"Goodbye, Lenin?" - Social Change as Wound in Post-socialist Eastern Germany

Author: Bert Bobock

Publisher: GRIN Verlag

Published: 2008-06

Total Pages: 77

ISBN-13: 3638952371

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Seminar paper from the year 2005 in the subject American Studies - Miscellaneous, grade: 1, Brown University (Department of American Civilization), course: Trauma and Shame of the Unspeakable, 20 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: One event that turned "ostalgia" - the term given to the nostalgia felt for East Germany - into an unstoppable popular movement in the spring of 2003 was the overwhelming success of Wolfgang Becker's film, Goodbye, Lenin, a tragicomic satire set during the time of German reunification. Becker's film portrays the East's total dissolution into the West and the resulting fractured identity of East Germans and poses the question: Do the so-called "peaceful revolution" and the major social changes that followed need to be re-evaluated as ultimately traumatizing events? This essay will investigate this issue by applying three contradictory trauma theories by Jeffrey Alexander, Piotr Sztompka and Cathy Caruth to Becker's film and examining whether the film successfully recollects German identity. If so, does the movie, according to Judith Herman's definition of trauma resolution, simultaneously help to resolve a specific East German cultural trauma that has been in a state of latency for more than thirteen years?

German Culture through Film
German Culture through Film

Author: Robert C. Reimer

Publisher: Hackett Publishing

Published: 2017-09-01

Total Pages: 371

ISBN-13: 158510857X

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German Culture through Film: An Introduction to German Cinema is an English-language text that serves equally well in courses on modern German film, in courses on general film studies, in courses that incorporate film as a way to study culture, and as an engaging resource for scholars, students, and devotees of cinema and film history. In its second edition, German Culture through Film expands on the first edition, providing additional chapters with context for understanding the era in which the featured films were produced. Thirty-three notable German films are arranged in seven chronological chapters, spanning key moments in German film history, from the silent era to the present. Each chapter begins with an introduction that focuses on the history and culture surrounding films of the relevant period. Sections within chapters are each devoted to one particular film, providing film credits, a summary of the story, background information, an evaluation, questions and activities to encourage diverse interpretations, a list of related films, and bibliographical information on the films discussed.

Cultural Trauma and Collective Identity
Cultural Trauma and Collective Identity

Author: Jeffrey C. Alexander

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2004-03-22

Total Pages: 326

ISBN-13: 0520235959

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Five sociologists develop a theoretical model of 'cultural trauma' & build a new understanding of how social groups interact with emotion to create new & binding understandings of social responsibility.

Homage to Catalonia
Homage to Catalonia

Author: George Orwell

Publisher: Prabhat Prakashan

Published: 2024-10-24

Total Pages: 228

ISBN-13:

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Step into the heart of revolutionary Spain with George Orwell's powerful account, Homage to Catalonia. In this poignant narrative, Orwell recounts his firsthand experiences fighting in the Spanish Civil War, offering a vivid and deeply personal perspective on the political and social upheaval of the time. Orwell’s writing brings to life the intense struggles, challenges, and betrayals he witnessed as he joined the militia in Catalonia. With sharp clarity, he paints a stark picture of the ideological divides that tore the country apart, and the complexities of war that blurred the lines between friend and foe.But here's the twist that will captivate you: What does Orwell’s experience reveal about the nature of truth, power, and the human spirit during times of war? Can we learn from the past to avoid repeating its mistakes? This extraordinary memoir offers a rare look into the realities of war, filled with unflinching honesty and a deep sense of humanism. Through Orwell’s eyes, the reader gains an intimate understanding of the personal costs of conflict and the difficult choices soldiers had to make. Are you ready to witness the raw, unfiltered truths of war as seen through the eyes of one of history's most influential writers?Dare to immerse yourself in the brutal honesty of Homage to Catalonia and experience a unique chapter of history that continues to resonate today. Purchase it now, and begin your journey through Orwell’s compelling narrative of war, ideology, and survival.

The People's State
The People's State

Author: Mary Fulbrook

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2008-12-02

Total Pages: 470

ISBN-13: 0300176384

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What was life really like for East Germans, effectively imprisoned behind the Iron Curtain? The headline stories of Cold War spies and surveillance by the secret police, of political repression and corruption, do not tell the whole story. After the unification of Germany in 1990 many East Germans remembered their lives as interesting, varied, and full of educational, career, and leisure opportunities: in many ways “perfectly ordinary lives.” Using the rich resources of the newly-opened GDR archives, Mary Fulbrook investigates these conflicting narratives. She explores the transformation of East German society from the ruins of Hitler's Third Reich to a modernizing industrial state. She examines changing conceptions of normality within an authoritarian political system, and provides extraordinary insights into the ways in which individuals perceived their rights and actively sought to shape their own lives. Replacing the simplistic black-and-white concept of “totalitarianism” by the notion of a “participatory dictatorship,” this book seeks to reinstate the East German people as actors in their own history.

