CEERES Outreach Library
Through the CEERES Outreach Library, educators from the Chicago area may borrow at no cost books, films, and other learning materials concerned with Eastern Europe, Russia, and Central Asia. These items may be incorporated within classroom activities or used in curricular development. The materials are either available for pick up at the CEERES offices or sent through the mail. The borrower would be responsible for the cost of return postage and insurance. We typically lend material for duration of two weeks. However, on occasion exceptions to this rule can be made. In order to browse the library on site, we ask that you make an appointment. Disclaimer: CEERES does not endorse any of the political opinions that might be expressed in the materials.
To request an item for loan or to arrange an appointment to view the library, please contact Andrew Graan, CEERES Outreach Coordinator at 773-702-0875 or apgraan@uchicago.edu.
GAMES
FOOTSTEPS IN RUSSIA (2005, Mindware) - Ages 12 and Up, for 5 to 8 players
From the publisher: Walk in the footsteps of a citizen of an emerging market, rapidly developing economy country and experience the joys and struggles, hardships and opportunities of their daily life. Follow the main trail, and take the side trails that correspond to your vocation. Just as in real life, you will encounter positive and negative experiences. All plays can win in this game… the goal is to score points and improve you overall standing in three ways: (1) Happiness Points: i.e., marriage of a child, birth of a grandchild, success in your vocation, getting a good education for your children, etc. (2) Fullfillment Points: i.e., learning to read, taking a computer class, teaching others to read or use technology, you children’s success, acquiring a possession you’ve been saving for, etc. (3) Wealth: i.e., money attained through vocational success, wise investments, entrepreneurial opportunities, integrating technology into your business, etc.
FILMS
*New*RUSSIAN FEMINISM: TWENTY YEARS FORWARD (DVD)
2009, 35 min. Written and Produced by Beth Holmgren; Directed by Igor Sopronenko.
This inspiring short film describes the obstacles and successes faced by feminist scholars and activists in establishing women’s studies and the women’s movement in the late Soviet Union and the early post-Soviet period. Based on interviews conducted with key figures in this history, the documentary captures the scholarly and activist exchanges that emerged in the early 1990s and their effect on developing women’s organizations and opening a public conversation about sexism and women’s issues in Russia. The documentary also looks critically at the role of foreign funding within the women’s movement during the 1990s and also at the new challenges faced by women in the Putin-Medvedev era.
MUSIC
*New* MUSICAL TREASURES OF THE BUKHARIAN JEWISH COMMUNITY compiled by Ezra Malakov (7 CDs)
2007. A seven CD box-set with book of music and lyrics. This remarkable collection represents a thorough overview of the religious and folk music of the Bukharian Jewish Community, once based in Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and elsewhere in Central Asia. Collected by Ezra Malakov, an accomplished musician and performer from Uzbekistan, this box-set is a delightful way to introduce music lovers, both young and old, to the musical traditions of Central Asia. It is the perfect accompaniment to learning units on folk music, world music, the Silk Road, Central Asia, the successor states to the Soviet Union, and world religion. Listen, Learn, and Enjoy!
BOOKS
GIRL OF KOSOVO by Alice Mead (2003, Dell Yearling) – for Ages 10-Up.
From Publishers Weekly: As in her Adem's Cross, Mead places a human face on the Kosovo crisis by focusing on an Albanian family ravaged by war. Even after her father and brothers are killed and her leg is gravely injured in a Serb attack, 11-year-old Zana, the narrator, struggles to heed her father's advice: "Don't let them fill your heart with hate. Whatever happens." Zana's friendship with a Serbian girl, Lena, and her trip behind enemy lines to a hospital in Belgrade provide Zana with evidence of kindness to weigh against the brutality in the Serb faction, while her cowardly KLA uncle Vizar illuminates weaknesses among the Albanians. Mead puts the war into a context that young readers will understand. The family watches sports on ESPN and Zana's brother plays Nintendo; at the same time, they bury guns and food and sleep in their clothes, poised to retreat. Through Zana, the author stresses the random cruelty of the war in Kosovo, and her anger stretches to include foreign journalists: "How was it that foreigners could come take pictures of us when we were dead, but couldn't come to help us stay alive? I wanted to let the air out of their fancy tires so they would be stuck here, trapped the way we were." The ending is a little convenient (Zana helps save Lena's family from the vengeful hatred of their Albanian neighbors), but most readers will find the story powerful and hard-hitting. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
A CONCISE HISTORY OF BULGARIA, 2nd Edition by R.J. Crampton (2005, Cambridge University Press)
From the back cover: Bulgaria is slated to become a member of the European Union in 2007, yet its history is amongst the least well-known in the rest of the continent. R.J. Crampton provides here a general introduction to the country at the crossroads of Christendom and Islam. The text and illustrations trace the rich and dramatic story from prehistory, through the days when Bulgaria was the centre of a powerful mediaeval empire and the five centuries of Ottoman rule, to the cultural renaissance of the nineteenth century and the political upheavals of the twentieth, upheavals which led Bulgaria into three wars. The new and updated edition covers the years from 1995 to 2004, a vital period in which Bulgaria endured financial meltdown, set itself seriously on the road to reform, elected its former king as prime minister, and finally secured membership of NATO and admission to the European Union.
A CONCISE HISTORY OF GREECE, 2nd Edition by Richard Clogg (2002, Cambridge University Press)
From the back cover: Now reissued in a second, updated edition, this book provides a concise, illustrated introduction to the modern history of Greece, from the first stirrings of the national movement in the late eighteenth century to the present day.
