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Love and Freedom
Originally published in 1985, four years after its author's untimely death, Love and Freedom is the unforgettable story of Rosemary Kavan, an Englishwoman whose marriage to a Czech led her to experience life in post-war Prague, from early optimistic years, through the nightmare of the Stalinist purges, up to the 'Prague Spring' and its aftermath. Her husband Pavel, a devoted communist, fell victim to the show-trials of the early 1950s and spent years in prison, dying soon after his release. Branded 'a traitor's wife', Rosemary struggled to support herself and her two sons. In the mid-1960s she became involved in the student reform movement, but the Russian invasion of 1968 came as a further cataclysm. 'An outstanding memoir.' George Steiner 'The story of a tragic disillusionment, political and personal, told with invincible humour.' Graham Greene 'The overwhelming impression left by this book is one of warmth, true comradeship, courage and hope.' Timothy Garton Ash
Past Imperfect
Swept up in the vortex of communism, French postwar intellectuals developed a blind spot to Stalinist tyranny. Albert Camus, who had been an authentic moral voice of the Resistance, pretended not to know about the crimes and terrors of the Soviet Union. Jean-Paul Sartre perverted logic to make an apologia for the Soviet invasion of Hungary. Simone de Beauvoir called for social change to be brought about in a single convulsion, or else not at all. Foolish French thinkers, suffering self-imposed moral anesthesia, defended the credibility of the show trials in Stalinized Eastern Europe. In a devastating study, Judt, a professor of European studies at New York University, argues that the belief system of postwar intellectuals, propped up by faith in communism, reflected fatal weaknesses in French culture such as the fragility of the liberal tradition and the penchant for grand theory. He also strips away the postwar myth that the small, fighting French Resistance was assisted by the mass of the nation.
Written Here, Published There
Written Here, Published There offers a new perspective on the role of underground literature in the Cold War and challenges us to recognize gaps in the Iron Curtain. The book identifies a transnational undertaking that reinforced détente, dialogue, and cultural transfer, and thus counterbalanced the persistent belief in Europe's irreversible division. It analyzes a cultural practice that attracted extensive attention during the Cold War but has largely been ignored in recent scholarship: tamizdat, or the unauthorized migration of underground literature across the Iron Curtain. Through this cultural practice, I offer a new reading of Cold War Europe's history. Investigating the transfer of underground literature from the 'Other Europe' to Western Europe, the United States, and back illuminates the intertwined fabrics of Cold War literary cultures. Perceiving tamizdat as both a literary and a social phenomenon, the book focuses on how individuals participated in this border-crossing activity and used secretive channels to guarantee the free flow of literature.
Czech New Wave Filmmakers in Interviews
In Czechoslovakia, in the 1960s, artists began to realize that the aesthetics of social realism contrasted with the realities of daily life; a movement of film arose in response to the politics and history of the nation. This work collects candid interviews with the creators of the Czech New Wave film movement (1960-2000). Their work put Czech film on the map of world cinema, generating two Oscars for Best Foreign Film, but the official critique marked them as decadent, pessimistic, and reactionary. The work contains sixteen uncensored interviews with filmmakers such as Jan Nemec, Jiri Menzel, Saša Gedeon, and Jan Sverak, who describe the struggle to realize their visions in a constantly sh...
And Reality Be Damned...
The real danger of Soviet deception during the fall of communism is exposed in this startling account that takes a firsthand look behind the Iron Curtain.---- Learn how the KGB sought world domination, starting with the USSR. Read the shocking facts about the true origin of international terrorism in the 1960s. Author Robert Buchar presents years of research and interviews with major players. His first-hand experience as a political refugee makes this an authentic and eye-opening account of Western Civilization's main enemy."Robert Buchar's book fills a vacuum, shedding light on the KGB's secret assistance to Communism and its tyrants ... [His] book shows the inner workings of [this] machine running its disinformation ... for all to see." - Lt. Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa
Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century – And After
Covering all key Eastern European states and their history right up to the collapse of communism, this second edition of Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century – And After is a comprehensive political history of Eastern Europe taking in the whole of the century and the geographical area. Focusing on the attempt to create and maintain a functioning democracy, this new edition now: examines events in Bosnia and Herzegovina includes a new consideration of the evolution of the region since the revolutions of 1989–91 surveys the development of a market economy analyzes the realignment of Eastern Europe towards the West details the emergence of organized crime discusses each state individually includes an up-to-date bibliography. Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century – And After provides an accessible introduction to this key area which is invaluable to students of modern and political history.
Calamities of Exile
"These three essays, these novellas--call them what you will--are extraordinary tales about excruciating modern themes: individual responsibility, national identity, and courage. In each case, the reader has to ask himself: What would I have done? 3 halftones. Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.
The Velvet Philosophers
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The Nation
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Aftershock
In this unique, panoramic account of faded dreams, journalist John Feffer returns to Eastern Europe a quarter of a century after the fall of communism, to track down hundreds of people he spoke to in the initial atmosphere of optimism as the Iron Curtain fell – from politicians and scholars to trade unionists and grass roots activists. What he discovers makes for fascinating, if sometimes disturbing, reading. From the Polish scholar who left academia to become head of personnel at Ikea to the Hungarian politician who turned his back on liberal politics to join the far-right Jobbik party, Feffer meets a remarkable cast of characters. He finds that years of free-market reforms have failed to deliver prosperity, corruption and organized crime are rampant, while optimism has given way to bitterness and a newly invigorated nationalism. Even so, through talking to the region's many extraordinary activists, Feffer shows that against stiff odds hope remains for the region's future.
