Shadowlands Memory And History In Post-Soviet Estonia [Hardcover]

Located within the forgotten half of Europe, historically trapped between Germany and Russia, Estonia has been profoundly shaped by the violent conflicts and shifting political fortunes of the last century. This innovative study traces the tangled interaction of Estonian historical memory and national identity in a sweeping analysis extending from the Great War to the present day. At its heart is the enduring anguish of World War Two and the subsequent half-century of Soviet rule. Shadowlands tells this story by foregrounding the experiences of the countrys intellectuals, who were instrumental in sustaining Estonian historical memory, but who until fairly recently could not openly grapple with their nations complex, difficult past.

The book presents an elegantly written synthesis of Estonian war and post-war history, which manages the biographical documents with great authority and convincingly conveys the complexity of post-Soviet historical narratives to a broader readership. Sehepunkte

&a fascinating ride through Estonian post-war intellectual and cultural history, told through the personal narratives of historians of different age cohorts. Slavic Review

The book is an elegant synthesis of Estonian war and postwar history, which confidently deals with personal accounts and conveys to a broader readership the complexity of post-soviet historical narrative. Of interest especially for the informed reader is the critical assessment of the struggle for the interpretation of the national memory. Journal of East Central European Studies

The strength of this study lies in its rich contextualization of issues, ranging from the restrictive condition of Soviet history production to subversive cultural memory evident in Andrus Kivirahks work, with Wulfs life-story interviews that give us insights into these historians minds. Those readers who are curioulƒœ