Jacob Mikanowski is a historian, author, and journalist whose book Goodbye, Eastern Europe: An Intimate History of a Divided Land is out now.

In this episode, we first touch on reasons why people believe that Eastern Europe is backward and why it’s ignored. We touch on the paradox of this by showcasing some important philosophical and literary contributions of this part of the world. We then discuss the legacy of this history in the post-socialist world and the reasons why the pro-democratic sentiment was lost in the 1990s. To contrast this democratic backsliding, we look at how Central and Eastern European countries led the way for Ukrainian support after Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022. Lastly, we address what “the end of history” could actually look like in this part of the world.

You can purchase Jacob Mikanowski’s book here: https://shorturl.at/nBCEN

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Professor Hana Kubatova teaches at the Faculty of Social Sciences at Charles University. Her main research interests are the Holocaust and its aftermath, topographies of violence, how ideas and ideologies travel, political religions, and more.

Prof. Kubatova is the author of The Jew in Czech and Slovak Imagination, 1938-89: Antisemitism, the Holocaust, and Zionism and Nepokrades!: Nalady a Postoje Slovenske Spolecnosti k Zidovske Otazce, 1938-1945.

Her upcoming book’s previous title was Where the Foxes Say Goodnight: Christian Nationalism and the Making of the Holocaust in Slovakia. The present working title is Christian Nationalism Nation-building and the Making of the Holocaust in Slovakia. It is set to be published in 2025 by Oxford University Press.

Small note: we do not touch on this change in the title until the end of the episode, so bear that in mind when listening.

The overall theme of this episode is on Slovakia’s role in the Holocaust and how that history has been revised since 1945. I hope you enjoy.

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David Dube is a Ph.D. student in Political Science at McGill University and a member of the Centre for International Peace and Security Studies. His research interests revolve around Central, Eastern European and Eurasian political trajectories, democratization, and the development of computational methods and artificial intelligence as tools of social inquiry.

In this episode, we first address why academics and analysts use colonialism to depict Soviet Russia’s relationship with Soviet Ukraine. Then we talk about whether there is validity to looking at history or political science through nationalist perspectives. We further discuss some examples where there is a tendency to revise the history of the region. Lastly, we briefly touch on Alexei Navalny’s death. In particular, we contemplate if there is hope to have a Russian opposition to Putin that does not have to fall into similar Russian imperialist beliefs about its history. I hope you enjoy.

For those who might be interested, here is some further reading:

The mentioned book by Sheila Fitzpatrick: Everyday Stalinism: Ordinary Life in Extraordinary Times: Soviet Russia in the 1930s: https://shorturl.at/vGRV2

And here is a book on the famine of 1930-33 (Ukrainians call the "Holodomor") in Kazakhstan that we briefly mentioned in the episode as well: The Hungry Steppe: Famine, Violence, and the Making of Soviet Kazakhstan: https://shorturl.at/wIQ15

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Professor Matthew Slaboch is an assistant professor in the School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership at Arizona State University and author of “A Road to Nowhere: The Idea of Progress and Its Critics.”

In this episode, we first address whether Putin has any Russian leaders he models his leadership after. Then we talk about the assumption that there is something fundamental in Russians and post-communist citizens that makes them more sympathetic to authoritarian leaders. Prof. Slaboch establishes the difference between Russian national identity and post-communist legacies. We then briefly look at why citizens look up to leaders and whether there is something unique in Russians looking up to leaders who were oppressive to their own people. Lastly, we talk about Putin’s emergence as an antidote to Boris Yeltsin in Russia. I hope you enjoy.

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Dr. Zuzana Palovic is an author, scholar, and the founder and co-director of Global Slovakia, an NGO dedicated to creating unique and bilingual content that communicates Slovakia’s story to a wider international audience, including its diaspora around the Globe.

In this episode, we talk about all things related to Czech and Slovak migration in the late 19th, 20th, and 21st century. First, we talk about Dr. Palovic’s own experience as a refugee from Czechoslovakia in the 1980s coming to Canada. Then we talk about the various waves of Slovak and Czech migration to the New World before the founding of the First Czechoslovak Republic and after during Nazi and Soviet tutelage. Lastly, we look at how migration changed in 2004 with the EU enlargement that would include Slovakia, the Czech R., Poland, Hungary, the Baltic countries, and others. Please enjoy.

