Cement in Bloom

Central and Eastern European Culture 1950-2000

Eastern Europe has produced some of the greatest writers, artists and thinkers of the late 20^th century, yet relatively few people know about the region’s remarkable contributions. It’s one of the great ironies of history that the Cold War experience of Eastern Europe should so closely echo so many features of the post-Cold War US: they are both societies frozen in time, run by an unelected and unaccountable nomenklatura (or an unelected and unaccountable Bubble-klatura). Unlike the US, however, which is fading away like Victorian Britain, Eastern Europe had the geopolitical good fortune to emerge from its time-warp at the formative moment of the European Union. We’ll be exploring 25 years of cultural and political history, from the uprising of the Gdansk shipyards to the Velvet Revolution of Prague’s Wenceslas Square, in search of the neon flowers in the cement landscapes of the former Eastern bloc.

I. Prague Spring and the end of autarkic development

After twenty years of steady growth and considerable social progress, the Eastern bloc economies run into problems. The nomenklatura becomes increasingly corrupt, and the Stalinist accumulation model starts to unravel. Eastern Europe responds by decentralizing economic authority and borrowing heavily from Western Europe. The making of a global semi-periphery: Russian energy supplies are exchanged for Eastern European manufactured goods.

Media

Andzrej Wajda, Ashes and Diamonds (Poland) 1954

The Lodz school: Kieslowski and Polish cinema

Milos Forman. Turnaround: A Memoir. (Czechoslovakia) 1994

Stanislaw Lem, The Cyberiad (Poland) 1967

Bohumil Hrabal Cutting it Short (Czechoslovakia)

Heiner Mueller (selected prose and poetry)

Texts

Case studies: shipbuilding, coal (the EC’s switchover), exports to Western Europe, the East German electrical industry

Ludmilla Alexeyeva and Paul Goldberg. The Thaw Generation. (Russia)

Milovan Djilas, Memoirs of a Revolutionary, The New Class (1957)

Milovan Djilas, The Unperfect Society (1969)

II. Democratization and samizdat

The former Eastern bloc systems transformed agrarian economies into modern, urban and educated societies – but while the society changed, the political system did not. The result was a massive legitimation crisis in the mid-1970s and a series of ineffectual crackdowns. Dissidents were jailed or exiled, but the resistance continued to grow.

Media

Hamletmachine Heiner Mueller (East Germany) 1977

Dimensions of Dialogue Jan Svankmajer (Czechoslovakia) 1982

Man of Marble Andzrej Wajda (Poland) 1976

Decalogue Krzysztof Kieslowski (Poland) 1987

Alice Jan Svankmajer (Czech Republic) 1988

Abram Tertz, Goodnight! (Russia) 1989

Heiner Mueller (selected prose and poetry)

Texts

Ed. Alex Pravda. The End of the Outer Empire. (Chapter 3, A. Smith)

Thane Gustafson, Crisis Amid Plenty. 1989

Randall W. Stone, Satellites and Commissars. 1996

Lore Uhlmann, Editor-in-chief. “Speaking on Our Own Behalf: The GDR in Upheaval.” In: GDR Review, December 1989 (East Germany)

Kristi S. Long, We All Fought for Freedom. Chapter: Heroines of the Quotidian. (Poland)

III. The Velvet Revolutions and EU Integration

In the brief period between 1987 and 1989, the simmering cauldron of Eastern Europe erupted. The one-party state vanished almost overnight, replaced by a new and more complex landscape of Euro-peripheries, independent countries and future EU members.

Media

Videograms of a Revolution Haun Farocki

The Oak Lucien Pintilie (Romania) 1991

Underground Emir Kusturica (Serbia) 1995

White Krystof Kieslowski (Poland) 1994

Faust Jan Svankmajer (Cezch Republic) 1994

Kolya Jan Sverak (Czech Republic) 1996

Heiner Mueller (selected prose and poetry)

Texts

EU Accession Process

EIB Investment into Eastern Europe

Polish constitution (http://www.sejm.gov.pl/english/konstytucja/kon1.htm)

Timothy Garten Ash, The Magic Lantern

Maciej Lopinski, Marcin Moskit, Mariusz Wilk. Konspira. Trans. Jane Lave.