New Books in Eastern European Studies

Apr 05 2025 1061 ep. 60 mins 2.3k
New Books in Eastern European Studies Podcast artwork

Interviews with Scholars of Eastern Europe about their New Books

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Eli Rubin, "Kabbalah and the Rupture of Modernity: An Existential History of Chabad Hasidism" (Stanford UP, 2025)

Apr 05 2025 76 mins  
In Kabbalah and the Rupture of Modernity: An Existential History of Chabad Hasidism (Stanford University Press, 2025), Eli Rubin provides a comprehensive intellectual and institutional history of Chabad Hasidism through the Kabbalistic concept of ṣimṣum. The onset of modernity, Eli Rubin argues, was heralded by this startling idea: existence itself is predicated on a self-infli

Research Spotlight: Revenant Project-Revivals of Empire

Apr 04 2025 65 mins  
In this episode of the CEU Review of Books podcast host, Andrea Talabér (Managing Editor) is joined by three members of the the ERC-funded project Revenant - Revivals of Empire: Nostalgia, Amnesia, Tribulation project: Jeremy F. Walton, the PI; Kevin Kenjar, a post-doctoral researcher and Matea Magdić, a PhD Researcher on the project. Revenant examines how in Central Europe, the

Alexander Hill, "The Routledge Handbook of Soviet and Russian Military Studies" (Routledge, 2025)

Apr 01 2025 79 mins  
The Routledge Handbook of Soviet and Russian Military Studies (Routledge, 2025) edited by Alexander Hill brings together historical and contemporary essays about Soviet and Russian military studies, to offer a comprehensive volume on the topic. Comprising essays written by acknowledged specialists, the handbook examines the development of the Russian and Soviet armed forces from th

Lilia Topouzova, "Unsilencing: The History and Legacy of the Bulgarian Gulag" (Cornell UP, 2025)

Mar 31 2025 66 mins  
Not many people know that Bulgaria's forced prison camp was in operation throughout the communist regime from 1945 to 1989. In Unsilencing: The History and Legacy of the Bulgarian Gulag (Cornell UP, 2025), University of Toronto history professor Lilia Topouzova traces the silences and testimonials of former victims, and explains why their fate no longer makes the front pages of new

The Free Speech and Poetry of Ana Blandiana

Mar 26 2025 50 mins  
In this episode, we sit down with Director and Producer Diana Nicolae and Editor and Camera Matt Jozwiakowski to discuss their documentary film, "Between Silence and Sin." The film explores the life and work of dissident Romanian poet Ana Blandiana, an artist whose voice was threatened, censored, and banned under the Communist dictatorship. In our conversation, we uncover the roots

Andrew Long, "BRIXMIS and the Secret Cold War: Intelligence Collecting Operations Behind Enemy Lines in East Germany" (Pen and Sword, 2024)

Mar 23 2025 111 mins  
The German Democratic Republic, or East Germany, was the frontline in the Cold War, packed with hundreds of thousands of Soviet and East German troops armed with the latest Warsaw Pact equipment, lined up along the 1,400 km Inner German Border. However, because of the repressive East German police state, little human intelligence about these forces reached the West. Who were they?

Peter Whitewood, "The Soviet-Polish War and its Legacy: Lenin’s Defeat and the Rise of Stalinism" (Bloomsbury, 2023)

Mar 22 2025 74 mins  
This detailed study traces the history of the Soviet-Polish War (1919-20), the first major international clash between the forces of communism and anti-communism, and the impact this had on Soviet Russia in the years that followed. It reflects upon how the Bolsheviks fought not only to defend the fledgling Soviet state, but also to bring the revolution to Europe. Peter Whitewood sh

Oleksandr Melnyk, "World War II as an Identity Project: Historicism, Legitimacy Contests, and the (Re-) Construction of Political Communities in Ukraine, 1939–1946" (Ibidem, 2022)

Mar 22 2025 64 mins  
World War II as an Identity Project (Ibidem, 2022) explores the relationship between history, legitimacy, and violence in the building and breaking of nations and states on the territory of contemporary Ukraine during the Second World War and in its aftermath. At its center are various institutions of the Soviet state. Other states and rival political movements also enter the pictu

Vuk Vuksanovic, "Serbia’s Balancing Act: Between Russia and the West" (Bloomsbury, 2025)

Mar 21 2025 43 mins  
Even before its rebirth as a nation in the 1990s, Serbia had acquired a reputation abroad as Russia’s stalwart Slavic ally in the Western Balkans. Yet, as Vuk Vuksanović argues in Serbia’s Balancing Act: Between Russia and the West (Bloomsbury, 2025), two centuries of history and the 25 years since the fall of Slobodan Milošević tell a more nuanced story. "When it comes to R

Daniela Richterova, "Watching the Jackals: Prague's Covert Liaisons with Cold War Terrorists and Revolutionaries" (Georgetown UP, 2025)

Mar 18 2025 94 mins  
The untold history of Czechoslovakia's complex relations with Middle Eastern terrorists and revolutionaries during the closing decades of the Cold War In the 1970s and 1980s, Prague became a favorite destination for the world's most prominent terrorists and revolutionaries. They arrived here to seek refuge, enjoy recreation, or hold secret meetings aimed at securing training, arms,