J. Arch Getty And Lewis H. Siegelbaum, "Reflections On Stalinism" (Northern Illinois UP, 2024) New Books In Eastern European Studies podcast

1:25:00

Irina Nikifortchuk was 19 years old and a Ukrainian schoolteacher when she was abducted to be a forced laborer in the Leica camera factory in Nazi Germany. Eventually pulled from the camp hospital to work as a domestic in the Leica owners’ household, Irina survived the war and eventually found her way to Canada. Decades later Sasha Colby, Irina’s granddaughter, seeks out her grandmother’s story over a series of summer visits and gradually begins to interweave the as-told-to story with historical research. As she delves deeper into the history of the Leica factory and World War II forced labor, she discovers the parallel story of Elsie Kühn-Leitz, Irina’s rescuer and the factory heiress, later imprisoned and interrogated by the Gestapo on charges of “excessive humanity.” This is creative nonfiction at its best as the mystery of Irina’s life unspools skillfully and arrestingly. Despite the horrors that the story must tell, it is full of life, humor, food, and the joy of ordinary safety in Canada. The Matryoshka Memoirs: A Story of Ukrainian Forced Labour, the Leica Camera Factory, and Nazi Resistance (ECW Press, 2023) takes us into a forgotten corner of history, weaving a rich and satisfying tapestry of survival and family ties and asking what we owe those who aid us. 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…

New Books in Eastern European Studies

1
Agnieszka Pasieka, "Living Right: Far-Right Youth Activists in Contemporary Europe" (Princeton UP, 2024) 46:29

2 дні тому46:29

46:29

Radical nationalism is on the rise in Europe and throughout the world. Living Right: Far-Right Youth Activists in Contemporary Europe (Princeton University Press, 2024) provides an in-depth account of the ideas and practices that are driving the varied forms of far-right activism by young people from all walks of life, revealing how these social movements offer the promise of comradery, purpose, and a moral calling to self-sacrifice, and demonstrating how far-right ideas are understood and lived in ways that speak to a variety of experiences. In this eye-opening book, Agnieszka Pasieka draws on her own sometimes harrowing fieldwork among Italian, Polish, and Hungarian militant youths, painting unforgettable portraits of students, laborers, entrepreneurs, musicians, and activists from well-off middle class backgrounds who have all found a nurturing home in the far right. Providing an in-depth account of radical nationalist communities and networks that are taking root across Europe, she shows how the simultaneous orientation of these groups toward the local and the transnational is a key to their success. With a focus on far-right morality that challenges commonly held ideas about the right, Pasieka describes how far-right movements afford opportunities to the young to be active members of tightly bonded comradeships while sharing in a broader project with global ramifications. Required reading for anthropologists and anyone concerned about the resurgence of far-right militancy today, Living Right sheds necessary light on the forces that have made the growing appeal of fascist idealism for young people one of the most alarming trends of our time. Agnieszka Pasieka is assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Montreal. * This episode is part of a special collaboration between the New Books Network and the Society for the Anthropology of Europe , a section of the American Anthropological Association. Together, we’re highlighting exciting new work in Europeanist anthropology—featuring authors from across the field, including winners of the William A. Douglass Book Prize and contributors to the European Anthropology in Translation series published by Berghahn Books. 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…

New Books in Eastern European Studies

1
Understanding Ukraine: A Discussion with Author Yaroslav Trofimov 53:52

3 дні тому53:52

53:52

Yaroslav Trofimov, chief foreign affairs correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, is a native of Kyiv. In this conversation, we discuss two books. Our Enemies Will Vanish (Penguin Press, 2024), is a nonfiction narrative chronicling Putin’s invasion of Ukraine through the reporter Trofimov’s eyes. No Country for Love (Abacus Books, 2024), is his novel tracing the path of a young woman, the character based on his grandmother, on an arduous journey starting in 1930s Soviet Ukraine. Both books, as different as they are, cast a revealing light on the oppressions visited on the diverse peoples of Ukraine. In our talk, Trofimov offers insights into the books and also a guide as to how the ongoing Russian-Ukrainian war might be concluded. 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…

