Modern Slovak Prose is a collection of essays based on papers delivered at a symposium at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies. Although few major Slovak writers published during the 1970s 'normalisation' period after the Warsaw Pact intervention, Slovak literature did not stagnate like Czech literature. The essays in this volume cover the whole period from the death throes of socialist realism to the lively, sophisticated, cosmopolitan fiction of the late 1970s and 1980s. The cut-off date is 1988. All the prose writers considered important by the Slovaks themselves and by...

Up to now the culture of the Stalin period has been studied mainly from a political or ideological point of view. In this book renowned specialists from many countries approach the problem rather 'from inside'. The authors deal with numerous aspects of Stalinist culture such as art, literature, architecture, film and popular culture. Yet the volume is more than a mere collection of studies on special issues. It is an inquiry into the very nature of a certain type of culture, its symbols, rites and myths. The book will be useful not only for students of Soviet culture but also for a wider...

This is a volume of essays exploring important themes in the economic and social history of Russia and the Soviet Union during the critical period between 1860 and 1930. It covers developments in agriculture, industry, trade, economic theory, defence policy and the social impact of revolution. The essays are written by well-established specialists in Russian and Soviet economic and social history and are intended as a tribute to the work of the highly-esteemed economic historian Olga Crisp.

The book is concerned with the formation of new institutions in Eastern Europe following the events of 1989. Two comparative chapters discuss the problems of institution building arising from the communist legacy and the difficulties of a successful transition to liberal democracy. In the remainder of the book, country-specific chapters deal with the institutional characteristics of countries in the region - Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Russia, East Germany. Attention is focused on constitutions, executive and parliament relations, and parties and electoral...

The Literature of Nationalism concerns literature in its broadest sense and the manner in which, in belles lettres, the oral tradition and journalism, language and literature create national/nationalist myths. It treats East European culture from Finland to 'Yugoslavia', from Bohemia to Romania, from the nineteenth century to today. One third of the book concerns women and ethnic identity, and the rest covers subjects as varied as Bulgarian Fascism and the impact of political change on language in Hungary and ex-Yugoslavia.

One of the major features of the social landscape of the new states of Eastern Europe and the former USSR is migration, whether voluntary or coerced. The decline of communism in both East and Central Europe, as well as the fall of the Soviet empire has created new population and ethnic problems. The recent exodus has proved to be the largest migration wave reported in Europe in over 40 years. The problem of foreigners in Poland is a subject scarcely studied and insufficiently described. This volume has been compiled on the basis of papers prepared for a Social Sciences Seminar series at the...

The relationship between Germans and their non-German counterparts in Central and East Europe has been a fundamental feature of European History. The twelve essays in this volume address key aspects of this complex and multifaceted relationship which has been marked by friendship and cooperation as well as enmity and strife. The topics range from medieval peasant settlement to present-day relations between Germans and Poles. Central themes are national identity, the emergence and development of mixed communities and inter-cultural communication.