Goodbye, Eastern Europe
Goodbye, Eastern Europe: An Intimate History of a Divided Land
Mikanowski, Jacob
Notes:
But tales— stories, rumors, and folksongs expose what these events meant. They can get to the heart of what it was like to experience the horrors of the fascist anti-utopia, the brief elation and prolonged terror of Stalinism, the stasis and scarcity of late socialism, and the sudden evaporation of solid values that accompanied the arrival of capitalism.
This relatively hands-off style of rule practiced by the Eastern European empires was born of pragmatism. Social divisions were not a flaw to be overcome but a tool to be used. In these realms, universal citizenship did not exist. People lived not as individuals but as parts of wider social estates, each of which came with its own set of privileges and prohibitions. Everyone was discriminated against to some extent, except for the sultan or czar. Everyone also had a function. To most people, before the arrival of modernity, the idea of equality before the law was unthinkable. What mattered most in life was to be allowed to fulfill their role undisturbed.