New Books In Eastern European Studies

Jelena Batinic’s Women and Yugoslav Partisans: A History of World War II Resistance (Cambridge University Press, 2015) examines the role women played in the Communist-led Yugoslav Partisan resistance. By placing gender and gender relations at the forefront of her analysis, Batinic provides insightful history of a unique phenomenon—guerrilla warfare in which tens of thousands of women took direct military roles. Based on vast amount of archival sources, Batinic demonstrated how gender was the main organising force of the Partisan movement. In this interview, we have talked about the main arguments of the book, particularly focusing on gender relations within the movement. Additionally, the interview will also introduce our listeners to the Balkan conflict during the Second World War and explore how and why the remarkable story of the Partisan women fell into oblivion. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It’s been a quarter century since the collapse of the Soviet Union. This anniversary marks a good occasion to ask a seemingly simple question: “What was the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics?” Was it Russia in a new wrapper? Or was it something new and unheralded in world history? Was it “Socialism in One Country?” Or was it a continent-sized vehicle for the spread of international communism? Was it ruled by a peculiar kind of “traditionalism?” Or was it a variation on a kind of typical “modernity?” In this thought-provoking collection of essays, the historian Michael David-Fox addresses these and other crucial questions about the USSR. Crossing Borders: Modernity, Ideology, and Culture in Russia and the Soviet Union (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2015) doesn’t offer simple answers. David-Fox shows again and again that easy dichotomies do little to capture the complexity of the Soviet experience. The USSR, he argues, is just not that easy to “boil down.” It was many things to many people, and continues to

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 controv

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.” Alth

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 transnation

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 identiti

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 opposi

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 s

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 pe

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.

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 l

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 r

In Yankel’s Tavern: Jews, Liquor, and Life in the Kingdom of Poland (Oxford UP, 2014), Glenn Dynner, Professor of Religion at Sarah Lawrence College, explores the world of Jewish-run taverns in nineteenth-century Eastern Europe. Jews had to fend off reformers and government officials that sought to drive Jews out of the liquor trade. Dynner argues that many nobles helped their Jewish tavernkeepers evade fees, bans, and expulsions by installing Christians as fronts for their taverns, revealing a surprising level of Polish-Jewish co-existence that changes the way we think about life in the Kingdom of Poland. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For people and governments in the west the revolutions of 1989 and 1991 were happy events, and as the twentieth anniversary of those events rolled around they were to be celebrated once again with historical reviews in newsmagazines and tv news shows. For the peoples of Eastern Europe they were always political events that went beyond the thrill of no longer being systematically harassed for being too openly religious or public about political views not in line with the party line. There were big questions about how to deal with the legacy of communist rule and how to redirect the country, which have shaped politics in those countries ever since. In Michael Bernhard and Jan Kubik‘s collection Twenty Years After Communism: The Politics of Memory and Commemoration (Oxford University Press, 2015), then, it should come as no surprise that the celebration and commemoration of 1989 looks quite different. As such, it provides an interesting means to explore the political landscape in Eastern Europe revealing a varie

Holy Legionary Youth: Fascist Activism in Interwar Romania (Cornell University Press, 2015) is an in-depth study of the Legion of the Archangel Michael, one of the largest and longest lasting fascist social movements in Europe. Drawing on oral interviews, memoirs and the archives of the Romanian secret police, Roland Clark reveals the contribution of seemingly contradictory practices – deadly violence and charitable activities, intellectual and manual labor, political action and religious rituals – to fascist subjectivities in interwar Romania. Arguing against fascism as primarily an ideology, Clark focuses on everyday practices through which young men and women “became fascist.” As he explores the rise and fall of the Legion of the Archangel Michael, Clark places it in the broader political and social context of Romanian nationalism, 19th-century state-building and interwar European fascist movements. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In YIVO and the Making of Modern Jewish Culture: Scholarship for the Yiddish Nation (Cambridge University Press, 2014), Cecile E. Kuznitz, Associate Professor of Jewish History and Director of Jewish Studies at Bard College, offers the first book-length history of YIVO, the center for Yiddish scholarship founded in the 1920s by a group of Eastern European Jewish intellectuals.  Could scholarship serve as the foundation for a diaspora nationalism? Kuznitz traces the ups and downs of YIVO, using unpublished documents from the center’s archives. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 1636, King Wladyslaw IV’s quartermaster surveyed the houses of Wilno in advance of the king’s visit to the city. In Kith, Kin and Neighbors: Communities and Confessions in Seventeenth-Century Wilno (Cornell University Press, 2013), David Frick begins with this house-by-house account to reveal the complex relationships among the city’s multi-ethnic and multi-confessional inhabitants. He weaves in birth, marriage and death records, litigation filed by citizens against each other, as well as guild and poor relief roles, to demonstrate the “practices of toleration” that allowed Vilnans to cross confessional boundaries and to define separate identities. Frick reveals how Wilno’s Poles, Lithuanians Germans, Ruthenians, Jews and Tartars – representing Catholic, Uniate, Orthodox, Calvinist, Lutheran, Jewish and Muslim confessions – were able to live together in a mostly peaceful coexistence. Kith, Kin and Neighbors received the 2013 Przegl Wschodni Award, the 2014 Joseph Rothschild Prize from the Association for t

In the conventional narratives of Communist Poland, and Eastern Europe more generally, student activism tends to get short shrift. While the role of students in 1956 is unavoidable and widely acknowledged, after that their role and their relationship to the society at large has been minimized. The famous Kuron-Modzielewski letter of 1964 is treated first and foremost as an intra-elite affair, while the failure of the student protests in 1968 to provoke a broader movement as well as students’ subsequent lack of involvement in the protests of December 1970 have been taken as evidence of students’ lack of connection to broader society. Only in the late 1970s did was that gap bridged, first with founding of KOR after the strikes of 1976 and then during the Solidarity era. This account has been pervasive since the 1970s, and even people with only passing knowledge of Polish history have been exposed to it through Andrzej Wajda’s 1981 film “Man of Iron.” There the student turned factory worker Maciej Birkut recou

Prague, according to Derek Sayer, is the place “in which modernist dreams have time and again unraveled.” In this sweeping history of surrealism centered on Prague as both a physical location and the “magic capital” in the imagination of leading surrealists such as Andre Breton and Paul Aluard, Sayer takes the reader on a thematic journey from the beginning of the 20th century to the immediate post-war era. In this interview, Sayer talks about why surrealism – and, more importantly, why Prague – is central to understanding the 20th century and modernism. Through works of literature and works of architecture, Sayer demonstrates how Czech modernists pluralized visions of what modernist art should be. These Czech artists and architects were largely ignored in post-World War II exhibitions and histories of surrealism and modernism. With this book, Derek Sayer returns them to their proper place in the narrative. Prague, Capital of Twentieth Century: A Surrealist History (Princeton University Press, 2013) receiv

Normally I don’t try and talk about two books in the same interview. But, in discussing the interview, Anton Weiss-Wendt suggested that it made sense to pair The Nazi Genocide of the Roma (Berghahn Books, 2015) and Racial Science in Hitler’s New Europe, 1938-1945 (University of Nebraska Press, 2013) together. His instinct was sound. While they deal with different subjects, they share a common approach and structure that casts new light on each subject individually and on the war more generally. Often, works on the Holocaust focus on Germany, Poland and the USSR while marginalizing smaller and weaker countries. The two books here certainly address these countries. But they do the topic a great service by bringing other areas to the forefront. Each book is structured geographically, with contributors examining the course of racial science or the genocide of the Roma in a specific country. This allows the authors to look in depth at the historical context that led to different decisions and ideas. A