| Contents |
Socialism as Sinnwelt : communist dictatorship and its world of meaning in a cultural-historical perspective / Martin Sabrow -- Neither consent nor opposition : Eigen-Sinn, or, How to make sense of compliance and self-assertion under communist domination / Thomas Lindenberger -- Policeman Nicolae : the story of one man's life and work in the Socialist Republic of Romania (1960-89) / Ciprian Cirniala -- The East German reporting system : normality and legitimacy through bureaucracy / Hedwig Richter -- Late communist elites and the demise of state socialism in Czechoslovakia (1986-1989) / Michal Pullmann -- Local self-governance, voluntary practices, and the Sinnwelt of socialist Velenje / Ana Kladnik -- Modern housekeeping worlds; or, How much is thirty percent really? : Eigensinnige consumer practices and the Hungarian trade union's "washing machine campaign" of 1957-58 / Annina Gagyiova -- Single mothers, lonely children : Polish families, socialist modernity, and the experience of crisis of the late 1970s and 1980s / Barbara Klich-Kluczewska -- "Since Makarenko the time for experiments has passed" : peace, gender, and human rights in East Berlin during the 1980s / Celia Donert -- Problems with progress in late socialist Czechoslovakia : the example Most, North Bohemia / Mat̐uej Spurn̐uy -- Authentic community and autonomous individual : making sense of socialism in late socialist Hungary / P̐ueter Apor -- The "will to publicity" and its publicists : curating the memory of Czechoslovak Samizdat / Jonathan Larson -- Dissident legalism : human rights, socialist legality, and the birth of legal resistance in the 1970s democratic opposition in Czechoslovakia and Poland / Michal Kope̐ucek. |
| Abstract |
"How did political power function in the communist regimes of Central and Eastern Europe after 1945? Making Sense of Dictatorship addresses this question with a particular focus on the acquiescent behavior of the majority of the population until, at the end of the 1980s, their rejection of state socialism and its authoritarian world. The authors refer to the concept of Sinnwelt, the way in which groups and individuals made sense of the world around them. The essays focus on the dynamics of everyday life and the extent to which the relationship between citizens and the state was collaborative or antagonistic. Each chapter addresses a different aspect of life in this period, including modernization, consumption and leisure, and the everyday experiences of "ordinary people," single mothers, or those adopting alternative lifestyles. Empirically rich and conceptually original, the essays in this volume suggest new ways to understand how people make sense of everyday life under dictatorial regimes"-- Provided by publisher. |
| Bibliography note | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| Language | Selections translated from the Czech and the German. |
| Issued in other form | Online version: Making sense of dictatorship Budapest : Central European University Press, 2021 9789633864289 |
| Genre/form | History. |
| LCCN | 2021039209 |
| ISBN | 9789633864272 |
| ISBN | 9633864275 hardcover |
| ISBN | adobe electronic book |
