New Books In Eastern European Studies

The spring 2022 battle for Kyiv was "one of the most tragic – and the most bizarre – events in modern history," writes Illia Ponomarenko. "Outnumbered and outgunned, Ukraine sustained the most critical blow and unexpectedly delivered Russia the greatest and most defining defeat of this war. It spelt a stunning end to the Kremlin’s megalomaniac plans of an easy conquest of a 40-million-person nation. Ukraine did it alone, by itself, still with very little defence aid from the West, And that uneven victory altered the course of European history". In I Will Show You How It Was: The Story of Wartime Kyiv (Bloomsbury, 2024), Ponomarenko recalls life in Ukraine's capital during the delusional, extended Christmas leading up to Russia's full-scale invasion, after the shock and awe of the first night and the fight for the northern suburbs, and amid the joy of victory.  It is the story of a nation, a city, a reporter and his friends, family, and colleagues. A founder and defence editor of the Kyiv Independent, which he

As a teenager in Shetland, Jen Stout fell in love with Russia and, later, Ukraine – their languages, cultures, and histories. Although life kept getting in the way, she eventually managed to pause her BBC career and take up a nine-month scholarship to live and work in Russia. Unfortunately, this dream only came true in November 2021, as Russian troops massed on Ukraine’s borders. Three months later, she left Russia but only got as far as Vienna before heading back into Ukraine via Romania with a rucksack and a handful of freelance contracts. In Night Train to Odesa: Covering the Cost of Russia’s War (Polygon, 2024), we experience Europe’s biggest land war since 1945 through the eyes of a war reporter, photographer, and cultural observer during tours in Kyiv, Kharkiv, Odesa, Lviv, and close to the frontline in Donbas.  Via railway workers, soldiers, writers, activists, and old women sleeping in bunkers, we encounter stoical resistance. Stout writes: "I was finding warmth and determination all over the place wh

A stunning debut collection of fiction and creative nonfiction-- irreverent and unglorified; loving and tender; uncomfortable and inconvenient--by a Ukrainian writer currently fighting for his country in Kyiv. Includes the celebrated title story "The Ukraine," which was published in the New Yorker in 2022. The Ukraine (Seven Stories Press, 2024; translated by Zenia Tompkins) is a collection of 26 pieces that deliberately blur the line between nonfiction and fiction, conjuring the essence of a beloved country through its tastes, smells, and sounds, its small towns and big cities, its people and their compassion and indifference, simplicities and complications. In the title story, Chapeye facetiously plays with the English misuse of the article "the" in reference to Ukraine, capturing a country as perceived from the outside, by foreigners. That pseudo-kitsch, often historically shallow, and not-quite-real Ukraine resonates because of its highly engaging and brutally candid snapshots of ordinary lives and typic

Between the 1850s and World War I, about one million North Caucasian Muslims sought refuge in the Ottoman Empire. This resettlement of Muslim refugees from Russia changed the Ottoman state. Circassians, Chechens, Dagestanis, and others established hundreds of refugee villages throughout the Ottoman Balkans, Anatolia, and the Levant. Most villages still exist today, including what is now the city of Amman. Muslim refugee resettlement reinvigorated regional economies, but also intensified competition over land and, at times, precipitated sectarian tensions, setting in motion fundamental shifts in the borderlands of the Russian and Ottoman empires. Vladimir Hamed-Troyansky's Empire of Refugees: North Caucasian Muslims and the Late Ottoman State (Stanford University Press, 2024) tell this story. The book reframes late Ottoman history through mass displacement and reveals the origins of refugee resettlement in the modern Middle East. Vladimir Hamed-Troyansky offers a historiographical corrective: the nineteenth-ce

