|
Showing 1 - 2 of
2 matches in All Departments
Eastern Europe is disappearing. Not off the map of course, but as
an idea. Today it calls to mind a jumble of post-Soviet states
paved over with C&A and McDonald's. We could describe Eastern
Europe as a group of twenty nations - but why? For most of their
history, they weren't nations at all. The region is more than the
sum total of its annexations, invasions and independence
declarations. Eastern Europe abounds with peoples tied together by
tragicomic twists of fate. Lives could be turned upside down by
distant decrees from Vienna or Istanbul, or just as easily by a
stubborn bureaucrat in your village. In twentieth-century Khust,
you could live in six different countries without ever leaving your
house. You could get married any day, but buying a teakettle was a
singular event. Goodbye Eastern Europe is a eulogy for a world we
are losing, a vanishing culture of polytheism, vampires, sacred
groves, and movable borders.
|
|
Email address subscribed successfully.
A activation email has been sent to you.
Please click the link in that email to activate your subscription.