New Books in Eastern European Studies

1
Serhiy Kudelia, "Seize the City, Undo the State: The Inception of Russia's War on Ukraine" (Oxford UP, 2015) 1:00:43

4 дні тому1:00:43

1:00:43

How do separatist conflicts arise and spread? When does separatism become a cover for a foreign aggression? How do local communities respond when state institutions collapse, and militants take over? The armed conflict in Eastern Ukraine, which started eight years before Russia's full-scale invasion, contains unique evidence to address each of these questions. In Seize the City, Undo the State: The Inception of Russia's War on Ukraine (Oxford UP, 2015), Serhiy Kudelia offers an authoritative study of the conflict at its initial stage--2013-14--based on a meticulous comparison of mobilization dynamics in over dozen towns of Donbas as well as in two major cities outside of it: Kharkiv and Odesa. Through his extensive travels and numerous interviews with conflict witnesses and participants, Kudelia explains how a small group of Russian agents and local militants succeeded in eliminating state control over the largest and most densely urbanized region of Ukraine but failed to do it elsewhere. Kudelia challenges the conventional accounts of the armed conflict in Donbas, which portray it either as an interstate conflict entirely manufactured by Moscow or as a civil war that broke out without any external influence. Instead, he argues that local actors prepared ideological and organizational basis for the uprising, but the successful spread of separatist control resulted from the covert intervention of Russian agents and widespread collaboration with them of town administrators and community activists. His findings also show that when enough members of local communities organized to resist militant takeovers, the separatist challenges there quickly dissipated. A fine-grained and highly original on-the-ground analysis of the origins of the wider Russian-Ukrainian war that broke out in 2022, this book offers broader insights into the conditions under which external intervention may trigger the rise of an armed insurgency in a society torn apart by political and ideological disagreements. 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…

New Books in Eastern European Studies

1
Ðermana Kuric on Muslimness in Bosnia 55:23

9 днів тому55:23

55:23

In this episode, Hizer Mir and Chella Ward talked to Ðermana Kuric about Bosnia and Muslimness, focussing on the ways the history of Muslimness in Bosnia interacts with current identities and practices. Ðermana is a researcher whose work concerns hate crime and discrimination in relation to Muslims in Europe. This episode is one of our ‘Forgotten Ummah’ episodes where we consider Muslimness in places outside of those traditional considered to be Muslim. 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…

New Books in Eastern European Studies

1
Eli Rubin, "Kabbalah and the Rupture of Modernity: An Existential History of Chabad Hasidism" (Stanford UP, 2025) 1:16:42

15 днів тому1:16:42

1:16:42

In Kabbalah and the Rupture of Modernity: An Existential History of Chabad Hasidism (Stanford University Press, 2025), Eli Rubin provides a comprehensive intellectual and institutional history of Chabad Hasidism through the Kabbalistic concept of ṣimṣum . The onset of modernity, Eli Rubin argues, was heralded by this startling idea: existence itself is predicated on a self-inflicted "rupture" in the infinite assertion of divinity. Centuries of theoretical disputations concerning ṣimṣum ultimately morphed into religious and social schism. These debates confronted the meaning of being and forged the animating ethos of Chabad, a dynamic movement in modern Judaism. Chabad's distinctive character and self-image, Rubin shows, emerged from its spirited defense of Hasidism's interpretation of ṣimṣum as an act of love leading to rapturous reunion. This interpretation ignited a literal conflagration, complete with book burnings, denunciations, investigations, and arrests. Chabad's subsequent preoccupation with ṣimṣum was equally significant for questions of legitimacy, authority, and succession, as for existential questions of being and meaning. Unfolding the story of Chabad from the early modern period to the twentieth century, this book provides fresh portraits of the successive leaders of the movement. Innovatively integrating history, philosophy, and literature, Rubin shows how Kabbalistic ideas are crucially entangled in the experience of modernity and in the response to its ruptures. Interviewee: Eli Rubin is a contributing editor at Chabad.org and received his PhD from the Department of Hebrew and Jewish Studies, University College London. Host: Schneur Zalman Newfield is an Associate Professor of Sociology and Jewish Studies at Hunter College, City University of New York, and the author of Degrees of Separation: Identity Formation While Leaving Ultra-Orthodox Judaism (Temple University Press). 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…

