New Books In Eastern European Studies

The Kingdom of Rye: A Brief History of Russian Food (U California Press, 2022) unearths the foods and flavors of the Russian land. Preeminent food studies scholar Darra Goldstein offers readers a concise, engaging, and gorgeously crafted story of Russian cuisine and culture. This story demonstrates how national identity is revealed through food—and how people know who they are by what they eat together. The Kingdom of Rye examines the Russians' ingenuity in overcoming hunger, a difficult climate, and a history of political hardship while deciphering Russia's social structures from within. This is a domestic history of Russian food that serves up a deeper history, demonstrating that the wooden spoon is mightier than the scepter. Darra Goldstein is the Willcox B. and Harriet M. Adsit Professor of Russian, Emerita, at Williams College and founding editor of Gastronomica: A Journal of Food and Culture, named Publication of the Year by the James Beard Foundation. She is author of six award-winning cookbooks, inclu

"An important distinction exists between the politics of rules at which the EU is quite adept and the politics driven by events - which requires improvisation, risk-taking and alertness to opportunities". In Governing the EU in an Age of Division (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2022), Dalibor Roháč explains how a union built to reflect and export steadiness and consensus has failed to adapt to a decade of fast-moving financial, public health, military and energy crises. But, his book is neither anti-EU nor lacking in practical proposals. Although once an avowed eurosceptic, Roháč describes his new book as "unabashedly pro-European both in the sense that it wishes prosperity and peace for the European continent and in the sense that it sees the EU and much of its institutional architecture as important components of its success". A senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington and a research associate at the Wilfried Martens Centre for European Studies in Brussels, Roháč was educated at Charles Un

Once upon a time, it was said that Russia was isolated and ignorant until Peter the Great opened Russia to the West and ushered in modernization. While Tsar Peter I surely did look to the West in his quest to modernize Russia, these processes were underway well before Peter ever launched his first sailboat. Thousands of Europeans who lived in Moscow under the first Romanovs contributed in myriad ways to these modernizing processes. A significant portion of them were from the Netherlands, the small republic at Europe’s edge that threw off its Spanish overloads, mastered its marshy littoral, and went to become the economic powerhouse of seventeenth-century Europe. Building from the unfinished work of the late Jordan Kurland, Kees Boterbloem’s Russia and the Dutch Republic, 1566–1725: A Forgotten Friendship (Lexington Books, 2021) guides us through one of Russia’s most important early modern relationships. This brisque and engaging read introduces us to the diplomats, merchants, mercenaries, and shipwrights, who

In The Books that Made the European Enlightenment: A History in 12 Case Studies (‎Bloomsbury Academic, 2022), Gary Kates looks at the multifaceted significance of bestsellers from the time. Kates explores a crucial innovation of the age: the rise of the 'erudite blockbuster', which for the first time in European history, helped to popularize political theory among a significant portion of the society. Gary Kates is H. Russell Smith Foundation Chair in the Social Sciences and Professor of History at Pomona College. Schneur Zalman Newfield is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Borough of Manhattan Community College, City University of New York, and the author of Degrees of Separation: Identity Formation While Leaving Ultra-Orthodox Judaism (Temple University Press, 2020). Visit him online at ZalmanNewfield.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/eastern-european-studies

Today I talked to Michael Eli Nutkiewicz about his translation A Ukrainian Chapter: A Jewish Aid Worker’s Memoir Of Sorrow (Slavica, 2022).  Eli Gumener’s 1921 Yiddish memoir, A Ukrainian Chapter, is a rare historical source about relief work spanning the two most devastating years of the pogroms in the Russian Civil War. He concentrates on the collapse of Jewish communities in Podolia, a region in southwest Ukraine. Gumener worked for the major Russian and American organizations that were active in providing aid to Jewish victims during both World War I and the Russian Civil War. Thus, he presents a unique perspective on leaders, parties, and institutions struggling to respond to the suffering and dislocation that came with wild episodes of violence. This annotated translation serves as a roadmap for the reader by clarifying the social and political contexts in which the events took place. A Ukrainian Chapter is a contribution to the history of pogroms, relief work, and Jewish party politics, through the day