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From professors to journalists to delegates and excellent graduate students, the podcast has by far exceeded our expectations. ⁣⁣Thank you for hopping along for the ride in 2023.

In 2023, our discussions have covered topics from political extremism in Slovakia, bad governance in Russia, independent journalism in Eastern Europe, POWs in Ukraine, to the political history of Ukraine and the Czech R., Holocaust revisionism in Eastern Europe, and so much more. ⁣⁣And we already have a number of guests lined up for 2024, including authors of excellent books on Eastern and Central European history, professors of the region, and various analysts.

For the holiday break, we thought we would reupload one of our favorite interviews from 2023. Thanks again for listening and I hope you enjoy Prof. Jelena Subotic's thoughts on Holocaust revisionism in Eastern Europe -- a topic that will never lose relevance and importance.

Happy holidays. Wishing you all only the best in the new year.

⁣⁣

Professor Jelena Subotic teaches in the Department of Political Science at Georgia State University. Her latest book and a book that we’ll broadly be discussing here, Yellow Star, Red Star: Holocaust Remembrance after Communism won a host of prizes; I couldn't recommend it enough. She is also the author of Hijacked Justice: Dealing with the Past in the Balkans.

We discuss Holocaust remembrance more generally and why it only started to be understood and studied in the 1960s. Then we address Holocaust revisionism and denialism in the context of Hungarian, Polish, and Ukrainian narratives. Although, we also briefly touch on the Slovakian, Lithuanian, and Yugoslav cases. In particular, we look at how the House of Terror Museum in Budapest, the Warsaw Uprising Museum in Warsaw, and other commemorating projects that misrepresent Eastern European collaboration with Nazis. We look at the Polish case of Jedwabne where 1,600 Jewish citizens were killed at the hands of their neighbors without command from the German occupiers. We then touch on Slovakia’s puppet fascist state and how Slovakians misinterpret this history. Finally, Prof. Subotic addresses if there are indeed cases where countries properly reckon with their fascist pasts.

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Catherine Girard is a Ph.D. student in Political Science with a focus on Security and Strategic Studies at Masaryk University’s Faculty of Social Studies in Brno, Czech Republic. Her research focuses on the far-right with particular emphasis on gender, radicalization, and extremism. She’s also teaching a course on academic writing at Masaryk University. She completed her master’s degree in Conflict and Democracy Studies. She’s also been the Communication Manager at GLOBSEC for some time now, where we originally met.

In this episode, we’re discussing a paper by Catherine, titled “Podcast Patriots: How Far-Right Women Podcasters Shaped the Narrative Around the January 6 Insurrection.” First, we talk about the role women played (or did not play) in the Insurrection itself. We talk about how women podcasters radicalized and also softened anti-democratic and undemocratic messaging in the days and weeks after the Insurrection online. We then address how they view feminism. Lastly, we look at the influence of similar podcasts in the region.

Catherine is a good friend and I know you will all benefit from the many insightful things she has to say on this issue.

P.S. We briefly mention the book “Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male Is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What to Do about It,” by Richard V. Reeves (2022). Here’s a link to the book: https://shorturl.at/ptCL7

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Michaela Terenzani is the former editor-in-chief of The Slovak Spectator from 2007 to 2023. Presently, she is the leading editor of the foreign news desk for Sme Daily. She studied journalism in Trnava and in Aarhus, Denmark. In 2009, she received a joint MA degree in Euroculture from the University of Groningen and the Jagiellonian University in Krakow. You can also find her work on contemporary politics in Slovakia in her weekly newsletter, Last Week in Slovakia.

In this episode, we talk about what Robert Fico’s return to Slovakian politics might mean to the state of the freedom of the press in Slovakia. We also touch on Fico’s far-right partners, the potential of “revenge politics,” concerns about Fico’s immunity from the law as PM, among other things. I hope you enjoy this episode.

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