Bruce O'Neill's Underground: Dreams and Degradations in Bucharest (U Pennsylvania Press, 2024) gets to the bottom of the twenty-first-century city, literally. Underground moves beneath Romania’s capital, Bucharest, to examine how the demands of global accumulation have extended urban life not just upward into higher skylines, and outward to ever more distant peripheries, but also downward beneath city sidewalks. Underground details how developers and municipal officials have invested tremendous sums of money to gentrify and expand Bucharest’s constellation of subterranean Metro stations and pedestrian pathways, basements and cellars, bunkers and crypts to provide upwardly mobile residents with space to live, work, and play in an overcrowded and increasingly unaffordable city center. In this sense, the repurposed underground facilitates dreams of middle-class ascendancy.  This sense of optimism, the book shows, invariably gives way to ambivalence as the middle classes confront the indignities of being incorpor

Over thirty years, from 1890 to 1921, 2.5 million Jews, fleeing discrimination and violence in their homelands of Eastern Europe, arrived in the United States. Many sailed on steamships from Hamburg. This mass exodus was facilitated by three businessmen whose involvement in the Jewish-American narrative has been largely forgotten: Jacob Schiff, the managing partner of the investment bank Kuhn, Loeb & Company, who used his immense wealth to help Jews to leave Europe; Albert Ballin, managing director of the Hamburg-American Line, who created a transportation network of trains and steamships to carry them across continents and an ocean; and J. P. Morgan, mastermind of the International Mercantile Marine (I.M.M.) trust, who tried to monopolize the lucrative steamship business. Though their goals were often contradictory, together they made possible a migration that spared millions from persecution. Descendants of these immigrants included Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Estée Lauder, George Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Fanny Br

How embedded are the dignity and personhood of the elderly in the collective memory of their nation? In Aging Nationally in Contemporary Poland: Memory, Kinship, and Personhood (Rutgers University Press, 2021) anthropologist Jessica C. Robbins-Panko dissects the Polish version of this story, in which the meanings and ideals both of “active aging” programs and of institutions devoted to medium- or long-term care have become caught up in the cultural, political, and economic changes that have occurred during the lifetimes of the oldest generations—most visibly, the transition from socialism to capitalism. Many older Poles come to live valued, meaningful lives in old age despite the threats to respect and dignity posed by illness and debility. Through intimate portrayals of a wide range of experiences of aging in Poland—from adult education to in-patient rehab to Alzheimer’s support centers—Robbins-Panko shows that everyday practices of remembering and relatedness shape how older Poles come to be seen by themsel

In her new book, When Left Moves Right: The Decline of the Left and the Rise of the Populist Right in Postcommunist Europe (Oxford University Press, 2024), Maria Snegovaya argues that, contrary to the view that emphasizes the sociocultural aspects (xenophobia, anti-immigrant sentiment, etc.) of the rise of the populist right, especially in postcommunist Europe, the rise of the populist right is inextricably linked to the pro-market, Neoliberal reforms of the left, which had the effect of disenfranchising working-class and other voters, and providing an natural opportunity for the right to gain power. Jeff Adler is an ex-linguist and occasional contributor to New Books Network! 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 Traian Sandu about his book Ceausescu: Le dictateur ambigu (Perrin, 2023).  Born in January 1918, Nicolae Ceauşescu began his apprenticeship in Bucharest and discovered the social struggle and its repression at the age of fifteen within the Romanian Communist Party. In 1948, the Stalinist Gheorghiu-Dej, his mentor, having taken power, he took the opportunity to quickly climb the ranks of the party and the state. Installed in power in March 1965, Ceauşescu inherited the policy of his predecessor: avoiding de-Stalinization by playing the nationalist card. Its beginnings were popular thanks to a certain cultural liberalization, the beginning of a consumer society and an opening towards the West. However, the oil shocks and the détente between the United States and the Soviet Union in the mid-1970s deprived him of the resources needed to pursue his policy.  His role as a bridge between East and West, his industrialization policy based on Western capital and technologies and his popularity within