Constantin Noica's (1909-1987) Pray for Brother Alexander (Punctum Books, 2018; translated by Octavian Gabor) is a meditation on responsibility, freedom, and forgiveness. On the surface, the book describes events and people from Noica's life during his time in a political communist prison in Romania. However, the volume is not a historical account only, but rather an honest introspection into how a human being may keep sanity when everything around him makes no sense. Unlike his famous Romanian contemporaries, scholar Mircea Eliade, dramatist Eugen Ionescu, and philosopher Emil Cioran, who lived abroad, Constantin Noica did not leave communist Romania. Considered an "anti-revolutionary" thinker, Noica was placed under house arrest in Câmpulung-Muscel between 1949 and 1958. In 1958, he was sentenced to 25 years in prison. He was released after 6 years, and Pray for Brother Alexander covers his experiences during this time. In his writings, Noica rekindles universal themes of philosophy, but he deals with them

The world's wealthier countries have in recent years faced challenges from right-wing populist parties and movements that may rejuvenate origins from relatively far in the past, such as in the case of Italy, or they may constitute new formations disturbingly reminiscent of earlier movements of their kinds. So, for example, the Alternative for Germany, in Germany. So where does populism go from here? This week on International Horizons, Umut Korkut from Glasgow Caledonian University discusses the goals and findings of the D.Rad De-Radicalization project in Europe and why and how people become radicalized from being alienated from the rest of society. Korkut also delves into other causes of radicalization, such as educational policies and political literacy gap and the manipulation by the elites. He goes on to discuss the nuances of populism in Europe and its variations in the imaginary of people. Finally, he argues that, because of trauma of recent events, voters are paralyzed and cannot see different politica

After the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, the timing appeared perfect to bring Sesame Street to millions of children living in the former Soviet Union. With the Muppets envisioned as ideal ambassadors of Western values, no one anticipated just how challenging and dangerous this would prove to be. In Muppets in Moscow: The Unexpected Crazy True Story of Making Sesame Street in Russia (Rowman & Littlefield, 2022), Natasha Lance Rogoff brings this gripping tale to life. Amidst bombings, assassinations, and a military takeover of the production office, Lance Rogoff and the talented Moscow team of artists, writers, musicians, filmmakers, and puppeteers remained determined to bring laughter, learning, and a new way of seeing the world to children in Russia, Ukraine and across the former Soviet empire. With a sharp wit and compassion for her colleagues, Lance Rogoff observes how cultural clashes colored nearly every aspect of the production—from the show’s educational framework to writing comedy to

In On a Knife Edge: How Germany Lost the First World War (Cambridge UP, 2022), Holger Afflerbach argues that the outcome of the war was actually in the balance until relatively late in the war. Using new evidence from diaries, letters and memoirs, he fundamentally revises our understanding of German strategy from the decision to go to war and the failure of the western offensive to the radicalisation of Germany's war effort under Hindenburg and Ludendorff and the ultimate collapse of the Central Powers. He uncovers the struggles in wartime Germany between supporters of peace and hardliners who wanted to fight to the finish. He suggests that Germany was not nearly as committed to all-out conquest as previous accounts argue. Numerous German peace advances could have offered the opportunity to end the war before it dragged Europe into the abyss. Charles Coutinho, PH. D., Associate Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, received his doctorate from New York University. His area of specialization is 19th and 20th-

The late Russian Empire experienced rapid economic change, social dislocation, and multiple humanitarian crises, enduring two wars, two famines, and three revolutions. A "pastoral activism" took hold as parish clergymen led and organized the response of Russia's Orthodox Christians to these traumatic events. In Russia's Social Gospel: The Orthodox Pastoral Movement in Famine, War, and Revolution (U Wisconsin Press, 2022), Daniel Scarborough considers the roles played by pastors in the closing decades of the failing tsarist empire and the explosive 1917 revolutions. Roland Clark is a Reader in Modern European History at the University of Liverpool, a Senior Fellow with the Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right, and the Principal Investigator of an AHRC-funded project on European Fascist Movements. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/eastern-european-studies

