Daily Life behind the Iron Curtain PDF Download

Author: Jim Willis
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 380

View

Book Description
This compelling book describes how everyday people courageously survived under repressive Communist regimes until the voices and actions of rebellious individuals resulted in the fall of the Iron Curtain in Europe. Part of Greenwood's Daily Life through History series, Daily Life behind the Iron Curtain enables today's generations to understand what it was like for those living in Eastern Europe during the Cold War, particularly the period from 1961 to 1989, the era during which these people-East Germans in particular-lived in the imposing shadow of the Berlin Wall. An introductory chapter discusses the Russian Revolution, the end of World War II, and the establishment of the Socialist state, clarifying the reasons for the construction of the Berlin Wall. Many historical anecdotes bring these past experiences to life, covering all aspects of life behind the Iron Curtain, including separation of families and the effects on family life, diet, rationing, media, clothing and trends, strict travel restrictions, defection attempts, and the evolving political climate. The final chapter describes Eastern Europe after the fall of the Berlin wall and the slow assimilation of East into West, and examines Europe after Communism.

Author: Machteld Venken
Publisher: Studies in History, Memory and Politics
ISBN: 9783631607534
Category : Immigrants
Languages : en
Pages : 0

View

Book Description
"This book neither researches structural integration, nor starts from ethnically defined categories. At the basis are two clearly distinguishable migration streams entering Belgium in the aftermath of World War II. First, there were about 350 soldiers from Poland who served with the Allies, had met Flemish young women during their liberation march through Flanders, married their financ?es in 1945 and 1946 and settled in their wives' hometowns and villages. And second, there were the Ostarbeiterinnen-- Soviet young women of Ukrainian, Russian, or Belarusian decent, who after the German invasion of the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941, were deported to Nazi Germany to do forced labor. While at work, the young women met Western European deported workers, volunteers, and prisoners of war. Although any off-duty contact between them was prohibited, numerous love affairs flourished and after their liberation by the Western Allies, about 4,000 Ostarbeiterinnen chose to migrate further to Belgium rather than be repatriated to the Soviet Union where they could be accused of collaboration ... The central question of this study is as follows: are the war experiences and war memories of these two migration streams similar because they were all displaced persons living in the 'same standardised refugee world'?"--Introd.

Author: Astrid M. Eckert
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190690070
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 445

View

Book Description
West Germany and the Iron Curtain takes a fresh look at the history of Cold War Germany and the German reunification process from the spatial perspective of the West German borderlands that emerged along the volatile inter-German border after 1945. These border regions constituted the Federal Republic's most sensitive geographical space where it had to confront partition and engage its socialist neighbor East Germany in concrete ways. Each issue that arose in these borderlands - from economic deficiencies, border tourism, environmental pollution, landscape change, and the siting decision for a major nuclear facility - was magnified and mediated by the presence of what became the most militarized border of its day, the Iron Curtain. In topical chapters, the book addresses the economic consequences of the border for West Germany, which defined the border regions as depressed areas, and examines the cultural practice of western tourism to the Iron Curtain. At the heart of this deeply-researched book stands an environmental history of the Iron Curtain that explores transboundary pollution, landscape change, and a planned nuclear industrial site at Gorleben that was meant to bring jobs into the depressed border regions. The book traces these subjects across the caesura of 1989/90, thereby integrating the "long" postwar era with the post-unification decades. As Eckert demonstrates, the borderlands that emerged with partition and disappeared with reunification did not merely mirror some larger developments in the Federal Republic's history but actually helped to shape them.

Author: Asuncion Fresnoza-Flot
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1040264565
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 184

View

Book Description
Drawing from empirically grounded studies, the volume Situated Mixedness sheds light on the state of migration-related “intimate diversity”, that is, the simultaneous formation and existence of various configurations of conjugal mixedness. It examines this phenomenon in Belgium, a country in the European Union with a long history of immigration and where an important percentage of registered marriages are international. Through the optic of “situated mixedness”, the volume pays attention to the (dis-)connections between intimate diversity and its surrounding environment. Bringing together mutually reinforcing or often contradicting emic and etic perspectives, it illuminates how specific context/s (socio-legal, cultural, temporal, etc.) not only can influence, stem from, or trigger a social phenomenon but also remain standstill without a particular impact on individual’s lived experiences. It brings out in subtle ways the agency and subjectivities of individuals, nuancing thereby common-held views on socially Othered couples. Focusing on the intimate sphere of individuals’ life at the crossroads of anthropology and sociology, the volume contributes fresh insights not only to the study of migration and intermarriage but also to the literature on super- and hyper-diversity. It will be of interest to scholars, students, and social actors working on family-related migration, state policies, and social cohesion.

