1989: a global history of Eastern Europe

Abstract

Central European memory studies. It will make engaging reading for our students who will find all the important information here to start their own research. For more established researchers, the book offers a comprehensive overview of the development in subfields adjacent to their own. Moreover, while the book is not designed to present new research, it is nevertheless interesting to see Blacker’s stance in the major debates in the field. For example, in Chapter 4, he weighs the potential and limitations of engagement with the contentious past via kitsch café culture and expresses his moderate optimism about such endeavours. While it is clear that the book is meticulously researched and that Blacker is an expert in the field, I am not sure about some of the choices that were made in the text. Naturally, each book has limitations: some topics have to go unmentioned, some will be mentioned only in passing. Blacker makes a very valid choice to divorce the chronology of changes in the cityand culturescapes from politics. While I agree with this stance – political thresholds are not cultural thresholds – politics often disappears from the book completely. Offering some more background on the political developments that affected cultural life would be useful. After all, heritage preservationists often rely on government funding and instructions, and authors react to political changes in their novels. Another limitation of the book is a rather declarative interest in the doers of memory, in the activists, authors and curators who challenge (or realize) governmental visions, create new heritage sites, write new books and open new cafes. While the authors and creators are always credited with their work, we very rarely learn anything about them. The environments of their work and the relationships they have with other activists and governments are rarely analysed. Having listed some limitations of Blacker’s book, I want to conclude by saying that Memory, the City and the Legacy of World War II in East Central Europe is a meticulously researched and thought-provoking book. Blacker has endeavoured to connect perspectives from multiple different fields and has done it successfully. His book will serve our students (and us) well.