Imagining Postcommunism

Imagining Postcommunism
Author :
Publisher : Texas A&M University Press
Total Pages : 228
Release :
ISBN-10 : 1585444057
ISBN-13 : 9781585444052
Rating : 4/5 (052 Downloads)

Book Synopsis Imagining Postcommunism by : Beverly A. James

Download or read book Imagining Postcommunism written by Beverly A. James and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 2005-03-29 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although the 1956 Hungarian uprising failed to liberate the country from Soviet domination, it became a symbol of freedom for people throughout Eastern Europe and beyond. Labeling the events a counterrevolution, communist authorities exacted revenge in two years of terror and intimidation. Then, for the next thirty years, they pursued a policy of forced forgetting, attempting to obliterate public memory of the events. As communism unraveled in the late 1980s, the 1956 revolution was resurrected as inspiration for a new political order. In Imagining Postcommunism, Beverly James demonstrates how 1956 became a foundational myth according to which the bloody events of that fall led to the ceremonial reburial of the martyred prime minister Imre Nagy in 1989, free elections in 1990, and the withdrawal of the last Soviet soldiers on June 19, 1991. She shows how museums, monuments, and holiday rituals have aided the construction of a new Hungary through the reclamation and expression of competing memories of the critical events of 1956. Surveying the dazzling array of ceremonies, exhibitions, and memorials commemorating the revolution and its heros, James invites readers to consider the difference between the communist regime’s master narrative of 1956, with its smug, false unity, and the multiple, polemical stories woven by competing political forces in postcommunist Hungary. A thoughtful application of communication and historical theories on the uses of memory, this study offers a unique perspective on a crucial episode in the history of Eastern Europe.


Imagining Postcommunism Related Books

Imagining Postcommunism
Language: en
Pages: 228
Authors: Beverly A. James
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 2005-03-29 - Publisher: Texas A&M University Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Although the 1956 Hungarian uprising failed to liberate the country from Soviet domination, it became a symbol of freedom for people throughout Eastern Europe a
Post-communist Nostalgia
Language: en
Pages: 310
Authors: Maria Todorova
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 2012 - Publisher: Berghahn Books

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Although the end of the Cold War was greeted with great enthusiasm by people in the East and the West, the ensuing social and especially economic changes did no
Imagining the Nation
Language: en
Pages: 286
Authors: Daina Stukuls Eglitis
Categories: Social Science
Type: BOOK - Published: 2010-11-01 - Publisher: Penn State Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Every epoch produces its own notions of social change, and the post-Communist societies of Eastern Europe are no exception. Imagining the Nation explores the fa
Communism and the Remorse of an Innocent Victimizer
Language: en
Pages: 238
Authors: Zlatko Anguelov
Categories: Biography & Autobiography
Type: BOOK - Published: 2002 - Publisher: Texas A&M University Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

In moving but understated prose, he describes his own coming to terms with the harm done by compliance and his gradual shift into a more politically active stan
Imagining the West in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union
Language: en
Pages: 337
Authors: Gyorgy Peteri
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 2010-11-28 - Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Pre

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This volume presents work from an international group of writers who explore conceptualizations of what defined "East" and "West" in Eastern Europe, imperial Ru