Author: Irial Glynn
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137010231
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 259

View

Book Description
By conversing with the main bodies of relevant literature from Migration Studies and Memory Studies, this overview highlights how analysing memories can contribute to a better understanding of the complexities of migrant incorporation. The chapters consider international case studies from Europe, North America, Australia, Asia and the Middle East.

Author: Judy Colyer Postley
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 0595257682
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 238

View

Book Description
In 1947, two adventurous college friends were among the first tourists to travel to Eastern Europe after WWII. These are some of their stories, as they wrote them, when they returned.

Author: Machteld Venken
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 100057489X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 230

View

Book Description
This book addresses practices of bordering, debordering and rebordering on the territory of the former Austro-Hungarian Monarchy after state borders had been remapped on the negotiation tables of the Paris Peace Treaties following the First World War. As life in borderlands did not correspond to the peaceful Europe articulated in the Paris Treaties, a multitude of (un)foreseen complications followed the drawing of borders and states. The chapters in this book include new case studies on the creation, centralization or peripheralization of border regions, such as Subcarpathian Rus, Vojvodina, Banat and the Carpathian Mountains; on border zones such as the Czechoslovakian harbour in Germany; and on cross-border activities. The book shows how disputes over national identities and ethnic minorities, as well as other factors such as the economic consequences of the new state borders, appeared on the interwar political agenda and coloured the lives of borderland inhabitants. The contributions demonstrate the practices of borderland inhabitants in the establishment, functioning, disorganization or ultimate breakdown of some of the newly created interwar nation-states. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the journal, European Review of History.

Author: G. Mink
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137302054
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 385

View

Book Description
Fourteen specialists of Central and Eastern European politics explore memory policies and politics by examining how and why contested memories are constantly reactivated in the former Soviet bloc. The book explores how new social and political actors can challenge the traditional narratives about the past produced by state bodies.

Author: Alex Hamilton
Publisher: Troubador Publishing Ltd
ISBN: 1780883390
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 409

View

Book Description
In his long career in literary journalism, Alex Hamilton has probably met and talked in depth to more of our great writers than anyone else, from the most critically acclaimed to the most hard-nosed bestsellers, from novelists to cartoonists, and in every genre, from Thrillers and Whodunnits to Short Stories, from Poetry to Science Fiction.This selection from a life’s work gives us a stimulating and rare insight into the minds and lives of some of the most fascinating creators of our modern culture. It’s a book that contains many surprises in the revelations given by some of the authors about their struggles and victories, the serious or humorous commitments made by them, and their addiction to the kind of fiction they like to write. The reader will soon realise that no two of these eighty-five featured authors – such as Kurt Vonnegut, Angela Carter, Stephen King, Daphne du Maurier, Ian McEwan, Jorge Luis Borges, Graham Greene or Margaret Atwood – are alike. Splendidly informative and serious, Writing Talk is also often very funny: a book to dip into as the mood takes, or to dive into hungrily. It will appeal to those with a passion for books and for the people who have written them.“I’ve been fortunate to talk to so many marvellous writers. Gathering some of these conversations into a book, rather than their brief life in a daily newspaper, offers a chance for readers to share my pleasure and to introduce a new generation to some past greats,” says Alex Hamilton, behind his reason to create Writing Talk.

Author: Elizabeth Baigent
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350085510
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 186

View

Book Description
Geographers: Biobibliographical Studies, Volume 37 explores the concept of distinction in geography. Through the lives of six geographers working in Brazil, North America, Europe and Réunion, it investigates what distinction consists of, how we identify and celebrate it and how it relates to quotidian practices in the discipline. The volume highlights the continuing importance of biography and the International Geographical Union in recording and assessing distinction. It also considers the relevance of personal networks for the circulation and translation of distinguished geographical knowledge, and how this knowledge can underpin applied projects and critical appraisal of geographical scholarship, both at a national and sub-national level. Gendered notions of distinction are also addressed, particularly through June Sheppard, who found limited recognition for her work as a result of gendered expectations within the discipline and society at large. By reflecting on how we locate distinguished geographers and tell their histories, Geographers: Biobibliographical Studies, Volume 37 makes an important contribution to fostering less canonical work in historical geography.