How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed by Slavenka Drakulić

I don´t know about other academics, but every time I am connecting intellectually with books on topics I experienced myself, although indirectly - through stories, remnants of daily lives, memories of other people - my head is almost boiling of thoughts about theories and possible direction of thought. I am rarely interested those days in issues regarding communism and post-communism - there are way too many horrors to think and write about currently - but no matter how far I am traveling myself from those times, every time I am back, I may realize that this will be the only domain will ever fully understand in all those details.

How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed by Slavenka Drakulić was one of those books, I just finished few days ago. The mention of the time I finished the book is important as it indicates that the memories of the ideas shared are still fresh in my mind. 

Start with the title: What is actually to laugh about communism? What is satirical about a regime that killed and traumatised more than one generation, with food shortages, propaganda and everyday corruption, that affects the countries that experienced it until the very day. But if one lived in those times and countries, may know that everywhere, from the USSR until Albania, there was a rich repertoire of underground jokes about the regimes and their clownish representatives, growing exponentially. 

Some people went to prison for telling jokes about various dictators and their families. Thus, jokes were a form of resistance at the time. In current dictatorships, young people create memes to display the cowardice and corruption of their abusive rulers.

The heroes of Drakulić´s book are women. Women who relied on natural cosmetics to keep themselves beautiful. Women making delicious dishes out of nothing. Women waiting in line for brownish toilet paper. This communist system awarding women who were bringing babies, many of them, to a dark world without current water and power shortages failed women. Everywhere. 

The book does not go too far in trying to explain if this betrayal leaded to any kind of resistance against the system, but this is not relevant. In a journalistic, fact-focused way, seasoned with personal stories, 

How We Survived Communism is a written documentary of times long gone, still present in the everyday mentality of people who survived. Survived through laughs and by taking it easy. It was not necessarily a life in the proper sense of the word, but they were able go live. Books like this one, open up new and different lines of thought facilitating a better understanding of current societies and trends.

Rating: 4 stars

What´s in a Dish

I personally find food history a fascinating area of study and reflection. As any other identity-related story, it reveals very important national positionings and strategies. Plus, it may distract you from too high and theoretical thoughts, because makes you think of delicious foods.

´(...) as a national symbol, food carries the emotional charge of a flad and an anthem, those ´invented traditions´ crucial to building and sustaining a nation, to claiming deep historical roots´.

Anya von Bremzen is a well known food critic and writer, and her Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking is an food rendition of communist memories. Born in Moscow, she often travels the world to go beyond the simple act of food tasting.

In her latest, National Dish, she is trying to discover how specific foods - like ramen, for instance - were upgrated to the level of identity representation. She included in the list France, Spain, Italy, Japan and Mexico, with notable mentions of borsch(t). Von Bremzen is throughout researching her topics but it´s also taking the pulse of the street, tasting dishes and comparing tastes. In the end, there are food myths that are peeled and de-constructed, to separate the genuine from the conservants, the adaptations and original formats.

This book offers very important support for debates about food and identity, as well as the food wars that do reveal the extent of political interventions and ideologies in our everyday life and dishes. A recommended read for the historian of mentalities and the food historian as well.

Rating: 5 stars

Political Events through Films: The Death of Stalin

 

For the political scientist and historian of mentalities, films are a very useful - and sometimes, entertaining - tool to read past and current political events. The ways in which political events are related in films may be indicators of opinion switches for or against certain situations and events. Sometimes, the so-called turns may be just a proof of lack of proper documentations. 

Personally, I am a big consumer of such movies and I often recommend them to those interested in expanding or diversifying their studies in a specific mentalities/history-related field, alongside with literary renditions.

The Death of Stalin, a French-British-Belgian co-production based on French graphic novel (oh, graphic novels are actually my favorite medium of choice for political and historical stories) directed by Armando Iannucci, is a completely different level of comedy. 

