Eastern European Studies - Böcker

Born in a small river town in the largely Muslim province of Sandzak, Munevera Hadzisehovic grew up in an area sandwiched between the Orthodox Christian regions of Montenegro and Serbia, cut off from other Muslims in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Her story takes her from the rural culture of the early 1930s through the massacres of World War II and the repression of the early communist regime to the dissolution of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s. It sheds light on the history of Yugoslavia from the interwar kingdom to the break-up of the socialist state. Hadzisehovic paints a picture not only of her own life, but also of the lives of other Muslims, especially women, in an era and an area of great change. Readers are given a loving yet accurate portrait of Muslim customs pertaining to the household, gardens, food and dating - in short, of everyday life. She writes from the inside out, starting with her emotions and experiences, then moving outward to the facts that concern those interested in this region: the role of the Ustashe, Chetniks and Germans in World War II; the attitude of Serb-dominated Yugoslavia toward Muslims; and the tragic state of ethnic relations that led to war again in the 1990s. Some of Hadzisehovic's experiences and many of her views may be controversial. She speaks of Muslim women's reluctance to give up the veil, the disapproval of mixed marriages and the problems between Serb and Croat nationals. Her benign view of Italian occupation is in stark contrast to her depiction of bloodthirsty Chetnik irregulars. Her analysis of Belgrade's Muslims suggests that class differences were just as important as religious affiliation. In this personal story, Hadzisehovic mourns the loss of two worlds - the orderly Muslim world of her childhood and the secular, multi-ethnic world of communist Yugoslavia.

In the preparations for the German invasion of the Soviet Union, special units known as the Einsatzgruppen were formed with the special charge of executing Jews, communists and members of other targeted groups. Drawn from the SS, the SD and the Gestapo, members of the Einsatzgruppen had the reputation of being the most cold-blooded of all Nazi killers. After the war, the German government investigated 1770 former Einsatzgruppen members and brought 136 of these men to trial. Helmut Langerbein has systematically examined the trial evidence in search of characteristics shared by these mass murderers. Using a much broader data base than earlier studies, Langerbein identifies a number of factors that could explain their actions, illustrating each with a particular person or group of officers. Particular traits and degrees of anti-Semitism, self-aggrandizement, sense of duty to obey superiors and peer pressure may each have played a role in the cases of individual officers, but Langerbein concludes that the only characteristic common to all his subjects was the war itself. It was above all the extraordinary circumstances and brutality of the Eastern Front that shaped their behaviour. Given the extent of its data, its detailed analysis and its careful conclusions, ""Hitler's Death Squads"" will push historians and psychologists toward a reappraisal of the Nazi killing machine, the behaviour of the men behind the battle lines, and the overwhelming power of circumstance. Langerbein's chilling conclusions, which challenge the leading theories explaining why people commit mass murder, should be of interest to those concerned with World War II, the Holocaust, Eastern Europe, warfare, war crimes, genocide and human behaviour.

In the spring and summer of 1956 the Soviet Union invaded Hungary to reassert control of the country. This text is a full analysis, drawing on archival collections from the Eastern bloc countries to reinterpret decision making during this Cold War crisis. Johanna Granville selects four key patterns of misperception as laid out by political scientist Robert Jervis and shows how these patterns prevailed in the military crackdown and in other countries' reactions to it. Granville examines the statements and actions of Soviet Presidium members, the Hungarian leadership, US policy makers and Yugoslav and Polish leaders. She concludes that the United States bears some responsiblity for the events of 1956, as ill-advised US covert actions may have convinced Soviet leaders that America was attempting to weaken Soviet hegemony over Eastern Europe. Granville's multi-archival research tends to confirm the post-revisionists' theory about the old war: it was everyone's fault and no one's fault. It resulted from the emerging bipolar structure of the international system, the power vacuum in Europe's centre, and spiralling misconceptions.

Award-winning author Sharon Hudgins takes readers on a personal adventure through the Asian side of Russia - from the ""high-rise villages"" of Vladivostok and Irkutsk to Lake Baikal and the Trans-Siberian Railroad route. Join her as a guest confronted with exotic dishes at Christmas parties, New Year's banquets, Easter dinners, and Siberian festivals - and discover what daily life is really like on Russia's ""other side.

Faced with fascism, communism, and the 1956 Revolution, Csaba Teglas responded with ingenuity and hope. In ""Budapest Exit"", he tells the story of his twenty-year quest for freedom. Teglas rummaged the scrap heap of World War II for anything he could sell to get food money for his family. The income from selling bits of rubber and ball bearings was often the family's only sustenance. Teglas and his family and friends lived in constant fear; some were even subjected to communist jails and torture chambers. Teglas protested, sometimes quietly, sometimes more vocally, against the Soviet and communist presence in Hungary. During the 1956 revolution, he became more involved in the opposition. When it became clear that the revolutionaries would not succeed, he knew he had to leave. Teglas recounts his dramatic escape through the heavily guarded Iron Curtain and his subsequent journey to North America, where life as an immigrant presented new challenges. This memoir is Csaba Teglas' personal story of his youth, told from the point of view of a man with sons of his own. He found in America the freedom for which he had been searching, but he has raised his American sons to remain proud of their Hungarian heritage.