This monograph traces the history of the dissident as a transnational phenomenon, exploring Soviet dissidents in Communist Central Europe from the mid-1960s until 1989. It argues that our understanding of the transnational activist would not be what it is today without the input of Central European oppositionists and ties the term to the global emergence and evolution of human rights. The book examines how we define dissidents and explores the association of political resistance to authoritarian regimes, as well as the impact of domestic and international recognition of the dissident figure. Turning to literature to analyse the meaning and impact of the dissident label, the book also incorporates interviews and primary accounts from former activists. Combining a unique theoretical approach with new empirical material, this book will appeal to students and scholars of contemporary history, politics and culture in Central Europe.

"In addition to the huge list of written sources from samizdat works to recent essays, Falk's sources include interviews with many personalities of those events as well as videos and films."--Jacket.

This volume examines to what extent the positive atmosphere created by the Helsinki Accords contributed to the change in political circumstances seen in the countries of Central Europe, under Soviet domination. It focuses in particular on - firstly - a consequent new impetus to bolster human rights in international politics, as Western democracies - especially the US - integrated human rights concerns into its foreign policy relations with Soviet Bloc countries and - secondly – how this Western embrace of human rights seemed to create new incentives for increased dissident activity in Central and Eastern Europe and from 1976 onward. Finally, the book reminds us of the significant role of the Helsinki Accords in developing democratic practices in Eastern European societies under Soviet domination in 1975-1989 and in creating the conditions for the peaceful transition to democratic government in the years that followed. This book will be of key interest to scholars and students of the history of communism, post-Soviet, Russian, and central and East European politics, the history of human rights, and democratization.

Worlds of Dissent analyzes the myths of Central European resistance popularized by Western journalists and historians, and replaces them with a picture of the struggle against state repression as the dissidents themselves understood, debated, and lived it. In the late 1970s, when Czech intellectuals, writers, and artists drafted Charter 77 and called on their government to respect human rights, they hesitated to name themselves "dissidents." Their personal and political experiences--diverse, uncertain, nameless--have been obscured by victory narratives that portray them as larger-than-life heroes who defeated Communism in Czechoslovakia. Jonathan Bolton draws on diaries, letters, personal essays, and other first-person texts to analyze Czech dissent less as a political philosophy than as an everyday experience. Bolton considers not only Václav Havel but also a range of men and women writers who have received less attention in the West--including Ludvík Vaculík, whose 1980 diary The Czech Dream Book is a compelling portrait of dissident life. Bolton recovers the stories that dissidents told about themselves, and brings their dilemmas and decisions to life for contemporary readers. Dissidents often debated, and even doubted, their own influence as they confronted incommensurable choices and the messiness of real life. Portraying dissent as a human, imperfect phenomenon, Bolton frees the dissidents from the suffocating confines of moral absolutes. Worlds of Dissent offers a rare opportunity tounderstand the texture of dissent in a closed society.

This book is the first concentrated effort to explore the most recent chapter of East Central European past from the perspective of intellectual history. Post-socialism can be understood both as a period of scarcity and preponderance of ideas, the dramatic eclipsing of the dissident legacy?as well as the older political traditions?and the rise of technocratic and post-political governance. This book, grounded in empirical research sensitive to local contexts, proposes instead a history of adaptations, entanglements, and unintended consequences. In order to enable and invite comparison, the volume is structured around major domains of political thought, some of them generic (liberalism, conservatism, the Left), others (populism and politics of history) deemed typical for post-socialism. However, as shown by the authors, the generic often turns out to be heavily dependent on its immediate setting, and the typical resonates with processes that are anything but vernacular.

Ukrainian dissident Myroslav Marynovych recounts his involvement in the Brezhnev-era human rights movement in the Soviet Union and his resulting years as a political prisoner in Siberia and in internal exile.

