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History Dept.

Columbia History Faculty

TOPICS IN EASTERN EUROPEAN HISTORY

Brad Abrams 1230 IAB 
HIS W8216 Office Hours: TH 2:00-4:00
W 2:10-4:00 bfa4
301M Fayerweather x4-6287

   

3 September. Introduction.

 

12 September. “Them” and “Us”: Why Is There an Eastern Europe, and How Is It Constituted?

            Maria Todorova. Imagining the Balkans. Oxford/NY: Oxford UP, 1997.

Larry Wolff. Inventing Eastern Europe. Stanford: Stanford UP, 1994. Introduction and Conclusion only, pp. 1-16, 356-74. (Copies.)

N.B. This class session will be held on Friday, 12 September, from 4-6, in 1219 IAB.

 

17 September. Is Eastern Europe Backward and, If So, Why? (Kathy)

            Daniel Chirot, ed. The Origins of Backwardness in Eastern Europe. Berkeley: UC Press, 1989.

 

24 September. Ethnic Nationalism, World War One and the End of Empire. (Leon)

Aviel Roshwald. Ethnic Nationalism and the Fall of Empires: Central Europe, Russia and the Middle East, 1914-1923. New York: Routledge, 2001.

Péter Hanák. “Vox Populi: Intercepted Letters in the First World War.” Chapter Eight of The Garden and the Workshop. Essays on the Cultural History of Vienna and Budapest. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1998. 179-212. (Copies)

Alex Motyl. “Thinking About Empire.” and Karen Barkey. “Thinking About Consequences of Empire.” In: Karen Barkey and Mark von Hagen, eds. After Empire. Multiethnic Societies and Nation Building. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1997. 19-29, 99-114. (Copies)

 

1 October. The Struggles of Nation- and State-Building.

            Irina Livezeanu. Cultural Politics in Greater Romania. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 2001.

 

8 October. The Road to a “Modern” Romania. (Jarod)

Maria Bucur. Eugenics and Modernization in Interwar Romania. Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh UP, 2002.

 

15 October. Can We Talk About An Interwar Eastern Europe? (Shane)

Ivan Berend. Decades of Crisis. Berkeley: UC Press 1998.

Joseph Rothschild. East Central Europe between the Two World Wars. Seattle: UW Press, 1974.

 

22 OctoberThe “Imposition of Communism” I: The Impact of the War and the Role of Intellectuals.

Bradley Abrams. “The Struggle for the Sould of the Nation”: Czech Culture and the Rise of Communism.

 

29 October. The “Imposition of Communism”II: The Impact of Resettlement and the Role of the Workers. (Jim)

            Padraic Kenney. Rebuilding Poland. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1997.

 

5 November. Edging Toward a History of Everyday Life in Communist Eastern Europe. (Dean or Bojana)

            Susan Reid and David Crowley, eds. Style and Socialism. Oxford/NY: Berg, 2000.

            Other Articles TBD.

 

12 November. Crises in and of Communism in Eastern Europe. (Rory)

Grzegorz Ekiert. The State Against Society. Political Crises and Their Aftermath in East Central Europe. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1996

 

19 November. The Problem of Dissent.

For now, readings TBD. Tony Judt. “The Dilemmas of Dissidence: The Politics of Opposition in East-Central Europe.” East European Politics and Societies 2 (1988) 185-240.

 

26 November. The Problem of Nationalism in a Communist State.

Katherine Verdery. National Ideology Under Socialism. Identity and Cultural Politics in Ceausescu’s Romania. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press. 1991.

 

3 December. The End of Communism: What Was Socialism and What Are Its Legacies?

Valerie Bunce. “The Empire Strikes Back: The Evolution of the Eastern Bloc from a Soviet Asset to a Soviet Liability.” International Organization 39 (1985) 1-46.

Leslie Holmes. “Theories of the Collapse of Communist Power.” Chapter Two of Post-Communism. An Introduction. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1997. 23-62.

Katherine Verdery. “What Was Socialism and Why Did It Fall?” and “The ‘Etatization’ of Time in Ceauşescu’s Romania” In: Katherine Verdery. What Was Socialism and What Comes Next? Princeton: Princeton UP, 1996. 19-38, 39-57.

Daniel Chirot. “What Happened in Eastern Europe in 1989?” In: Daniel Chirot, ed. The Crisis of Leninism and the Decline of the Left. Seattle: Univ. of Washington, 1991. 3-32.

Ken Jowitt. “The Leninist Extinction,” “The Leninist Legacy” and “A World Without Leninism.” In: Ken Jowitt. New World Disorder. The Leninist Extinction. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992. 249-331.

Rossen Vassilev. “Modernization Theory Revisited: The Case of Bulgaria.” East European Politics and Societies 13 (1999) 566-99.

N.B. All of these are photocopies.

 

Grading:

Ph.D. Students:

  1. 5-Page Review Assignment: 22%
  2. Professional/NY Review Assignment: 22%
  3. Syllabus Assignment: 22%
  4. Presentation/In-Class: 34%

The 5-page review assignment is to write a standard five-page critique of a text. The review assignment is to write a two-page review aimed at professionals within your discipline, and a 10-15-page review for The New York Review of Books. Both of these assignments are due at the beginning of the class session in which the text chosen will be discussed, unless otherwise arranged. The syllabus assignment is to create a syllabus for a course that has a focus on some part of Eastern Europe in some part of the 20th century. All of this will be explained in excruciating detail in class (probably within minutes of your reading this).

  Others:

  1. Final Paper (20 pp.): 50%
  2. Presentation/In-Class: 50%

Non-Ph. D. students may opt to fulfill the Ph.D. students’ requirements, as enumerated above.

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Last modified: Friday, January 02, 2004

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