Reviews: E. Europe History Books
'Assumptions and Misunderstandings' and 'The Unknown Gulag'
Two recently published Eastern European history books - one academic book and one memoir - make great reading for two periods in Ukrainian and Russian history.
Assumptions and Misunderstandings: A Memoir of an Unwitting Spy by Anne Bates Linden is a book about the author's Peace Corps experience in newly independent Ukraine in the early 1990s. Linden's encounters and frustrations will be familiar to anyone who traveled in Eastern Europe just after the fall of the Soviet Union. To those who do not have first-hand knowledge of what Ukraine was like during this turbulent period in history, Linden's book does a great job of describing seemingly endless bread lines, shoddy infrastructure, and the inexplicably apathetic attitudes of those in control in post-Soviet Ukraine.
Proceeds from Assumptions and Misunderstandings will help fund one of Linden's current projects. She is currently working to improve conditions in orphanages and boardings schools for children with special needs in Ukraine. The facilities for children there are in need of renovations and repairs, including new roofing and a septic system. Her site, Ukraine Works describes these projects in greater detail. If you would like to help, purchase a book (which would make great summer reading or a gift for someone else), or contribute directly through the site.
The Unknown Gulag: The Lost World of Stalin's Special Settlementsby Lynne Viola, is a well-researched and important history about the process of "dekulakization" of the Soviet Union. This process, by which Stalin and his lackeys sought to eliminate a class of people, has been given little attention due to the extreme levels of classification under which documents regarding the special settlements were placed. Viola details the failures of the Stalin regime to recreate the kulaks into convenient industrial labor and highlights the human misery that ensued - some occuring through deliberate acts of the local soviets, some occuring through simple indifference from leading Soviet authorities.