New Books in Eastern European Studies

1
Research Spotlight: Revenant Project-Revivals of Empire 1:05:23

16 днів тому1:05:23

1:05:23

In this episode of the CEU Review of Books podcast host, Andrea Talabér (Managing Editor) is joined by three members of the the ERC-funded project Revenant - Revivals of Empire: Nostalgia, Amnesia, Tribulation project: Jeremy F. Walton, the PI; Kevin Kenjar, a post-doctoral researcher and Matea Magdić, a PhD Researcher on the project. Revenant examines how in Central Europe, the Balkans, and in the Middle East bygone imperial projects are increasingly inseparable from contemporary political, social, and cultural life. In the podcast we discussed various aspects of imperial and post-imperial memory from a famous street corner in Sarajevo, to Croatian literature to a largely forgotten Arctic expedition, and also put the coloniality and post-coloniality of the three empires – Habsburg, Ottoman, Romanov – under the microscope. To find out more about the Revenant project visit the website . Jeremy ( jeremy.walton@ffri.uniri.hr ), Kevin ( kevin.kenjar@ffri.uniri.hr ) and Matea ( matea.magdic@ffri.uniri.hr ) are also happy to hear from anyone interested in the project and in their own research topics. If you are interested in the documentary based on the project, please email Jeremy for the link. As part of the project, the 2024 Postcolonial, Decolonial, Postimperial, Deimperial conference was held in Rijeka. You can watch the keynotes by Maria Todorova here and by Madina Tlostanova here . You can also follow the project on Bluesky and on Facebook . 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…

New Books in Eastern European Studies

1
Alexander Hill, "The Routledge Handbook of Soviet and Russian Military Studies" (Routledge, 2025) 1:19:27

19 днів тому1:19:27

1:19:27

The Routledge Handbook of Soviet and Russian Military Studies (Routledge, 2025) edited by Alexander Hill brings together historical and contemporary essays about Soviet and Russian military studies, to offer a comprehensive volume on the topic. Comprising essays written by acknowledged specialists, the handbook examines the development of the Russian and Soviet armed forces from the Napoleonic Wars all the way through to the course and conduct of the ‘Special Military Operation’ in Ukraine. Divided into thematic and chronological sections, the volume looks at wars fought by the Tsarist regime through to the First World War; the Soviet Union’s ‘Great Patriotic War’, from 1941 to 1945; the Cold War (including the Soviet war in Afghanistan); and Russia’s post-Soviet wars and military development. In addition, the volume also includes a section that analyses a number of ‘overarching themes’, including the development of Russian and Soviet airpower, partisan warfare, counterinsurgency and the role of women in Russian and Soviet armed forces. The volume concludes with an essay looking at whether, using the historical material and material on the conduct of the war in Ukraine, we can reasonably talk of a ‘Russian way of war’. This volume will be of considerable interest to students of the Soviet Union and Russia, strategic studies and military history. Alexander Hill is a Professor in Military History at the University of Calgary, Canada, and a fellow of its Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies. He is the author or editor of several books, including The Red Army and the Second World War (2017). Stephen Satkiewicz is an independent scholar whose research areas are related to Civilizational Sciences, Social Complexity, Big History, Historical Sociology, military history, War studies, International Relations, Geopolitics, as well as Russian and East European 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…

New Books in Eastern European Studies

1
Lilia Topouzova, "Unsilencing: The History and Legacy of the Bulgarian Gulag" (Cornell UP, 2025) 1:06:04

20 днів тому1:06:04

1:06:04

Not many people know that Bulgaria's forced prison camp was in operation throughout the communist regime from 1945 to 1989. In Unsilencing: The History and Legacy of the Bulgarian Gulag (Cornell UP, 2025), University of Toronto history professor Lilia Topouzova traces the silences and testimonials of former victims, and explains why their fate no longer makes the front pages of newspapers in that country. Based on hundreds of conversations and encounters with former victims, prison guards, politicians, academics and even by-standards Topouzova shows that not all repression and suffering can be put into words. Listen to this illuminating interview to find out more details! 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…

