Narrating Post/Communism - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Narrating Post/Communism write by Natasa Kovacevic. This book was released on 2008-05-19. Narrating Post/Communism available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. The transition of communist Eastern Europe to capitalist democracy post-1989 and in the aftermath of the Yugoslav wars has focused much scholarly attention - in history, political science and literature - on the fostering of new identities across Eastern European countries in the absence of the old communist social and ideological frameworks. This book examines an important, but hitherto largely neglected, part of this story: the ways in which the West has defined its own identity and ideals via the demonization of communist regimes and Eastern European cultures as a totalitarian, barbarian and Orientalist "other". It describes how old Orientalist prejudices resurfaced during the Cold War period, and argues that the establishment of this discourse helped to justify transitions of Eastern European societies to market capitalism and liberal democracy, suppressing Eastern Europe’s communist histories and legacies, whilst perpetuating its dependence on the West as a source of its own sense of identity. It argues that this process of Orientalization was reinforced by the literary narratives of Eastern European and Russian anti-communist dissidents and exiles, including Vladimir Nabokov, Czeslaw Milosz and Milan Kundera, in their attempts to present themselves as native, Eastern European experts and also emancipate themselves – and their homelands – as civilized, enlightened and Westernized. It goes on to suggest that the greatest potential for recognizing and overcoming this self-Orientalization lies in post-communist literary and visual narratives, with their themes of disappointment in the social, economic, or political changes brought on by the transitions, challenge of the unequal discursive power in East-West dialogues where the East is positioned as a disciple or a mimic of the West, and the various guises of nostalgia for communism.
Narrating Post/Communism
Narrating Post/Communism - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Narrating Post/Communism write by Natasa Kovacevic. This book was released on 2008-05-19. Narrating Post/Communism available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. This book examines communist and post-communist literary and visual narratives, including the writings of prominent anti-communist dissidents and exiles such as Vladimir Nabokov, Czeslaw Milosz and Milan Kundera, exploring important themes including how Eastern European regimes and cultures have been portrayed as totalitarian, barbarian and "Orientalist" – in contrast to the civilized "West" – disappointment in the changes brought on by post-communist transition, and nostalgia for communism.
Civilization's Wild East
Civilization's Wild East - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Civilization's Wild East write by Nataša Kovačević. This book was released on 2006. Civilization's Wild East available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. I examine the discursive conditions that prompt Nabokov, Milosz, Kundera and others to present themselves as native, 'Eastern European' experts and emancipate themselves and their homelands as 'civilized, ' 'Enlightened, ' or 'Westernized.' Importantly, the authors' articulations of such seemingly oppositional identities create discursive openings for recognizing and analyzing the Orientalist discourses that seek to contain them. These are valuable for deconstructing the basic concept of 'Eastern Europe, ' and exposing Eastern Europeans' preoccupation with their reflections in the Western mirror and the concomitant tradition of self-Orientalization.
Narratives Unbound
Narratives Unbound - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Narratives Unbound write by Balázs Trencsényi. This book was released on 2007-07-15. Narratives Unbound available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. The first work that covers the post-Communist development of historical studies in six Eastern European countries: Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia. A uniquely critical and qualitative analysis from a comparative and critical perspective, written by scholars from the region itself. Focusing on the first post-Communist decade, 1989–1999, the book offers a longer-term perspective that includes the immediate 'prehistory' of that momentous decade as well as its 'posthistoire'. The authors capture the spirit of 1989, that heady mix of elation, surprise, determination, and hope: l'ivresse du possible. This was the paradoxical beginning of Eastern European post-Communism: ushered in by 'anti-Utopian' revolutions, and slowly finding its course towards a bureaucratic, imitative, challenging, and anachronistic restoration of a capitalism that had changed almost beyond recognition when it had mutated into the negative double of Communism. Each individual chapter has numerous and detailed notes and references.
The Post-communist Condition
The Post-communist Condition - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook The Post-communist Condition write by Aleksandra Galasi?ska. This book was released on 2010. The Post-communist Condition available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. This volume offers interdisciplinary perspectives on discourses in one national context of post-communist transformation. Proposing a macro-micro approach to discourse analysis and transformation, it examines a spectrum of topics including Polish history, with its 'interpreters'; changes in political bodies and the media, policies of the Catholic Church and the Institute of National Remembrance; xenophobia and anti-Semitism, with the emergence of unemployment and homelessness; experiences of new gender relations and migrations. In effect, drawing upon unique sets of data, the book shows how post-communist transformation can be understood through analyses of the changing public and private discourses. It shows Polish post-communism as a fragile and uneasy transformation, with people and institutions struggling to make sense of it and of life within it. The volume will be of interest to a broad range of social scientists: discourse analysts, sociologists, modern historians and political scientists, as well as to the informed lay public.
