
New Books in Eastern European Studies
Interviews with Scholars of Eastern Europe about their New Books Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/eastern-european-studies
Show episodes

Lilia Topouzova, "Unsilencing: The History and Legacy of the Bulgarian Gulag" (Cornell UP, 2025)
Not many people know that Bulgaria's forced prison camp was in operation throughout the communist regime from 1945 to 1989. In Unsilencing: The History and Legacy of the Bulgarian Gulag (Cornell UP, 2025), University of Toronto history professor Lilia Topouzova traces the silences and testimonials of former victims, an
In this episode, we sit down with Director and Producer Diana Nicolae and Editor and Camera Matt Jozwiakowski to discuss their documentary film, "Between Silence and Sin." The film explores the life and work of dissident Romanian poet Ana Blandiana, an artist whose voice was threatened, censored, and banned under the C

Andrew Long, "BRIXMIS and the Secret Cold War: Intelligence Collecting Operations Behind Enemy Lines in East Germany" (Pen and Sword, 2024)
The German Democratic Republic, or East Germany, was the frontline in the Cold War, packed with hundreds of thousands of Soviet and East German troops armed with the latest Warsaw Pact equipment, lined up along the 1,400 km Inner German Border. However, because of the repressive East German police state, little human i

Peter Whitewood, "The Soviet-Polish War and its Legacy: Lenin’s Defeat and the Rise of Stalinism" (Bloomsbury, 2023)
This detailed study traces the history of the Soviet-Polish War (1919-20), the first major international clash between the forces of communism and anti-communism, and the impact this had on Soviet Russia in the years that followed. It reflects upon how the Bolsheviks fought not only to defend the fledgling Soviet state
World War II as an Identity Project (Ibidem, 2022) explores the relationship between history, legitimacy, and violence in the building and breaking of nations and states on the territory of contemporary Ukraine during the Second World War and in its aftermath. At its center are various institutions of the Soviet state.

Vuk Vuksanovic, "Serbia’s Balancing Act: Between Russia and the West" (Bloomsbury, 2025)
Even before its rebirth as a nation in the 1990s, Serbia had acquired a reputation abroad as Russia’s stalwart Slavic ally in the Western Balkans. Yet, as Vuk Vuksanović argues in Serbia’s Balancing Act: Between Russia and the West (Bloomsbury, 2025), two centuries of history and the 25 years since the fall of Slobodan