New Books in Eastern European Studies

1
The Free Speech and Poetry of Ana Blandiana 50:34

25 днів тому50:34

50:34

In this episode, we sit down with Director and Producer Diana Nicolae and Editor and Camera Matt Jozwiakowski to discuss their documentary film, "Between Silence and Sin." The film explores the life and work of dissident Romanian poet Ana Blandiana, an artist whose voice was threatened, censored, and banned under the Communist dictatorship. In our conversation, we uncover the roots that inspired Diana’s desire to create this film, her personal experiences growing up in Romania, and the importance of understanding a nation’s history in the ongoing fight for democracy and freedom. Diana Nicolae, Producer & Director, is an accomplished documentary filmmaker who has produced or directed over 50 films. A native Romanian, she began her career in media working as a TV news reporter in the post-Communist era, prior to working as a writer for BBC Radio on the first dramatic series inspired by the country in transition. She has produced several documentary films about Romania, starting with Red Darkness Before Dawn (2003), which was broadcast on PBS and included in the Cold War archives of the Hoover Institute and the US Holocaust Memorial. Her subsequent films have delved into topics as diverse as intellectual migration, substance abuse, dating violence, and a group of camera-shy nuns. Matt Jozwiakowski, Camera & Editor, has worked as producer, camera and editor on over a dozen acclaimed documentaries. With more than 15 years as a marketing director for multi-national iconic brands, he has managed multi-million dollar budgets to shepherd highly creative and compelling advertising campaigns into market. His documentary work has likewise been featured in film festivals throughout North America and Europe, and been broadcast on PBS regionally. Madison’s Notes is the podcast of Princeton University’s James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions . Contributions to and/or sponsorship of any speaker does not constitute departmental or institutional endorsement of the specific program, speakers or views presented. 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…

New Books in Eastern European Studies

1
Andrew Long, "BRIXMIS and the Secret Cold War: Intelligence Collecting Operations Behind Enemy Lines in East Germany" (Pen and Sword, 2024) 1:51:27

28 днів тому1:51:27

1:51:27

The German Democratic Republic, or East Germany, was the frontline in the Cold War, packed with hundreds of thousands of Soviet and East German troops armed with the latest Warsaw Pact equipment, lined up along the 1,400 km Inner German Border. However, because of the repressive East German police state, little human intelligence about these forces reached the West. Who were they? Where were they located? What were they doing? How were they equipped? What were their intentions? NATO was lined up in West Germany to face these forces and relied on getting up-to-date intelligence to warn of any threat, 'Indicators of Hostility' that could be a precursor to an invasion. BRIXMIS, the British Commanders'-in-Chief Mission to the Soviet Forces in Germany, was on hand to provide that intelligence. Thanks to an obscure 1946 agreement between the British and Soviets that established 'liaison missions' in their respective zones of occupation, the British were able to send highly qualified military 'observers' into East Germany to roam (relatively) freely and keep an eye on what was going on. What started as 'liaison', a point of contact between the British and Soviet occupation forces, developed into a very sophisticated intelligence gathering operation, sending 'tours' out every day of the year, between 1946 and when the Mission closed in 1990. Andrew Long's BRIXMIS and the Secret Cold War: Intelligence Collection Operations Behind Enemy Lines in East Germany (Pen and Sword History, 2024) tells the story about these top-secret liaison tours. These tours were undertaken in high-performance, highly modified marked vehicles, with personnel in uniform and unarmed, apart from professional photographic equipment and occasionally some top-secret gadgets from the boffins back in the UK. They joined their French and American colleagues in snooping around the opposition, photographing military bases, equipment, and manoeuvres, and trying to evade capture by the secret police and counterintelligence units. They faced danger and violence daily, but thanks to their bravery and professionalism, the West had accurate and up to date information on what was happening in East Germany which help keep the peace all that time. This is the story of this little-known unit and their exploits behind enemy lines. Andrew Long , from Great Britain, is a military history researcher and author. His fascination with the Cold War began with a trip to West Berlin in 1986, traveling through Checkpoint Charlie to visit the East. Andrew’s writing comes from a desire to make sense of an extremely complex period in modern history, weaving together inter-relating stories involving politics, ideologies, personalities, technological advances, and geography. There is still much to be told on this fascinating subject. After a successful career in marketing, Andrew relocated to Cornwall and took up writing full time. Stephen Satkiewicz is an independent scholar whose research areas are related to Civilizational Sciences, Social Complexity, Big History, Historical Sociology, military history, War studies, International Relations, Geopolitics, as well as Russian and East European 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…

New Books in Eastern European Studies

1
Peter Whitewood, "The Soviet-Polish War and its Legacy: Lenin’s Defeat and the Rise of Stalinism" (Bloomsbury, 2023) 1:14:00

