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.

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.

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.

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.

With the televised events of 1989, territories of Eastern and Central Europe that had been marked as impenetrable and inaccessible to the Western gaze exploded into visibility. As the narratives of the Cold War crumbled, new narratives emerged and new geographies were produced on and by American television. Using an understudied archive of American news broadcasts, and tracing their flashes and echoes through travel guides and narratives of return written by Eastern European-Americans, this book explores American ways of seeing and mapping communism’s disintegration and the narratives articulated around post-communist sites and subjects.

In Reconsidering (Post-)Yugoslav Time: Towards the Temporal Turn in the Critical Study of (Post-)Yugoslav Literatures, authors outline a concept of (post)-Yugoslav temporality and scrutinize its analytical value in the memory and cultural studies.

This collective monograph analyzes post-1989 Central and Eastern Europe through the paradigm of postcoloniality. Based on the assumption that both Western and Soviet imperialism emerged from European modernity, the book is a contribution to the development of a global postcolonial discourse based on a more extensive and nuanced geohistorical comparativism. It suggests that the inclusion of East-Central Europe in European identity might help resolve postcolonialism’s difficulties in coming to terms with both postcolonial and neo-colonial dimensions of contemporary Europe. Analyzing post-communist identity reconstructions under the impact of transformative political, economic and cultural experiences such as changes in perception of time and space (landscapes, cityscapes), migration and displacement, collective memory and trauma, objectifying gaze, cultural self-colonization, and language as a form of power, the book facilitates a mutually productive dialogue between postcolonialism and post-communism. Together the studies map the rich terrain of contemporary East-Central European creative writing and visual art, the latter highlighted through accompanying illustrations.