Apor Balzs, Apor Pter, Rees E.A. (eds.) The Sovietization of Eastern Europe: New Perspectives on the Postwar Period

Washington, D. C.: New Academia Publishing, 2008. — 364 p. — ISBN10: 0980081467; ISBN13: 978-0980081466This collection of essays offers a captivating reading on how East-Central Europe was transformed into the 'Other' Europe. It is the first attempt to systematically explore the sovietization process in Central and Eastern Europe after the Second World War. Sovietization is generally understood in the book as a process with a dual dimension: it was in part an imperial project whereby the Soviet system was exported to the region, but it was also an attempt by the governments of the "people's democracies" to adopt a Soviet way of life (self-sovietization). Sovietization was a process dictated by ideological imperatives, but it also reflected the distinctive aspect of socialist strategies of state and nation building. Sovietization is examined in the book not only in terms of the imposition of new forms of government, but also in terms of the socialist response to modernity, as reflected in approaches to new technology and management, consumption and leisure patterns, religious and educational policy, political rituals and attitudes to the past. The essays contained in the volume explore the diversity and the tensions within the sovietization process in the countries of the region.ForewordTheories of SovietizationIntroduction. The Sovietization of Eastern Europe. E. A. Rees
Sovietization as a Civilizing Mission in the West. Tarik Cyril AmarTechnological SovietizationBetween American Fordism and 'Soviet Fordism': Czechoslovak way towards mass production. Valentina Fava
Sovietization and Missile-ization of the Warsaw Pact, 1958-1965. Matthias UhlConsumerism and Leisure'Der werktatige Verbraucher': Defining the Socialist Consumer. Market research in GDR' 1960s/'70s. Marcello Anselmo
Socialist Recreation? Amateur Film and Photography in the People's Republics of Poland and East Germany. David Crowley
Male Heroes and Female Comrades: The Image of the Russians in Soviet Films in Post-War Berlin. Sibylle MohrmannSovietized RitualsContinuity and Innovation: Itineraries of the May Day Ritual in Czechoslovakia. Roman Krakovsky
Spatial Aspects of the Communist Leader Cult: The Case of Matyas Rakosi in Hungary. Balazs Apor
Mass Gymnastic Performances under Communism: The Case of Czechoslovak Spartakiads. Petr Roubal
Agitation, Organization, Mobilization. The League for Polish-Soviet Friendship in Stalinist Poland. Jan C. BehrendsSovietization and ReligionMechanisms of State Control over Religious Denominations in Romania in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Anca Maria Cincan
Cuius regio eius religio. The Relationship of Communist Authorities with the Catholic Church in Slovenia and Yugoslavia after 1945. Mateja RezekThe Sovietization of HistoryThe Sovietization of Hungarian historiography. Attempts, failures and modifications in the early 1950s. Arpad von Klimo
Marxist History of Historiography in Poland, Czechoslovakia and East Germany (late 1940s - late 1960s). Maciej Gorny
The Origins of Symmetry: A Micro-history of Birth of Communist Historiography in Hungary. Peter AporConclusion: Crisis of the Soviet Model and De-Sovietization. E. A. ReesNotes