Diana Dumitru – författare

In 1952, a Prague court tried Rudolf Slánský and thirteen other Communist leaders - eleven of them "of Jewish heritage" - of espionage and treason. Most of the defendants were executed days later. The trial, which was one of the most notorious Stalin-era show trials in Eastern Europe, has long been considered as an antisemitic Soviet export, directly orchestrated by Stalin. This collectively written book overturns that long-standing misinterpretation of the trial. Drawing on a vast array of archival sources, it uncovers the ways in which the trial emerged from political rivalries in Prague and beyond, fueled by personal ambitions and calculated attempts to capture Moscow's attention. The book traces the prewar and wartime formation of the Czechoslovak Communist elite, the mechanisms of postwar power consolidation, the role of ethnic cleansing, and the shifting use of antisemitism and "Zionism" in domestic politics. It demonstrates how factional maneuvering, coercive interrogations, and carefully curated information sent to Moscow shaped both the trial itself and the wave of related proceedings that continued even after Stalin's death. Beyond reconstructing the orchestration between Prague and Moscow, the book opens a window into the inner workings of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, revealing the rituals, hierarchies, and personal ties that bound its leaders to counterparts in the Soviet Union and across Eastern Europe. Situating the Slánský trial within the larger framework of Cold War geopolitics, the authors also examine its contested legacies, from the ways it has been remembered and forgotten to its enduring symbolic role in debates about authoritarianism and justice. By integrating political, social, and cultural history, this book offers a powerful new perspective on authoritarian rule, the porous boundaries between victim and perpetrator, and the local agency expressed through the choices that culminated in the Stalinist bloc's most infamous spectacle of justice.

How did Soviet Jews rebuild their lives after the Holocaust? How did they navigate Stalinist rule, reclaim their place in society, and seek retribution against those responsible for wartime atrocities? This study uncovers the resilience and adaptability of Soviet Jews in postwar Moldavia, a borderland where identities were fluid, loyalties were tested, and survival demanded ingenuity. Using newly accessed archives and oral histories, Diana Dumitru reveals how Jews pursued professional success, resisted discrimination, and sought vengeance on their wrongdoers. Far from passive subjects of repression, they carved out spaces for agency in an era of contradictions - between social mobility and state-imposed limitations, between the Soviet promise of equality and the rising anti-Jewish drive of the early 1950s, and between ideological control and personal ambition. In doing so, this study offers a fresh perspective on a complex, understudied chapter of 20th-century history.

This book examines crucial facets of the Russian invasion: among them, the Russian sexual violence against occupied Ukrainians, their “collaboration” and “filtration,” legal prosecutions especially relating to kidnapped Ukrainian children, the portrayal of events in Bucha on Russian social media, and the lessons learned from the Ukrainian refugee crisis in Poland during the initial weeks of the war, as well the potential pursuit of justice at the International Court of Justice, and the genocide claim more generally.This anthology will serve as a valuable resource for scholars, policymakers, and the broader community involved in the study of genocide and conflict. It endeavours to offer not only insights into the immediate circumstances of the invasion but also a framework for broader discussions and a foundation for informed dialogues on the multifaceted dimensions of this geopolitical upheaval.The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Journal of Genocide Research.

This book examines crucial facets of the Russian invasion: among them, the Russian sexual violence against occupied Ukrainians, their “collaboration” and “filtration,” legal prosecutions especially relating to kidnapped Ukrainian children, the portrayal of events in Bucha on Russian social media, and the lessons learned from the Ukrainian refugee crisis in Poland during the initial weeks of the war, as well the potential pursuit of justice at the International Court of Justice, and the genocide claim more generally.This anthology will serve as a valuable resource for scholars, policymakers, and the broader community involved in the study of genocide and conflict. It endeavours to offer not only insights into the immediate circumstances of the invasion but also a framework for broader discussions and a foundation for informed dialogues on the multifaceted dimensions of this geopolitical upheaval.The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Journal of Genocide Research.

This book examines crucial facets of the Russian invasion: among them, the Russian sexual violence against occupied Ukrainians, their "e;collaboration"e; and "e;filtration,"e; legal prosecutions especially relating to kidnapped Ukrainian children, the portrayal of events in Bucha on Russian social media, and the lessons learned from the Ukrainian refugee crisis in Poland during the initial weeks of the war, as well the potential pursuit of justice at the International Court of Justice, and the genocide claim more generally.This anthology will serve as a valuable resource for scholars, policymakers, and the broader community involved in the study of genocide and conflict. It endeavours to offer not only insights into the immediate circumstances of the invasion but also a framework for broader discussions and a foundation for informed dialogues on the multifaceted dimensions of this geopolitical upheaval.The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Journal of Genocide Research.

Based on original sources, this important book on the Holocaust explores regional variations in civilians' attitudes and behavior toward the Jewish population in Romania and the occupied Soviet Union. Gentiles' willingness to assist Jews was greater in lands that had been under Soviet administration during the inter-war period, while gentiles' willingness to harm Jews occurred more in lands that had been under Romanian administration during the same period. While acknowledging the disasters of Communist rule in the 1920s and 1930s, this work shows the effectiveness of Soviet nationalities policy in the official suppression of antisemitism. This book offers a corrective to the widespread consensus that homogenizes gentile responses throughout Eastern Europe, instead demonstrating that what states did in the interwar period mattered; relations between social groups were not fixed and destined to repeat themselves, but rather fluid and susceptible to change over time.