Focusing on the memory of the German Democratic Republic, Towards a Collaborative Memory: German Memory Work in a Transnational Context (Berghahn Books, 2022) explores the cross-border collaborations of three German institutions. Using an innovative theoretical and methodological framework, drawing on relational sociology, network analysis and narrative, the study breaks out of the epistemic coloniality that has underpinned global partnerships across European actors and institutions. Sara Jones reconceptualizes transnational memory towards an approach that is collaborative not only in its practices, but also in its ethics, and shows how these institutions position themselves within dominant relationship cultures reflected between East and West, and North and South. Nicole Coleman is Associate Professor of German at Wayne State University. She tweets @drnicoleman. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast

In The Soviet Myth of World War II: Patriotic Memory and the Russian Question in the USSR (Cambridge UP, 2021), Jonathan Brunstedt examines how Soviet society, a community committed to the Marxist ideals of internationalism, reconciled itself to notions of patriotist, Russian nationalism, and the glorification of war. Brunstedt does through the lens of the myth and remembrance of victory in World War II – arguably the central defining event of the Soviet epoch. The book shows that while the experience and legacy of the conflict did much to reinforce a sense of Russian exceptionalism and Russian-led ethnic hierarchy, the story of the war enabled an alternative, supra-ethnic source of belonging, which subsumed Russian and non-Russian loyalties alike to the Soviet whole. The tension and competition between Russocentric and 'internationalist' conceptions of victory, which burst into the open during the late 1980s, reflected a wider struggle over the nature of patriotic identity in a multiethnic society that conti

In Moldova, the number of dual citizens has risen exponentially in the last decades. Before annexation, many saw Russia as granting citizenship to-or passportizing-large numbers in Crimea. Both are regions with kin majorities: local majorities claimed as co-ethnic by external states offering citizenship, among other benefits. As functioning citizens of the states in which they reside, kin majorities do not need to acquire citizenship from an external state. Yet many do so in high numbers. Eleanor Knott's book Kin Majorities: Identity and Citizenship in Crimea and Moldova (McGill-Queen's UP, 2022) explores why these communities engage with dual citizenship and how this intersects, or not, with identity. Analyzing data collected from ordinary people in Crimea and Moldova in 2012 and 2013, just before Russia’s annexation of Crimea, Eleanor Knott provides a crucial window into Russian identification in a time of calm. Perhaps surprisingly, the discourse and practice of Russian citizenship was largely absent in Cr

In Subversive Archaism: Troubling Traditionalists and the Politics of National Heritage (Duke UP, 2022), Michael Herzfeld explores how individuals and communities living at the margins of the modern nation-state use nationalist discourses of tradition to challenge state authority under both democratic and authoritarian governments. Through close attention to the claims and experiences of mountain shepherds in Greece and urban slum dwellers in Thailand, Herzfeld shows how these subversive archaists draw on national histories and past polities to claim legitimacy for their defiance of bureaucratic authority. Although vilified by government authorities as remote, primitive, or dangerous—often as preemptive justification for violent repression—these groups are not revolutionaries and do not reject national identity, but they do question the equation of state and nation. Herzfeld explores the political strengths and vulnerabilities of their deployment of heritage and the weaknesses they expose in the bureaucratic

Delegating Responsibility: International Cooperation on Migration in the European Union (U Michigan Press, 2022) explores the politics of migration in the European Union and explains how the EU responded to the 2015–17 refugee crisis. Based on 86 interviews and fieldwork in Greece and Italy, Nicholas R. Micinski proposes a new theory of international cooperation on international migration. States approach migration policies in many ways—such as coordination, collaboration, subcontracting, and unilateralism—but which policy they choose is based on capacity and on credible partners on the ground. Micinski traces the fifty-year evolution of EU migration management, like border security and asylum policies, and shows how EU officials used “crises” as political leverage to further Europeanize migration governance. In two in-depth case studies, he explains how Italy and Greece responded to the most recent refugee crisis. He concludes with a discussion of policy recommendations regarding contemporary as well as long

