Goodbye, Eastern Europe

With the fall of the Iron Curtain, the disappearance of Eastern Europe began. But her past should not be forgotten.

Eastern Europe may never have existed. It is more of a designation for a territory that the West does not really understand, or perhaps an abbreviation for an overly complicated and complex past. Therefore, everyone escapes Eastern Europe in their own way: Nations are emancipating themselves, ethnicities and cultures are writing their own histories, states are joining entities like the European Union, forming new regional identities like Central Europe or the Western Balkans — and all remaining differences are being erased by globalization. A walk through Prague, Tallinn, Moscow or Bucharest today is not much different from visiting any other world metropolis. And yet — everyone knows what Eastern Europe is. Or rather, she was. The book Goodbye, Eastern Europe captures this idea, image, and space. It maps the intertwining of myths and various religions, the mixing of pagans, Jews, Christians and Muslims. It tells the story of its turbulent and cruel political history and describes how the idea of Eastern Europe has influenced history and our present.