Eastern Europe

Goodbye, Eastern Europe is a masterful narrative about a place that has survived the brink of being forgotten. Beginning with long-lost accounts of early pagan life, Mikanowski offers a kaleidoscopic tour recounting the rise and fall of the great empires—Ottoman, Hapsburg, and Russian—the dawn of the modern era, the ravages of fascism and communism, as well as capitalism, the birth of the modern nation-state, and more.

From the author of The Habsburgs and The Middle Kingdoms, a lively, 1,500-year history of the shifting borders, imperial conflicts, and cultural fusions on Europe’s eastern edge. In Eastern Europe, historian Martyn Rady traces the long history of Europe’s eastern borderlands, showing how...

The story of Eastern Europe is one of successes and failures, competing interests, and the rise and fall of states and empires. The ancient Greek and Roman empires knew the importance of Eastern Europe for trade and settlement. The medieval period would see some of the greatest empires of European history, like Kievan Rus, the Bulgarian Empire, Serbia, and the German Crusader states. By the early modern period, these great states would be replaced by Russia, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and the Ottoman Empire.

In his latest voyage of discovery, Michael Palin reads his own account of a journey into a "new" Europe. He starts with a simple idea: that only a couple of hours from home is a half of Europe that is for him as unknown and unexplored as the plateau of Tibet or the vastness of the Sahara.

Yugoslavia was arguably one of the most unusual geopolitical creations of the 20th century. The Yugoslav state had never existed in any historical sense, and the ties that bound together its constituent peoples were tenuous at best. Although nominally all “Slavs,” the country was an amalgamation of languages, alphabets, cultures, religions, and traditions, which ensured its short existence was littered with splits, conflicts, and shocking violence. In a sense, it’s somewhat surprising that it lasted as long as it did.

Whereas for much of human history slavery was somewhat arbitrary, in its later forms, it often had a discriminatory component, typically based on race, ethnicity, nationality, or religion. This distinction shows how the practitioners of slavery justified the practice in terms of ideology, and Slavic people were discriminated against within the Ottoman Empire. Slavs had lived in the lands of today’s Eastern European region for centuries.

At the 1919 Paris Peace Conference, where the victorious Allied powers met to reenvision the map of Europe in the aftermath of World War I, President Woodrow Wilson's influence on the remapping of borders was profound. But despite his deep involvement in the region's geopolitical transformation, President Wilson never set eyes on Eastern Europe, and never traveled to a single one of the eastern lands whose political destiny he so decisively influenced.

A New York Times Bestseller The definitive history of Ukraine from antiquity to today. “An admirable new history.... In his elegant and careful exposition of Ukraine’s past, Mr. Plokhy has also provided some signposts to the future.” ―Economist As Ukraine is embroiled in an ongoing...

Lost princesses, a queen who dethroned her own husband, the country that defeated Napoleon, and a dog who went to space—these are just a few of the fascinating aspects of Russian history.

During the Cold War, stories of espionage became popular on both sides of the Iron Curtain, capturing the imagination of readers and filmgoers alike as secret police quietly engaged in surveillance under the shroud of impenetrable secrecy. And curiously, in the post-Cold War period there are no signs of this enthusiasm diminishing.

In light of Russia's aggressive 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Goodbye, Eastern Europe is a crucial, elucidative read, a sweeping epic chronicling a thousand years of strife, war, and bloodshed, from pre-Christianity to the fall of Communism—illuminating the remarkable cultural significance and...

The three tales in this audiobook are adapted from stories told by the peasants in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. They are drawn from some books I found in shops when I visited the former USSR in 1988 as part of a citizen diplomacy group. I was intrigued by these folktales, since my paternal grandmother lived for some time in Odessa in the Ukraine. Also, I found these stories share a common theme - the poor peasant is able to succeed despite obstacles against an unfair ruler.

If you want to discover the captivating history of Europe, then this audiobook might be what you're looking for. It includes five books that cover topics like ancient history, influence of ancient Greece and Rome, fall of the Roman Empire, the Renaissance, important events, and much more.

Eighteen years have passed since ten countries from Central & Eastern Europe joined the European Union and more than three decades since the Berlin Wall was torn down in 1989 - but ignorance about what is popularly still called Eastern Europe is as widespread as ever. Slovenia still gets mixed...

Through the story of one family in post-Soviet Lviv, The Apartment on Lepky Street is the story of a city and a nation grappling with the meaning of homeland and history, narrated by an inimitably charming abandoned dog. The story follows three generations of the family of an old Soviet military...

Etwas mehr als dreihundert Jahre, vom 17. bis zum frühen 20. Jahrhundert, beherrschten die Zaren und – in seltenen, aber unvergesslichen Fällen – die Zarinnen aus der Familie der Romanows die politische Landschaft ihrer Zeit und schmiedeten eine der sagenhaftesten Dynastien aller Zeiten. Russland, der große und mächtige Nationalstaat, wie wir ihn heute kennen, wurde größtenteils durch die Anstrengungen von Romanow-Herrschern wie Peter dem Großen oder Katharina der Großen geschaffen.

“Trouble in the Balkans” was a familiar headline in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, as the European nations living under the rule of the Ottoman Empire simmered with nationalism, unrest, and a covetous yearning for one another’s territory. The Ottoman Empire had seen centuries of dominance, but by the start of the twentieth century, the once-powerful Turks were declining. As reformers within the empire sought routes to power, Ottoman subjects—denied access to the avenues of influence—sensed that the time was ripe for rebelling.

This interdisciplinary study offers a comprehensive analysis of the transition economies of Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Providing full historical context and drawing on a wide range of literature, this book explores the continuous economic and social transformation of the post-socialist world. While the future is yet to be determined, understanding the present phase of transformation is critical.

Between 1846 and 1940, more than 50 million Europeans moved to the Americas, irrevocably changing both their new lands and the ones they left behind. Their immigration fostered an idea of the "land of the free", yet more than a third returned home again. In a groundbreaking study, Tara Zahra brilliantly explores the deeper story of this unprecedented movement of people.

Ruling Russia for a little over 300 years, from the 17th to the early 20th centuries, the Romanov tsars, and in rare but unforgettable cases, empresses, dominated the political landscapes of their times and forged one of the most legendary dynasties of all time.