In post-Soviet Russia, there is a persistent trend to repress, control, or even co-opt national history. By reshaping memory to suit a politically convenient narrative, Russia has fashioned a good future out of a "bad past." While Putin's regime has acquired nearly complete control over interpretations of the past, Anton Weiss-Wendt and Nanci Adler's edited volume The Future of the Soviet Past: The Politics of History in Putin's Russia (Indiana UP, 2021) reveals that Russia's inability to fully rewrite its Soviet history plays an essential part in its current political agenda. Diverse contributors consider the many ways in which public narrative shapes Russian culture—from cinema, television, and music to museums, legislature, and education—as well as how patriotism reflected in these forms of culture implies a casual acceptance of the valorization of Stalin and his role in World War II. The Future of the Soviet Past provides effective and nuanced examples of how Russia has reimagined its Soviet history as we

As they worked on the second edition of What is Europe? (Routledge, 2022), Anna Triandafyllidou and Ruby Gropas admit that they struggled to keep up. The problem wasn't just the pace of change since 2015 in the EU - the resolution of the Greek and onset of the refugee crisis, Brexit, pandemic and war - but what each of these did to the concept of "Europe" itself.  In their history and sociology of an idea, Triandafyllidou and Gropas find that 'Europe' "takes different shapes and meanings depending on the realm of life on which it is applied and the historical period that we are looking at". Anna Triandafyllidou is a sociologist and recently appointed Canada Excellence Research Chair in Migration and Integration at Toronto Metropolitan University who previously taught at the University of Surrey, the London School of Economics, Rome, Florence and Thrace.  Ruby Gropas leads the social market economy team within the European Commission president’s advisory service and, before that, led the social affairs team at

As they worked on the second edition of What is Europe? (Routledge, 2022), Anna Triandafyllidou and Ruby Gropas admit that they struggled to keep up. The problem wasn't just the pace of change since 2015 in the EU - the resolution of the Greek and onset of the refugee crisis, Brexit, pandemic and war - but what each of these did to the concept of "Europe" itself.  In their history and sociology of an idea, Triandafyllidou and Gropas find that 'Europe' "takes different shapes and meanings depending on the realm of life on which it is applied and the historical period that we are looking at". Anna Triandafyllidou is a sociologist and recently appointed Canada Excellence Research Chair in Migration and Integration at Toronto Metropolitan University who previously taught at the University of Surrey, the London School of Economics, Rome, Florence and Thrace.  Ruby Gropas leads the social market economy team within the European Commission president’s advisory service and, before that, led the social affairs team at

Today I talked to Ágúst Magnússon about his new book Kierkegaard and Eastern Orthodox Thought: A Comparative Philosophical Analysis (Gorgias Press, 2019). Throughout the years, there has been an extensive engagement with the philosophy of Søren Kierkegaard from the perspective of Western philosophy and theology. Kierkegaard's thought has been examined through the lenses of Roman Catholicism, Protestantism, existentialism, post-modernism, feminism, and literary theory, to name just a few. Scholars have also offered fruitful comparative analyses of Kierkegaard's work in relation to Asian philosophical and religious traditions such as Buddhism. It is therefore surprising that the engagement between Kierkegaard's philosophy and that of Eastern Orthodox philosophy and thought has heretofore been minimal. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/eastern-european-studies

The Commodification Gap: Gentrification and Public Policy in London, Berlin and St. Petersburg (Wiley, 2022) provides an insightful institutionalist perspective on the field of gentrification studies. The book explores the relationship between the operation of gentrification and the institutions underpinning - but also influencing and restricting - it in three neighborhoods in London, Berlin and St. Petersburg. Matthias Bernt demonstrates how different institutional arrangements have resulted in the facilitation, deceleration or alteration of gentrification across time and place. The book is based on empirical studies conducted in Great Britain, Germany and Russia and contains one of the first-ever English language discussions of gentrification in Germany and Russia. It begins with an examination of the limits of the widely established “rent-gap” theory and proposes the novel concept of the “commodification gap.” It then moves on to explore how different institutional contexts in the UK, Germany and Russia ha