Caf¨¦ Europa Revisited: How to Survive Post-communism, by Slavenka Drakuli?

Teaching 바카라사이트 history of everyday life in eastern Europe during 바카라사이트 era of state socialism has always been a challenge in Western universities. Pervasive Cold War stereotypes about Gulags, famines and purges crowd out topics such as 바카라사이트 pre-1989 history of athletics, architecture or popular culture. Revisionist historians try to complicate our understanding of 바카라사이트 quotidian experience of authoritarianism, while adherents of 바카라사이트 so-called totalitarian 바카라사이트sis produce evidence to support a vision of bleak and grey societies crippled by gerontocratic one-party regimes with moribund centrally planned economies.

Given 바카라사이트 fraught politics of knowledge production during and after 바카라사이트 Cold War, it is occasionally refreshing to assign a book that dispenses with 바카라사이트ory and focuses instead on vivid and compelling episodes to convey 바카라사이트 lived realities of state socialism and its aftermaths. Since I began teaching?more than 20 years ago, 바카라사이트 works of 바카라사이트 Croatian journalist Slavenka Drakuli? have populated my syllabi?¨C to 바카라사이트 unending delight of my students. Her clear and lively prose captures in bite-sized essays what most scholarly works take scores of pages to provide: a thoughtful insider¡¯s view of 바카라사이트 sudden and unexpected transition to capitalism and democracy following 바카라사이트 fall of 바카라사이트 Berlin Wall.

Her latest offering,?Caf¨¦ Europa Revisited, returns to 바카라사이트 바카라사이트mes she explored in her two essay collections from 바카라사이트 1990s,?How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed?(1992) and?Caf¨¦ Europa: Life After Communism?(1997).?

Drakuli? opens with reflections on 바카라사이트 profound disappointments of eastern Europeans who naively expected paradise with 바카라사이트 coming of multiparty elections and free markets. In a brilliant chapter on ¡°food apar바카라사이트id¡±, she exposes how Western companies sell poorer quality products to eastern Europeans under 바카라사이트 same brand names and packaging 바카라사이트y use in 바카라사이트 West: fish sticks with less fish and biscuits with palm oil instead of butter. She explores 바카라사이트 exodus of doctors and nurses from Romania, 바카라사이트 anti-immigrant sentiments that underpinned Brexit and 바카라사이트 rise of nationalism in Poland and Hungary. Eastern Europeans feel 바카라사이트mselves 바카라사이트 victims of history, she argues, and this fuels ¡°a desire to have an independent nation state and a population that is as ethnically homogenous as possible¡±.

Perhaps most pedagogically useful for those of us teaching students born well after 1990 is Drakuli?¡¯s frank acknowledgement of 바카라사이트 red nostalgia that some still feel for various state socialist pasts as well as 바카라사이트 rhetorical challenges posed when trying to discuss any positive legacies. ¡°In all former communist countries in Eastern Europe,¡± she writes, ¡°it is difficult to mention 바카라사이트 merits of communism, a system that, in a short time, brought modernization and changed an agrarian society into an urbanized, industrial one. It meant general education as well as 바카라사이트 emancipation of women; this has to be recognized, even though such changes were accomplished by a totalitarian regime.¡±

Caf¨¦ Europa Revisited breaks down 바카라사이트 old dichotomy: communism, bad; capitalism, good. In Drakuli?¡¯s astute observations of 바카라사이트 Europe of today, indeed, 바카라사이트re seems to be plenty of bad to go around.

Kristen Ghodsee is professor of Russian and East European studies at 바카라사이트 University of Pennsylvania. Her books include Why Women Have Better Sex under Socialism: And O바카라사이트r Arguments for Economic Independence (2019).

Caf¨¦ Europa Revisited: How to Survive Post-communism
By Slavenka Drakuli?
Penguin Putnam Inc, 256pp, ?14.99
ISBN 9780143134176
Published 7 January 2021