EAST-CENTRAL EUROPEAN INTELLECTUALS AND COMMUNISM

8 September. Introduction. What Are East Central Europe, Communism and Intellectuals?

15 September. Background: The Interwar Systems and the Experience of World War Two.

*Czeslaw Miłosz. Native Realm. Berkeley: University of California, 1981.

Start Reading Rothschild for the following week.

22 September. Getting up to speed.

 *Joseph Rothschild. Return to Diversity. A Political History of East Central Europe Since World War Two. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999. You do not need to read Chapter 8.

29 September. Intellectuals and the Coming of Communism.

  Bradley Abrams. The Struggle for the Soul of the Nation: Czech Culture and Socialism 1945-8. Harvard Cold War Studies Book Series. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2004. Reserve.

6 October. The Disillusionment with Stalinism I: The Experience of Rigid Ideology. 

*Czeslaw Milosz. The Captive Mind. New York: Harvest, 1951.

13 October. The Disillusionment with Stalinism III: The Experience of the Rigid Party-State.

*Milovan Djilas. The New Class. San Diego: Harvest/HBJ, 1957.

20 October. The Disillusionment with Stalinism II: The Experience of the Show Trials and the Thaw. 

*Heda Margulius Kovaly. From Under a Cruel Star. A Life in Prague 1941-1968.New York: Penguin, 1986.

27 October. Coming to Terms with Complicity. What About the 1950s?

*Milan Kundera. The Joke. New York: HarperCollins, 1993.

3 November. The Rediscovery of “Central Europe.”

Bradley Abrams. “Historicizing the Ahistorical.”

Milan Kundera. “A Kidnapped West, or Culture Bows Out.” Granta 11 (1984) 95-118.

George Schöpflin. “Central Europe: Definitions Old and New,” Czeslaw Milosz. “Central European Attitudes,” George Schöpflin and Nancy Wood. “Milan Kundera’s Lament,” Milan Simecka. “Another Civilization? An Other Civilization?” Mihály Vajda. “Who Excluded Russia From Europe? (A Reply to Simecka)” Milan Simecka. “Which Way Back to Europe? (A Reply to Mihály Vajda)” and Timothy Garton Ash. “Does Central Europe Exist?” In: George Schöpflin and Nancy Wood, eds. In Search of Central Europe. Totowa, NJ: Barnes and Noble, 1989. 7-29, 116-24, 138-42, 157-62, 168-82, 191-215.

Jacques Rupnik. “Central Europe or Mitteleuropa.” In: Eastern Europe…Central Europe…Europe. Daedalus. Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 119 (Winter 1990). 249-78.

Iver B. Neumann. “Russia as Central Europe’s Constituting Other.” East European Politics and Societies 7 (Spring 1993) 349-69.

All on Reserve.

10 November. Václav Havel. Morality and Dissidency.

Václav Havel. "The Power of the Powerless." From: John Keane, ed. The Power of the Powerless. Citizens Against the State in Central-Eastern Europe. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1985. 23-96. Reserve.

*Václav Havel. “Audience,” “Private View” and “Protest.” In: The Garden Party and Other Plays. New York: Grove, 1993.

17 November. Adam Michnik. Domestic Politics and Dissidency.

*Adam Michnik. Letters from Prison and Other Essays. Berkeley: UC Press, 1985. ix-98.

“Anti-Authoritarian Revolt. A Conversation with Daniel Cohn-Bendit.” In: Letters From Freedom. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998. 29-67. Reserve.

24 November. György Konrád. Geopolitics and Dissidency.

György Konrad. Antipolitics. New York: Holt, 1984. Buy from Amazon.

1 December. Post-Communist Reflections.

Marian Kempny. “Between Tradition and Politics: Intellectuals after Communism” and András Körösényi. “Intellectuals and Democracy: The Political Thinking of Intellectuals.” In: András Bozóki, ed. Intellectuals and Politics in Central Europe. Budapest: CEU Press, 1999. 151-64, 227-241.

Václav Havel. “New Year’s Address to the Nation,” “The Salzburg Festival,” “Asahi Hall,” “Wrocław University,” “The Philadelphia Liberty Medal,” “The World Congress of the International PEN Club” and “Victoria University of Wellington.” In: The Art of the Impossible. New York: Knopf, 1997. 3-9, 48-54, 95-102, 109-114, 165-172, 183-187, 203-209.

Adam Michnik. “Notes from the Revolution,” “After the Revolution,” “Three Kinds of Fundamentalism,” selections from “The Strange Epoch of Post-Communism. A Conversation with Václav Havel,” selections from “I am a Polish Intellectual” and “Gray is Beautiful.” In: Letters from Freedom. 141-55, 178-83, 253-9, 286-97, 317-27.

George Konrád. “Revolution or Reform,” “The Melancholy of Rebirth,” “Something is Over” and “Central Europe Redivivus.” In: The Melancholy of Rebirth. 34-64, 69-77, 156-63.

All on Reserve.

8 December. Presentation and discussion of paper topics.

* = Available at Columbia University Bookstore..

I, of course, reserve the right to make changes in this syllabus.

Requirements:

Above all, do the reading and come prepared to discuss the materials. It would be advisable to keep Rothschild’s Return to Diversity at hand, such that you can re-acquaint yourselves with the historical events that form the background for our intellectuals. Further, each of you will be required to lead the discussion for one of the sessions. This entails not just having read the material and being able to give a short introduction to the author, but also in formulating the questions for discussion, and leading the discussion itself. (I, of course, will feel free to intervene at any time, and rather have a habit of doing so. I will try to be restrained, though.) In preparation for this, keep two things in mind. First, choose your presentation day carefully, bearing in mind that it would be wise to pick a topic as closely related to one you wish to write about as possible. Second, there is a Courseworks page for this class. You must e-mail questions for discussion to your comrades and post them on the page no later than noon on Tuesday, so that people have a chance to think about them before, rather than in, class. Your contributions to the class discussion, both as presenter and participant, will count for half your grade, so take every week’s reading seriously. The other half of your grade will come from a final paper, 20 pages in length (not more than 22/3) on a topic agreed with me beforehand. Unless we agree to something different, the paper will be due on 13 December. Incompletes, because of university policy, will be very difficult to obtain.

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