The Columbia Literary History of Eastern Europe Since 1945

Covering Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, East Germany, Hungary, Lithuania, Macedonia, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Ukraine, Harold B. Segel, a longtime scholar of Slavic literatures and of comparative literature, writes a clear, concise, and balanced history of Eastern European literature. Segel not only examines the literary response to the quasi-colonial oppression that stretched across Eastern Europe between 1945 and 1991 but also details the impact of the downfall of communism and the way in which the challenges of the postcommunist period are being met. Segel's history follows a unique chronological-topical approach that begins with the treatment of World War II in Eastern European fiction and follows with such topics as the postwar imposition of Soviet-style literary controls, primarily in the form of socialist realism; literary responses to the brutal campaign of collectivization after 1945; the impact of the death of Stalin and expectations of change; exile and creativity; strategies of literary evasion and subterfuge; writing born from the experience of prison and labor camps; and the rise of solidarity in Poland. He also handles varieties of postmodernism throughout the region; poetry by women and the continued struggle for freedom of expression; the resonance of the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s on imaginative literature; Eastern European writers and their relationship to America; and the major postcommunist trends of new urbanism, nostalgia, emigration, and minority concerns. Columbia University Press

The study focuses on the mutual transfer of military knowledge between the German and the Ottoman/ Turkish army between the 1908 Young Turk revolution and the death of Atatürk in 1938. Whereas the Ottoman and later the Turkish army were the main beneficiaries of this selective appropriation, the German armed forces evaluated their (prospective) ally's military experiences to a lesser extent. Through the analysis of archival and published sources and memoir literature the study provides evidence for the impact of this exchange on the armies of both countries and on the Turkish civil society. Indeed, the officer corps in both countries was a small but influential group of the society for the further development of their nations.

Table of Contents Preface Acknowledgments 1. World War II in the Literatures of Eastern Europe 2. Postwar Colonialism, by Communist Style 3. In the Aftermath of the Great Dictator’s Death 4. Fleeing the System: Literature and Emigration 5. Internal Exile and the Literature of Escape 6. Writers Behind Bars: Eastern European Prison Literature, by 1945–1990 7. The Reform Imperative in Eastern Europe: From Solidarity to Postmodernism 8. Eastern European Women Poets of the 1980s and 1990s 9. The House of Cards Collapses: The Literary Fallout of the Yugoslav Crises of the 1990s 10. Glimpses of the Other World: America Through Eastern European Eyes 11. The Postcolonial Literary Scene in Eastern Europe Since 1991 Notes Further Reading Index "Harold B. Segel, a longtime scholar of Slavic literatures and of comparative literature, writes a clear, concise, and balanced history of Eastern European literature. Segel not only examines the literary response to the quasi-colonial oppression that stretched across Eastern Europe between 1945 and 1991 hut also details the impact of the downfall of communism and the way in which the challenges of the postcommunist period are being met."--Jacket.