Set in 1953, in the days following the death of Stalin, the movie is highly ironically reproducing the murderous struggle for power within the Council of Ministers of the late Soviet Union. You can have it all, the petiness of power and its humble servants, the show offs and the hunger for power, as much as possible, at any costs. 

I really enjoyed the movie, and laughed out very very loud. The characters seem to be historically relatable, except that I could not match the deep British accent of the cast of characters and the elegant British outfits and manners of the ladies.

Otherwise, it is a highly recommended view for any Soviet researchers looking for a break from heavy reading, without actually leaving the field. The movie is forbidden in Russia. 

´When They Call You a Terrorist´. A #BLM Memoir

I will probably write a little bit later about the current wave of protests that took over the US and some European universities as well. The events are unfolding and as for now, I would rather observe and analyse the tactics and the situation in its entirety. 

On the other hand, one cannot avoid noticing that in fact, the content of the messages and the pattern of protests can be traced couple of years back, before and after the Blak Lives Matter #BLM movement. Thus, better understanding the mindset of the creators of this movement may shed more light on the current protests on campus.

Patrisse Khan-Cullors is together with Alicia Garza and Aya (former Opal) Tometi one of the founders of BLM. With a vocation of political activism, born in a poor single-mother household Khan.Cullors is a brand name for contemporary civil rights movements. And with the fame comes also the controversy, although being able to overcome one´s poor upbringing is not a crime.

When They Call You a Terrorist, that Patrisse Khan-Cullor5s wrote together with Asha Bandele - with a foreword by Angela Davis, is an important testimony to the genesis of the movement, as well as for larger political takes within the American policy, such as carceral policies and discrimination. At the same time, it also offers very important personal accounts on healing, being queer and overcoming one´s family boundaries.

The book is a first person memoir chronologically accounting Khan-Cullors life, but it also can be considered the evolution of an idea, a mindset and in the end, of a movement. I do have another memoir that may be relevant to my understanding, by Angela Davis, and hopefully soon I can have a bigger picture on this phenomenon.

There is definitely much more to be said about BLM and there are critical points to be touched upon that are not included in the memoir - but there are always limitation of the I-story because in such contexts the focus is on remembering, not on re-considering, and re-evaluating. Nevertheless, memoirs are an important part of any story, as they offer a good ground for a critical evaluation.

Rating: 3.5 stars

A Dynamic History of the Cold War

Cold War is far from being a completely known story and as we are advancing into our multi-polar, close to chaos world, available information - archives and independent researches in specific domains - are showing a world far from being fully bipolar. However, once one is entering into the many details - previously less discussed in the media and academic circles, it is easy to notice that the world during the Cold War was far from being easy, and based on a synchronicity between one world - the communist, Soviet managed block of countries - and the other - the liberal, democratic one.

In reality, there were an enormous number of actors interacting within or outside the given narrative, creating alliances, cooperating, fighting for supremacy, including within the two block themselves. At least for the communist block, the inimities between the Soviets and Yugoslavia, as well as the changing waves of influence - switching between East and West at least several times in some cases -in Latin America, are only few examples of such alternatives.

Organiser le Monde - Organising the world, in my own translation - by Sandrine Kott suggests an interesting analysis into the Cold War through the various interactions that took place between representatives of the two blocks and the ideological systems represented, within the framework of international organisations. 

Within organisations such as the UN or UNESCO, the countries from both sides of the Iron Curtain were able to communicate with each other, get to know and eventually act together on various issues of bilateral common interest. Economic organisations, or the dialogue open up by the Helsinki Charter were as many opportunities for dialogue and exchange. 

The research is systematic, adding the details following specific topics and a historical timeline. It is well documented both historically and by using various sources of information. However, I had the feeling that there were many important aspects left behind, that would have deserve more details, for instance the amount of ´soft power´ the US spent in the last two decades of the Cold War by the way of academic exchanges. 