Imitation Democracy
Imitation Democracy

Author: Dmitrii Furman

Publisher: Verso Books

Published: 2022-11-22

Total Pages: 209

ISBN-13: 1788733533

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Examines the history and functioning of Russia's post-Soviet political system–an “imitation democracy” After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia under Yeltsin and Putin implemented a political system of “imitation democracy,” marked by “a huge disparity between formal constitutional principles and the reality of authoritarian rule.” How did this system take shape, how else might it have developed, and what are the prospects for re-envisioning it more democratically in the future? These questions animate Dmitrii Furman’s Imitation Democracy, a welcome antidote to books that blandly decry Putin as an omnipotent dictator, without considering his platforms, constituencies, and sources of power. With extensive public opinion polling drawn from throughout the late- and post-Soviet period, and a thorough knowledge of both official and unofficial histories, Furman offers a definitive account of the formation of the modern Russian political system, casting it into powerful relief through comparisons with other post-Soviet states. Peopled with grey technocrats, warring oligarchs, patriots, and provocateurs, Furman’s narrative details the struggles among partisan factions, and the waves of public sentiment, that shaped modern Russia’s political landscape, culminating in Putin’s third presidential term, which resolves the contradiction between the “form” and “content” of imitation democracy, “the formal dependence of power on elections and the actual dependence of elections on power.”

An American Engineer in Stalin's Russia
An American Engineer in Stalin's Russia

Author: Zara Witkin

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2023-11-10

Total Pages: 444

ISBN-13: 0520351088

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In 1932 Zara Witkin, a prominent American engineer, set off for the Soviet Union with two goals: to help build a society more just and rational than the bankrupt capitalist system at home, and to seek out the beautiful film star Emma Tsesarskaia. His memoirs offer a detailed view of Stalin's bureaucracy—entrenched planners who snubbed new methods; construction bosses whose cover-ups led to terrible disasters; engineers who plagiarized Witkin's work; workers whose pride was defeated. Punctuating this document is the tale of Witkin's passion for Tsesarskaia and the record of his friendships with journalist Eugene Lyons, planner Ernst May, and others. Witkin felt beaten in the end by the lethargy and corruption choking the greatest social experiment in history, and by a pervasive evil—the suppression of human rights and dignity by a relentless dictatorship. Finally breaking his spirit was the dissolution of his romance with Emma, his "Dark Goddess." In his lively introduction, Michael Gelb provides the historical context of Witkin's experience, details of his personal life, and insights offered by Emma Tsesarskaia in an interview in 1989.

“Truth Behind Bars”
“Truth Behind Bars”

Author: Paul Kellogg

Publisher: Athabasca University Press

Published: 2021-11-05

Total Pages: 440

ISBN-13: 177199245X

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Just north of the Arctic Circle is the settlement of Vorkuta, a notorious camp in the Gulag internment system that witnessed three pivotal moments in Russian history. In the 1930s, a desperate hunger strike by socialist prisoners, victims of Joseph Stalin’s repressive regime, resulted in mass executions. In 1953, a strike by forced labourers sounded the death knell for the Stalinist forced labour system. And finally, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, a series of strikes by new, independent miners’ unions were central to overturning the Stalinist system. Paul Kellogg uses the story of Vorkuta as a frame with which to re-assess the Russian Revolution. In particular, he turns to the contributions of Iulii Martov, a contemporary of Lenin, and his analysis of the central role played in the revolution by a temporary class of peasants-in-uniform. Kellogg explores the persistence and creativity of workers’ resistance in even the darkest hours of authoritarian repression and offers new perspectives on the failure of democratic governance after the Russian Revolution.

Killing Hope
Killing Hope

Author: William Blum

Publisher:

Published: 2003

Total Pages: 469

ISBN-13: 9780864865601

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Is the United States a force for democracy? From 1940s China to Guatemala today, Blum presents a study of American covert and overt interference in the internal affairs of other countries. Each chapter of the book covers a year in which the author takes one particular country case and tells the story.