Description: This book is about state socialism, not as a political system, but as an "ecosystem" of interactions between the state and the citizens it sought to control
Brief description:
Daniela Koleva is associate professor at the department of history and theory of culture, St. Kliment Ohridski University of Sofia. Her work is widely published in international journals and collective volumes. Additionally, she has written two books in Bulgarian and has edited volumes in Bulgarian and English.
Review Quotes:
"More than 20 years after the sudden demise of the Iron Curtain, it is finally possible to examine everyday experiences of living in socialist Eastern Europe, without the distortions of Cold War ideologies. That is the task of the essays in this volume by women scholars who lived through socialism in Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Czechoslovakia, and parts of the former Yugoslavia (Croatia, Serbia, and Slovenia).... This volume has articles about relations between workers on collective farms and in factories; time management in a socialist school; and the experiences and strategizing of consumption and housing under conditions of chronic intergenerational women's experiences, one in rural settings and one urban. The introduction by editor Koleva is an excellent discussion of the very concept of normality.... [A] useful interesting collection.... Highly recommended."
--R. M. Hayden, Choice
"[A] most welcome addition to an emerging body of literature that discusses various aspects of private and everyday life in Communist times and the ways of remembering life under Communism in the post-socialist era in Eastern Europe. Much of the book, authored exclusively by female scholars, is devoted to women's experiences. . . . [T]he essays in the book are notable for a wide range of diverse themes, organizing concepts, methodological approaches, and source material."
Gyorgy Peteri, Journal of Cold War Studies
"Mainstream historical scholarship has portrayed state-socialism as a heavy handed dictatorial regime, which controlled and managed society in a top-down manner. This book breaks with conventional wisdom by highlighting that 'real' life in socialism was a much more complicated thing and cannot be explained by political impositions only. 'Ordinary' people were negotiating the terms of their livelihoods with the communist rulers and managed to establish something they often considered to be normal. The book gathers illuminating case-studies which are hold together by a clear and original conceptual framework. It should change the ways how we think of this now extinct way to organize society."
--Ulf Brunnbauer, professor, Institute for East and Southeast European Studies, Regensburg, Germany