History and Culture of Central and Eastern Europe Since 1945

Catalog description

This core history course explores the extraordinary story of accommodation, resistance, and oppression in Central and Eastern European societies during the second half of the 20th century and the crucial role that cultural and intellectual forces played from the period of fascist and wartime occupation, through the communist period to the overthrow of communism and the development of new societies in the period 1985 to the present. The course interweaves film from Poland, the Czech and Slovak Republics, and Hungary, historical texts and documents, and memoirs and writings of key dissident intellectuals, such as Vaclav Havel.