GOODBYE EASTERN EUROPE
An Intimate History of a Divided Land
Ranging from Ukraine to the Czech Republic and from the Baltic states to the Balkans, ‘Eastern Europe is a land in-between’, argues writer and academic Jacob Mikanowski in his perceptive new book. Spanning some 2,000 years, Goodbye Eastern Europe takes an appealingly wide-ranging and eclectic approach to this region of shifting borders and multi-layered identities. There are illuminating accounts of everything from life in Jewish shtetls (small towns), the exploits of
Uskok pirates in the Adriatic and the importance of honour, duelling and uniforms among Habsburg army officers to the role of bakeries in the expansion of the Ottoman Empire, the Ruthenian Alphabet War between proponents of Cyrillic and Latin, and the diverse makeup of the great 1930s Romanian football team Ripensia. Eastern Europe’s history is also brought to life through figures such as Sari Saltik, ‘the pre-eminent folk hero of Balkan Islam’, and Stefan Răzvan, who became a
Polish army colonel, a Romanian nobleman, a Cossack commander and, eventually, after overthrowing the Prince of Moldavia, ‘the first (and, possibly, only) Roma head-of-state in history’.
Mikanowski, whose Polish parents emigrated to the USA, weaves in elements of his family history, drawing on its Jewish and Catholic heritage, alongside his travels in the region. The result is a captivating and revealing book. Arranged thematically, it initially focuses on religions – Catholicism, Orthodox Christianity, Judaism and Islam, not to mention long traditions of paganism and non-conformism – before exploring empires, nations and communities. Later, it moves on to the turbulent 20th century, whose ‘storms... destroyed the age-old fabric of Eastern European life’.
A vein of wry, ironic humour, which is itself characteristic of the region, runs through the book. As the author notes, ‘amidst all our differences, there is another legacy Eastern Europeans share in common, and that is a gift for seeing comedy amidst tragedy’.