In recent decades, the study of the Eastern Roman Empire, also known as Byzantium, has been revolutionized by new approaches and more sophisticated models for how its society and state operated. No longer looked upon as a pale facsimile of classical Rome, Byzantium is now considered a vigorous state of its own, inheritor of many of Rome's features, and a vital node in the first truly globalized world. The New Roman Empire: A History of Byzantium (Oxford UP, 2024) is the first full, single-author history of the eastern Roman empire to appear in over a generation. Covering political and military history as well as all the major changes in religion, society, demography, and economy, Anthony Kaldellis's volume is divided into ten chronological sections which begin with the foundation of Constantinople in 324 AD and end with the fall of the empire to the Ottoman Turks in the fifteenth century. The book incorporates new findings, explains recent interpretive models, and presents well-known historical characters and

Ingrid Piller speaks with Jasna Novak Milić, the director of the Croatian Studies Center at Macquarie University. The Croatian Studies Center at Macquarie University hosts one of a very small number of Croatian Studies programs at university level outside Croatia. We talk about Croatian Studies in the diaspora, small languages in higher education, and why the availability of languages programs in higher education is critical for heritage language maintenance. For additional resources, show notes, and transcripts, go here. 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

Before Josef Stalin's death in 1953, the USSR had, at best, an ambivalent relationship with noncommunist international organisations. Although it had helped found the United Nations, it refused to join the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and other major agencies beyond the Security Council and General Assembly, casting them as foreign meddlers. Under new leadership, the USSR joined UNESCO and a slew of international organisations for the first time, including the World Health Organization and the International Labor Organization. As a result, it enabled Soviet diplomats, scholars, teachers, and even some blue-collar workers to participate in global discussions on topics ranging from their professional specialties to worldwide problems. Reds in Blue: UNESCO, World Governance, and the Soviet Internationalist Imagination (Oxford University Press, 2023) by Dr. Louis Porter investigates Soviet relations with one of the most prominent of these organisations, UNESCO, to pre

American-born Larissa Babij is at home in Kyiv when Russia launches its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. Her grandparents left Ukraine amidst the violence of World War II, and nearly 80 years later, she is fleeing the advancing Russian army.  A Kind of Refugee: The Story of an American Who Refused to Leave Ukraine (Ibidem Press, 2024) chronicles the first year of all-out war in Ukraine through vivid dispatches that Babij sent to readers abroad. In cities flooded with refugees and bustling with humanitarian aid efforts, or while supporting an innovative military unit making DIY drones, Babij examines Ukrainian cultures of cooperation. Reflecting on her American upbringing, she ponders the premium that Western societies—shaped by the traumatic history of WW II—place on security. When she returns to Kyiv, sirens, Russian missile strikes, and long periods of darkness organize her days. This moving account of taking responsibility for your home and your history concludes with several essays on

Wojtek Soczewica has led the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation since 2019, near the site of the killing fields. The Foundation aims at the preservation of the remains of the concentration and extermination camp and of all the personal items that belonged to victims and survivors. Today they serve as material witnesses of the tragic history safeguarding “the place of Auschwitz in human memory.” In this episode of International Horizons, he speaks with John Torpey, director of the Ralph Bunche Institute, about the work of the Foundation and its role not only in contemporary Poland but in today’s turmoil. He reflects on the role of memorials and museums and how they serve as mirrors to help us to ask ourselves the difficult questions. Additionally, Soczewica attempts an answer concerning the relationship between politics and history. 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

Despite the intense processes of deindustrialisation around the world, the working class continues to play an important role in post-industrial societies. However, working-class people are often stigmatised, morally judged and depicted negatively in dominant discourses. The Urban Life of Workers in Post-Soviet Russia: Engaging in Everyday Struggle (Manchester UP, 2024) challenges stereotypical representations of workers, building on research into the everyday worlds of working-class and ordinary people in Russia’s post-industrial cities. The urban life of workers in post-Soviet Russia is centred on the stories of local communities engaged in the everyday struggles that occur in deindustrialising settings under neoliberal neo-authoritarianism. The book suggests a novel approach to everyday life in post-industrial cities. Drawing on an ethnographic study with elements of arts-based research, the book presents a new genre of writing about workers influenced by the avant-garde documentary tradition and working-cl

