: Nonviolent National Culture in the Baltic Singing Revolution (University of Washington Press, 2015), Guntis Smidchens tackles the question “of whether it is possible to reconcile nonviolent principles with a pursuit of nationalist power” and his answer is yes. As evidence, Smidchens presents the events of 1988 to 1991 in the Baltic countries and their national song cultures, considering them through the lens of principles of nonviolence. Smidchens analyzes the role of choral, folk and rock music in the national movements, demonstrating that choral music provided mass discipline, folk songs pulled in people not already involved in song culture, and rock music integrated ideology and responsiveness to rapidly changing events in the Baltic and the Soviet Union more broadly. He also provides English translations of over 100 Lithuanian, Latvian and Estonian songs, setting them in their historical, cultural and poetic contexts. The Power of Song: Nonviolent National Culture in the Baltic Singing Revolution explains why Latvians, Estonians and Lithuanians chose music as their weapon of choice to regain independence from the Soviet Union. Amanda Jeanne Swain is executive director of the Humanities Commons at the University of California, Irvine. She received her PhD in Russian and East European history at the University of Washington. Her research interests include the intersections of national, Soviet and European identities in the Baltic countries. Recent publications include articles in Ab Imperio and Cahiers du Monde Russe. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/eastern-european-studies