In contrast to the dissident movements of Eastern Europe, the East German movement remained committed to the 'revisionist' reform of the communist regime. This book tries to explain why. It is argued that the peculiarities of German history and culture prevented the possibility of a 'national' opposition to communism. As a result, East German dissidents had to remain in a paradoxical way 'loyal' to the old regime.

Theatre in Eastern and Central Europe was never the same after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. In the transition to a postcommunist world, “alternative theatre” found ways to grapple with political chaos, corruption, and aggressive implementation of a market economy. Three decades later, this volume is the first comprehensive examination of alternative theatre in ten former communist countries. The essays focus on companies and artists that radically changed the language and organization of theatre in the countries formerly known as the Eastern European bloc. This collection investigates the ways in which postcommunist alternative theatre negotiated and embodied change not only locally but globally as well. Contributors: Dennis Barnett, Dennis C. Beck, Violeta Decheva, Luule Epner, John Freedman, Barry Freeman, Margarita Kompelmakher, Jaak Rahesoo, Angelina Ros ̧ca, Ban ̧uta Rubess, Christopher Silsby, Andrea Tompa, S. E. Wilmer

The nearly forgotten story of Soviet dissidents It has been nearly three decades since the collapse of the Soviet Union—enough time for the role that the courageous dissidents ultimately contributed to the communist system's collapse to have been largely forgotten, especially in the West. This book brings to life, for contemporary readers, the often underground work of the men and women who opposed the regime and authored dissident texts, known as samizdat, that exposed the tyrannies and weaknesses of the Soviet state both inside and outside the country. Peter Reddaway spent decades studying the Soviet Union and got to know these dissidents and their work, publicizing their writings in the West and helping some of them to escape the Soviet Union and settle abroad. In this memoir he captures the human costs of the repression that marked the Soviet state, focusing in particular on Pavel Litvinov, Larisa Bogoraz, General Petro Grigorenko, Anatoly Marchenko, Alexander Podrabinek, Vyacheslav Bakhmin, and Andrei Sinyavsky. His book describes their courage but also puts their work in the context of the power struggles in the Kremlin, where politicians competed with and even succeeded in ousting one another. Reddaway's book takes readers beyond Moscow, describing politics and dissident work in other major Russian cities as well as in the outlying republics.

Winner of the Foundations of Political Theory First Book Prize Honorable Mention, 2001Theory meets practice in The Philosophy and Politics of Czech Dissidence from Patocka to Havel, a critical study of the philosophy and political practice of the Czech dissident movement Charter 77. Aviezer Tucker examines how the political philosophy of Jan Patocka (1907-1977), founder of Charter 77, influenced the thinking and political leadership of Vaclav Havel as dissident and president. The Philosophy and Politics of Czech Dissidence from Patocka to Havel is the first serious treatment of Havel as philosopher and Patocka as a political thinker. Through the Charter 77 dissident movement in Czechoslovakia, opponents of communism based their civil struggle for human rights on philosophic foundations, and members of the Charter 77 later led the Velvet Revolution. After Patocka's self-sacrifice in 1977, Vaclav Havel emerged a strong philosophical and political force, and he continued to apply Patocka's philosophy in order to understand the human condition under late communism and the meaning of dissidence. However, the political/philosophical orientation of the Charter 77 movement failed to provide President Havel with an adequate basis for comprehending and responding to the extraordinary political and economic problems of the postcommunist period. In his discussion of Havel's presidency and the eventual corruption of the Velvet Revolution, Tucker demonstrates that the weaknesses in Charter 77 member's understanding of modernity, which did not matter while they were dissidents, seriously harmed their ability to function in a modern democratic system. Within this context, Tucker also examines Havel's recent attempt to topple the democratic but corrupt government in 1997-1998. The Philosophy and Politics of Czech Dissidence from Patocka to Havel will be of interest to students of philosophy and politics, scholars and students of Slavic studies, and historians, as well as anyone fascinated by the nature of dissidence.