How We Survived Communism & Even Laughed

By Slavenka Drakulić

Book Overview

This essay collection from renowned journalist and novelist Slavenka Drakulic, which quickly became a modern (and feminist) classic, draws back the Iron Curtain for a glimpse at the lives of Eastern European women under Communist regimes. Provocative, often witty, and always intensely personal, How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed cracks open a paradoxical world that through its rejection of capitalism and commoditization ends up fetishizing both. Examining the relationship between material goods and expressions of happiness and individuality in a society where even bananas were an alien luxury, Drakulic hones in on the eradication of female identity, drawing on her own experiences as well as broader cultural observations. Enforced communal housing that allowed for little privacy, the banishment of many time-saving devices, and a focus on manual labor left no room for such bourgeois affectations as cosmetics or clothes, but Drakulic's remarkable exploration of the reality behind the rhetoric reveals that women still went to desperate lengths to feel "feminine." How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed also chronicles the lingering consequences of such regimes. The Berlin Wall may have fallen, but Drakulic's power pieces testify that ideology cannot be dismantled so quickly; a lifetime lived in fear cannot be so easily forgotten.

• Format: MP3 CD
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0DFSP45HW
• ISBN13: 9798228034358
• Release Date: October 2021
• Publisher: Dreamscape Media

Customer Reviews

How we survived communism review

Book was in the condition that they described and came to me in a timely fashion.

powerful and beautifully-written

I will read this eye-opening book again and again. Historical accounts of communism can't paint the picture that this book has painted. This reads like poetry and is real.

Short stories about women's lives in Eastern bloc countries

Drakulic is a journalist by trade, and as such has a no-nonsense writing style: stark, factual. She interviewed women of various countries and captured stories of what they endured mentally and physically under communist rule. This is one of my favorite books, one I will read again and again, and which I have given copies of to my friends.

A life-changing experience

I was assigned this book in a second-year women's history class when I was an undergraduate...thanks, professor Whitney! Drakulic's attention to the impact of big events on small things, like toilet paper, makeup, and pizza, makes for a startlingly up-close examination of life in post-communist eastern Europe. Ever since that history class, this book has been a touchstone for me. I've passed it along to friends and to both of my parents. It insists that you rethink your ideas about what's "good" and "bad" for feminism, and focuses your attention on the connection between the political, the material, and femininity. Fascinating, wonderfully written, a must-read. I've learned my lesson about lending out my copy...my best friend moved to Texas and took it with her. Of course I must buy another...I just can't be without this book.

Amazingly Perceptive

Slavenka Drakulic's writings are to be savored. Read her collections of essays in chronological order. She is amazingly perceptive and her ideas evolve with every new year of experience.