The diversity of aspects and topics outlined in the book offer valuable inspiration and suggestions for further studies in the field of both international relations and Cold War history. It also helps to understand our current world and to trace the global, regional and international alliances.

Rating: 4 stars

Invisible Martyrs by Farhana Qazi

 

Farhana Qazi is the first ever Muslim woman working in US counter terrorism institutions, but first and foremost, her pioneering work was to focus on personal stories in addition to psychological profiles of women who chose to get involved in terrorism radical movements and ultimately, in suicide terrorist attacks. 

Invisible Martyrs. Inside the Secret World of Female Islamic Radicals is an interesting read - available as audiobook read by the author herself as well - as it puts the women involved in extremism act on the map of radical/extremist movements. 

She outlines several times, based on her own experiences in commenting various religious texts that Muslim women involved in such acts represent a small amount of the religious women as ´most Muslim women practice Islam peacefully´. However, since the 1970s onwards there is an increasing number of women fighting ´their oppressors´, alongside with men, and her mother, involved in various militant actions in the Kashmir, may be an example in this respect. 

Abu Musab al-Zarkawi was the first to encourage women to sacrifice for extremist political actions, but women were at certain extents already present in the field since the late 1980s. 

Qazi arguments and informations, also supported by other researchers in the field, such as Mia Bloom, who is also quoted in the book, is that women are alongside with men able to get involved in various militant episodes. They may be manipulated by men often, as accomplice or lover of men involved in terrorism. They can accompany them to death or do it for the sake of them and the promise of a heaven.

The important conclusion is that there are no general patterns and psychological profiles of women, but circumstances may be significantly important. Individual stories shared in the book of girls marginalized or being outside parental control - or maybe under a too stricter such control - can only diversify the angles and perspectives to consider in such situations.

The book is rich in examples and methods, making easier for researchers in the field to navigate a relatively new but increasingly important area of study. It offers guidance and directions, but given the novely of the area of study and the scarcity of current knowledge in this respect, I may expect different takes and conclusions for the time being. The merit of the book is nevertheless significant.

Rating: 4.5 stars

The Kinder of Hoy

Hoyerweda is a relatively small, once industrial town in Saxony, then a pearl of the industralization progress of the former GDR. Brigitte Reimann made the town famous as she, alongside with other authors at the time, went there and wrote several literary imbued reports that were published in the media at the time. I personally keep at high esteem such reports, because put aside the ideological passion, it turned the interest on people and their story, introducing a new style of journalism that nurtured a lot my own writing. It is a genre that deserves more consideration and appreciation, in my opinion.

Once communism was dismantled and Germany reunited, Hoyerweda, as many other densely industrialized places, went through several crisis: identity but especially economic crisis. Actually those two crisis, and many other who followed, were intermingled and outsourced each other. In 1991, several riots ignited by far right individuals and entities put the relatively unknown city - including within Germany - on a newly set up map of extremism and xenophobia, often afterwards associated with this part of the country - Saxony.

Grit Lemke, author, documentarist and film director, went back in time and collected various testimonies of people born and bred, or settling in Hoyerweda at certain moments of time, including former immigrants from ´friendly´ communist countries like Vietnam and Angola. Structured on historical stages, she collected an impressive amount of oral histories shedding light not only on the personal experiences, but in perspective, offers a global outlook on German history, particularly during the communist times.

For historians of recent history with a focus on the history of mentalities, this method although may be lengthly in time - including as establishing a level of trust with the subjects is needed in advance of starting the project - and requiring a considerable amount of resources, it is one of the best, in my opinion, for illustrating sudden social and political changes. Through personal testimonies the attentive and experienced eye of the researcher can figure out so many small details that may further help to reconstruct an era, one small piece at a time.

Kinder von Hoy is a recommended read to anyone looking to understand communist and post-communist Germany, by hearing the voices of first hand subjects of history. I would continue this year to explore more about this specific history that decades after the unification remains very much present in the structure of mentalities in the former Eastern but also Western Germany.

Rating: 5 stars