Sbohem, východní Evropo - Intimní dějiny rozdělené země – Mikanowski Jacob (2025)

With the fall of the Iron Curtain, Eastern Europe began to disappear. However, its past should not be forgotten. Eastern Europe may have never existed. It is more of a designation for a territory that the West does not understand well, or a shorthand for a too complicated and complex past. Therefore, everyone escapes from Eastern Europe in their own way: nations are emancipating, ethnicities and cultures are writing their own histories, states are joining entities like the European Union, forming new regional identities such as Central Europe or the Western Balkans — and all remaining differences are being erased by globalization. A walk through Prague, Tallinn, Moscow, or Bucharest today does not differ much from a visit to any other world metropolis. And yet — everyone knows what Eastern Europe is. Or rather was. The book Goodbye, Eastern Europe captures this idea, this notion and space, mapping the intertwining of myths and various religions, the mingling of pagans, Jews, Christians, and Muslims, narrating its tumultuous and cruel political history, and depicting how the idea of Eastern Europe has influenced history and our present.