East Central European Migrations During the Cold War

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Koranyi

Romanian Germans, mainly from the Banat and Transylvania, have occupied a place at the very heart of major events in Europe in the twentieth century yet their history is largely unknown. This east-central European minority negotiated their standing in a difficult new European order after 1918, changing from uneasy supporters of Romania, to zealous Nazis, tepid Communists, and conciliatory Europeans. Migrating Memories is the first comprehensive study in English of Romanian Germans and follows their stories as they move across borders and between regimes, revealing a very European experience of migration, minorities, and memories in modern Europe. After 1945, Romanian Germans struggled to make sense of their lives during the Cold War at a time when the community began to fracture and fragment. The Revolutions of 1989 seemed to mark the end of the German community in Romania, but instead Romanian Germans repositioned themselves as transnational European bridge-builders, staking out new claims in a fast-changing world.


Two Homelands ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miha Zobec

  Knjiga zgodovino migracij v vsaki od držav Srednje in Vzhodne Evrope podaja v zgoščeni obliki, zato niti ni mogoče pričakovati, da bi se avtorji posameznih prispevkov spuščali v poglobljeno pojasnjevanje migracijskih procesov. Ne glede na to pa knjiga da vedeti, da migracije niso obstranski, ampak ključni del zgodovine tega dela celine, ki jo je bolj kot priseljevanje zaznamovalo izseljevanje. Knjiga je dragocen doprinos k poznavanju preteklosti »druge Evrope«, z navedbo pomembnejšega arhivskega gradiva in literature na koncu razdelka o vsaki državi pa je tudi opora pri nadaljnjem raziskovanju. S seznanjanjem o izseljevanju v času komunistične zaprtosti, ki ga je vsaj ponekod zaznamoval tudi beg pred kremeljskimi tanki, nas opominja, da so države na to preteklost pri oblikovanju današnjih migracijskih politik očitno pozabile.


2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 353-365
Author(s):  
Jerzy J. Wiatr

AbstractPost-communist states of East Central Europe face the authoritarian challenge to their young democracies, the sources of which are both historical and contemporary. Economic underdevelopment, the retarded process of nation-building and several decades of communist rul made countries of the region less well prepared for democratic transformation than their Western neighbors, but better than former Soviet Union. Combination of economic and social tensions, nationalism and religious fundamentalism creates conditions conducive tom the crises of democracy, but such crises can be overcome if liberal and socialist forces join hands.


2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Carlos Reijnen

Émigré periodicals in Cold War Europe have long been considered isolated islands of Central and East European communities with limited relevance. In the second half of the Cold War, some of these periodicals functioned as crucial intersections of communication between dissidents, emigrants and Western European intellectuals. These periodicals were the greenhouses for the development of new definitions of Central Europe, Eastern Europe, and Europe at large. This article studies Cold War émigré periodicals from a spatial perspective and argues that they can be analysed as European cultural spaces. In this approach, European cultural spaces are seen as insular components of a European public sphere. The particular settings (spaces) within which the periodicals developed have contributed greatly to the ideas that they expressed. The specific limits and functions of periodicals such as Kultura or Svědectví [Testimony] have triggered perceptions of Central European and European solidarity. The originally Russian periodical Kontinent promoted an eventually less successful East European-Russian solidarity.  


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