29 днів тому1:14:00

1:14:00

This detailed study traces the history of the Soviet-Polish War (1919-20), the first major international clash between the forces of communism and anti-communism, and the impact this had on Soviet Russia in the years that followed. It reflects upon how the Bolsheviks fought not only to defend the fledgling Soviet state, but also to bring the revolution to Europe. Peter Whitewood shows that while the Red Army's rapid drive to the gates of Warsaw in summer 1920 raised great hopes for world revolution, the subsequent collapse of the offensive had a more striking result. The Soviet military and political leadership drew the mistaken conclusion that they had not been defeated by the Polish Army, but by the forces of the capitalist world - Britain and France - who were perceived as having directed the war behind-the-scenes. They were taken aback by the strength of the forces of counterrevolution and convinced they had been overcome by the capitalist powers. The Soviet-Polish War and its Legacy (Bloomsbury, 2023) reveals that - in the aftermath of the catastrophe at Warsaw -Lenin, Stalin and other senior Bolsheviks were convinced that another war against Poland and its capitalist backers was inevitable with this perpetual fear of war shaping the evolution of the early Soviet state. It also further encouraged the creation of a centralised and repressive one-party state and provided a powerful rationale for the breakneck industrialisation of the Soviet Union at the end of the 1920s. The Soviet leadership's central preoccupation in the 1930s was Nazi Germany; this book convincingly argues that Bolshevik perceptions of Poland and the capitalist world in the decade before were given as much significance and were ultimately crucial to the rise of Stalinism. 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…

New Books in Eastern European Studies

1
Oleksandr Melnyk, "World War II as an Identity Project: Historicism, Legitimacy Contests, and the (Re-) Construction of Political Communities in Ukraine, 1939–1946" (Ibidem, 2022) 1:04:00

29 днів тому1:04:00

1:04:00

World War II as an Identity Project (Ibidem, 2022) explores the relationship between history, legitimacy, and violence in the building and breaking of nations and states on the territory of contemporary Ukraine during the Second World War and in its aftermath. At its center are various institutions of the Soviet state. Other states and rival political movements also enter the picture insofar as their acitivities influenced Soviet policies. Methodologically, the study shifts attention from a limited body of normative texts and their creators within the Soviet political and cultural elite to a wider array of practices, organizations, and players engaged in power struggles and production of knowledge about the past in different social domains. Specifically, it brings into focus groups not normally thought of as participants in the production of Soviet memory discourse, notably NKVD officers, Soviet archivists, Ukrainian nationalists, Nazi collaborators, and former partisans in the German-occupied territories. The book not only demonstrates the complexity of nation-shaping processes, but also restores agency to some seemingly powerless actors. 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…

New Books in Eastern European Studies

1
Vuk Vuksanovic, "Serbia’s Balancing Act: Between Russia and the West" (Bloomsbury, 2025) 43:58

30 днів тому43:58

43:58

Even before its rebirth as a nation in the 1990s, Serbia had acquired a reputation abroad as Russia’s stalwart Slavic ally in the Western Balkans. Yet, as Vuk Vuksanović argues in Serbia’s Balancing Act: Between Russia and the West (Bloomsbury, 2025), two centuries of history and the 25 years since the fall of Slobodan Milošević tell a more nuanced story. "When it comes to Russia's interests,” he writes, “there are no sacred cows in Serbia-Russia relations". Governments in Belgrade will be courted and then discarded depending on Moscow’s needs, and they know it. For their part, the Serbs depend on Russian political support in their campaign for a face-saving settlement of the long-running Kosovo dispute but know their economic success hinges on their ties to the EU and the US. Belgrade must "manipulate the superpower rivalry to secure economic resources from both superpowers and its political strategic autonomy". Vuk Vuksanović is a foreign policy expert at the Belgrade Centre for Security Policy, an associate of the Central and South-East Europe Programme at LSE IDEAS, and a prominent media commentator on strategy in the Balkans. *His book recommendations were Rival Power: Russia in Southeast Europe by Dimitar Bechev (Yale University Press, 2017) and Why War? by Christopher Coker (Hurst, 2021). Tim Gwynn Jones is an economic and political risk analyst at Medley Advisors, who also writes and podcasts on Substack at 242.news . 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…

New Books in Eastern European Studies

1
Daniela Richterova, "Watching the Jackals: Prague's Covert Liaisons with Cold War Terrorists and Revolutionaries" (Georgetown UP, 2025) 1:34:45

5 weeks тому1:34:45