East Central European Intellectuals and Communism 1945-1989

Bradley Abrams

 

1. 8 September. Introduction.

2. 15 September. The Background: The Interwar Systems and the Experience of the Second World War.

George Schöpflin. Politics in Eastern Europe. Chapters 1-3.

Tadeusz Borowski. "Introduction," "This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen," "Silence," "The January Offensive," "A Visit" and "The World of Stone." In: Tadeusz Borowski. This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen. New York: Penguin, 1976. 11-49, 161-80.

Heda Margulius Kovaly. From Under a Cruel Star. A Life in Prague 1941-1968. New York: Penguin, 1986. 52-66.

Czeslaw Milosz. "A Poor Christian Looks at the Ghetto." From: Daniel Weissbort, ed. The Poetry of Survival. Post-War Poets of Central and Eastern Europe. London: Anvil, 1991. 51-3.

Jan Gross. "Social Consequences of War: Preliminaries to the Study of the Imposition of Communist Regimes in East Central Europe." East European Politics and Societies. 3 (1989) 198-214.

3. 22 September. The Disillusionment with Stalinism I: The Experience of Rigid Ideology.

Schöpflin. Chapter 4.

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

4. 29 September. The Disillusionment with Stalinism II: The Experience of the Show Trials.

"The Slánsky Trial." From Gale Stokes, ed. From Stalinism to Pluralism. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1991. 71-7.

Eugen Loebl. My Mind on Trial. New York: Harvest/HBJ, 1976. 90-158.

Heda Margulius Kovaly. From Under a Cruel Star. A Life in Prague 1941-1968. New York: Penguin, 1986. 93-163.

Danilo Kis. "A Tomb for Boris Davidovich" and "Dogs and Books." From A Tomb for Boris Davidovich. New York: Penguin, 1980. 73-125.

5. 6 October. The Disillusionment with Stalinism III: The Experience of the Rigid Party-State.

Milovan Djilas. The New Class.

6. 13 October. The Attempt to Renew Marxism I: De-Stalinization in Poland and Hungary.

Schöpflin. Chapter 5.

Set of documents in the reader.

7. 20 October. The Attempt to Renew Marxism II: De-Stalinization in Czechoslovakia.

Schöpflin. Chapter 6.

Set of documents in the reader.

8. 27 October. A Final Critique from the Left and the Death of East Central European Marxism.

George Konrád and Ivan Szelényi. The Intellectuals on the Road to Class Power. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1979. 85-233.

9. 3 November. The Shift to New Issues and a New Language.

Schöpflin. Chapter 7.

Tony Judt. "The Dilemmas of Dissidence: The Politics of Opposition in Eastern Europe." East European Politics and Societies 2 (1988) 184-240.

10. 10 November. The Rediscovery of Central Europe.

Schöpflin and Nancy Woods. In Search of Central Europe. London: Polity, 1989. OR Kundera arts and 3 from Daedalus.

11. 17 November. Milan Kundera.

Milan Jungmann. "Kunderian Paradoxes." From: Marketa Goetz-Stankiewicz, ed. Good-bye Samizdat. Twenty Years of Czechoslovak Underground Writing. Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern UP, 1992. 153-9.

Milan Kundera. The Book of Laughter and Forgetting. New York: Penguin, 1982.

12. 24 November. Adam Michnik.

Jane Leftwich Curry and Joanna Priebisz. "Polish Intellectuals in Crisis." From: Jack Bielasiak and Maurice D. Simon, eds. Polish Politics. Edge of the Abyss. New York: Praeger, 1984. 186-211.

Adam Michnik. "Introduction," and Parts Two and Three of The Church and the Left. Chicago: Univ. Chicago Press, 1993. 1-28 and 114-215.

Adam Michnik. "A New Evolutionism," "The Prague Spring Ten Years Later," "A Lesson in Dignity," and "Maggots and Angels." From Adam Michnik. Letters from Prison and Other Essays. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1985. 135-48, 155-98.

13. 1 December. Václav Havel.

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.

Václav Havel. " Dear Dr. Husák." From Václav Havel. Open Letters. New York: Knopf, 1991. 50-83.

Havel. The Vanek Plays.

14. 8 December. György Konrád and Miklós Haraszti.

György Konrad. Antipolitics. New York: Holt, 1984. 75-176, 208-43.

Miklós Haraszti. The Velvet Prison. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1989. 13-34, 56-81, 120-8, 150-9.

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