In the years after World War II, Polish scholars and scientists faced a complex and deeply personal political reality, the result of a long and violent history of war and occupation combined with pressure from Stalinist Soviet Union.  In Public Knowledge in Cold War Poland: Scholarly Battles and the Clash of Virtues, 1945–1956 (Routledge, 2024), Alexej Lochmatow explores the public debates among scholars that took place during this time and challenges the traditional narrative on the ‘Sovietisation’ of Central and Eastern Europe. Rather than seeing these intellectual debates as the spread of Marxist ideology or a Soviet institutional model, the author sees these debates as a failed attempt to force Polish scholars to adopt new academic and civic virtues. Lochmatow shows how Marxist and non-Marxist scholars united to oppose the imposition of these new virtues, and suggests that this example illustrates how ‘virtues’ can be used as a framework for evaluation of the foundations of scholarly practice and the way

Zenithism (1921-1927): A Yugoslav Avant-Garde Anthology (Academic Studies Press, 2023) is the first-ever English language anthology of zenithism – an eclectic avant-garde movement that operated in the Yugoslav region between 1921 and 1927. The founder of Zenithism – poet Ljubomir Micić – envisioned the movement as a fusion of futurism, dada, constructivism, expressionism, and proto-surrealism, with the movement’s philosophy embodied in the figure of the Balkan Barbarogenius (barbarian-genius). A hallmark of the movement was its embrace of cross-genre writing, from Micić’s ciné-poem Rescue Vehicle and Branko Ve Poljanski’s lyric novel 77 Suicides to MID’s lyric philosophic treatise The Sexual Equilibrium of Money. Reaching the wider international audience for the first time, this anthology sheds light on an untapped chapter in European modernism. Aleksandar Bošković is Lecturer in Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian within the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at Columbia University. He is a scholar of Russi

What defines cooking as cooking, and why does cooking matter to the understanding of society, cultural change and everyday life? Bigger Fish to Fry: A Theory of Cooking as Risk, with Greek Examples (Berghahn, 2021) by Dr. David E. Sutton explores these questions by proposing a new theory of the meaning of cooking as a willingness to put oneself and one’s meals at risk on a daily basis. Richly illustrated with examples from the author’s anthropology fieldwork in Greece, Bigger Fish to Fry proposes a new approach to the meaning of cooking and how the study of cooking can reshape our understanding of social processes more generally. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose forthcoming book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://new

Since its founding in 1995, the FSB, Russia's Federal Security Service, has regained the majority of the domestic security functions of the Soviet-era KGB. Under Vladimir Putin, who served as FSB director just before becoming president, the agency has grown to be one of the most powerful and favored organizations in Russia. The FSB not only conducts internal security but also has primacy in intelligence operations in former Soviet states. Their activities include anti-dissident operations at home and abroad, counterintelligence, counterterrorism, criminal investigations of crimes against the state, and guarding Russia's borders. In The Russian FSB: A Concise History of the Federal Security Service (Georgetown University Press, 2024), Kevin P. Riehle provides a brief history of the FSB's origins, placed within the context of Russian history, the government's power structure, and Russia's wider culture. He describes how the FSB's mindset and priorities show continuities from the tsarist regimes and the Soviet e

A Satellite Empire: Romanian Rule in Southwestern Ukraine, 1941–1944 (Cornell UP, 2019) is an in-depth investigation of the political and social history of the area in southwestern Ukraine under Romanian occupation during World War II. Transnistria was the only occupied Soviet territory administered by a power other than Nazi Germany, a reward for Romanian participation in Operation Barbarossa. Vladimir Solonari's invaluable contribution to World War II history focuses on three main aspects of Romanian rule of Transnistria: with fascinating insights from recently opened archives, Solonari examines the conquest and delimitation of the region, the Romanian administration of the new territory, and how locals responded to the occupation. What did Romania want from the conquest? The first section of the book analyzes Romanian policy aims and its participation in the invasion of the USSR. Solonari then traces how Romanian administrators attempted, in contradictory and inconsistent ways, to make Transnistria "Romani