Red Hangover

"A banquet of a book, full of unexpected dishes.... Ghodsee writes with moral seriousness and exceptional force, and Red Hangover is the rare academic book that is compulsively readable and thoroughly compelling." -- Patrick Iber * Los Angeles Review of Books * "I have read and loved all Ghodsee's books, each one more than the last. Red Hangover is the most complex, melding personal and professional experience with history and political theory...." -- Deena Stryker * OpEd News * "This is an extraordinary book . . . Different genres are employed to great effect, offering a multidimensional view of the postcommunist world. . . . A real contribution to the re-narration of European history after 1989." -- Wim de Jong * H-Socialisms, H-Net Reviews * "Kristen Ghodsee wrote Red Hangover for the nonexpert, especially for the student born after 1989 who is trying to make sense of the present. The truly broad readership I can envision for this book, however, encompasses not only young people but rather anyone concerned about the fate of democracy." -- Adrienne J. Cohen * American Ethnologist * "Red Hangover is a brave book, one that brims with urgency concerning the current state of the world and the possibilities for improving itpossibilities that are enhanced, she believes, by taking the communist experience seriously. In short, she makes the study of eastern Europe, both under socialism and after it, crucial in effort to envisage a more viable future." -- Katherine Verdery * Slavic Review *

Kristen Ghodsee is Professor of Russian and East European Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and the author of several books, including The Left Side of History: World War II and the Unfulfilled Promise of Communism in Eastern Europe and Lost in Transition: Ethnographies of Everyday Life after Communism, both also published by Duke University Press, and From Notes to Narrative: Writing Ethnographies that Everyone Can Read.

Prelude: Freundschaft xi Part I. Postsocialist Freedoms 1. Fires 3 2. Cucumbers 1 3. Pieces (Fiction) 24 4. Belgrade, 2015 (Fiction) 39 Part II. Re ing the Divided 5. #Mauerfall25 47 6. The Enemy of My Enemy 68 7. A Tale of Two Typewriters 84 Part III. Blackwashing History 8. Gross Domestic Orgasms 101 9. My Mother and a Clock 111 10. Venerating Nazis of Vilify Commies 129 Part IV. "Democracy Is the Worst Form of Government, Except All Those Other Forms that Have Been Tried from Time to Time" 11. Three Bulgarian Jokes 149 12. Post-Zvyarism: A Fable about Animals on a Farm (Fiction) 150 13. Interview witha Former Member of the Democractic Party of the United States (Fiction) 167 14. Democracy for the Penguins 179 Acknowledgments 201 Notes 205 Selected Bibliography 223