Greece in 1830 became the first east European country to win full independence, and in 1981 became the first to achieve membership of the European Community. Not only is her heritage of Orthodox Christianity and Ottoman rule distinctive, but great historical movements such as the Renaissance, the Reformation, the Enlightenment and the French and Industrial Revolutions, which so profoundly influence Western Europe, have largely passed her by. This has resulted in a pattern of historical development and a society markedly different from that of her West European partners. Moreover, for much of the 170 years of her existence as an independent state there have been as many Greeks outside as within the borders of Greece, and large communities of Greek descent are to be found in the United States, Canada, Australia and elsewhere. These factors give a particular interest to the history of a country that is at once Balkan, Mediterranean and European.
A HISTORY OF SLOVAKIA: THE STRUGGLE FOR SURVIVAL by Stanislav J. Kirschbaum (1995, St. Martin’s Press)
From Library Journal: When Czechoslovakia split into two separate nations in 1993, the world shrugged. Compared with the reunification of Germany and the disintegration of Yugoslavia, the creation of Slovakia and the Czech Republic was a minor political development. However, for Slovaks, their independence came after centuries of dominance by other nations. Kirschbaum (political science, York Univ.) has given the Western world the first popular history of Slovakia. Kirschbaum traces the development of Slovak culture from the Great Moravian Empire of the eighth century through the Middle Ages and Hapsburg rule. A Slovakian national identity finally emerged in the 1700s, and Kirschbaum skillfully chronicles the political fortunes of the 19th and 20th centuries. The impact of the world wars and Communist rule is balanced by the exhilaration of the democratic revolution in 1989 and the Slovaks' subsequent autonomy. This is a rich historical work, diligently researched (there are over 600 footnotes) and compellingly written. An important contribution to the literature on Eastern and Central Europe, it is highly recommended for academic or large public libraries.
Thomas Karel, Franklin & Marshall Coll. Lib., Lancaster, Pa.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
*New* COLLAPSE OF AN EMPIRE: LESSONS FOR MODERN RUSSIA by Yegor Gaidar (2007, Brookings Institution Press)
From the inside flap: In today's Russia, nostalgia for the Soviet era is growing. Many Russians reflect wistfully on the passing of an era when the Soviet Union was a superpower, commanding international respect, and they blame its demise on external enemies and foolish changes in policy. In an address to the Russian Federal Assembly, President Vladimir Putin called the breakup of the Soviet Union the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century. In Collapse of an Empire: Lessons for Modern Russia, however, economic reformer and former prime minister Yegor Gaidar clearly illustrates why such notions are misguided, ill informed, and dangerous. As he explains in the introduction: "My goal is to show the reader that the Soviet political and economic system was unstable by its very nature. It was just a question of when and how it would collapse."
Although the Soviet Union never referred to itself as an empire, it fit Gaidar's definition: "a powerful multiethnic state formation in which the power (or at least the right to vote) is concentrated in the metropolis and its democratic institutions (if they exist), though the power and those institutions do not extend to the entire territory under its control." The U.S.S.R. sat on a shaky foundation of far-flung lands, conquered peoples, centralized authoritarian government, and a command economy overly reliant on natural resources. Gaidar explains why this once-powerful state was doomed to fail eventually, and why Russians should be looking forward rather than backward in building their nation. He worries that Russia is repeating some of its tragic mistakes, including uneven economic development that leaves the nation vulnerable to fluctuations in the energy market.
Gaidar uses the Soviet case as a device for understanding the life cycle of empires, which found themselves at the wrong end of history in the twentieth century. World War I spelled the end for the Hapsburgs, Ottomans, and Romanoffs, for example, and Europe's overseas empires began breaking apart after World War II. In the 1990s, the final remaining territorially integrated empire-the Soviet Union-fell. This is no mere coincidence: "The dissolution of empires in the twentieth century is a component of the process of global change that is called modern economic growth." To reproduce such a flawed model of governance would be a tragic mistake, yet many Russians still look backward through rose-colored glasses as their government centralizes power again. Such misplaced nostalgia defies reality while it imperils the future of Russia and its people.
*New* THE OIL AND THE GLORY: THE PURSUIT OF EMPIRE AND FORTUNE ON THE CASPIAN SEA by Steve LeVine (2007, Random House)
From the inside flap: Remote, forbidding, and volatile, the Caspian Sea long tantalized the world with its vast oil reserves. But outsiders, blocked by the closed Soviet system, couldn't get to it. Then the Soviet Union collapsed, and a wholesale rush into the region erupted. Along with oilmen, representatives of the world's leading nations flocked to the Caspian for a share of the thirty billion barrels of proven oil reserves at stake, and a tense geopolitical struggle began. The main players were Moscow and Washington-the former seeking to retain control of its satellite states, and the latter intent on dislodging Russia to the benefit of the West.
The Oil and the Glory is the gripping account of this latest phase in the epochal struggle for control of the earth's "black gold." Steve LeVine, who was based in the region for The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and Newsweek, weaves an astonishing tale of high-stakes political gamesmanship, greed, and scandal, set in one of the most opaque corners of the world. In LeVine's telling, the world's energy giants jockey for position in the rich Kazakh and Azeri oilfields, while superpowers seek to gain a strategic foothold in the region and to keep each other in check. At the heart of the story is the contest to build and operate energy pipelines out of the landlocked region, the key to controlling the Caspian and its oil. The oil pipeline that resulted, the longest in the world, is among Washington's greatest foreign policy triumphs in at least a decade and a half.
Along the way, LeVine introduces such players as James Giffen, an American moneyman who was also the political "fixer" for oil companies eager to do business on the Caspian and the broker for Kazakhstan's president and ministers; John Deuss, the flamboyant Dutch oil trader who won big but lost even bigger; Heydar Aliyev, the oft-misunderstood Azeri president who transcended his past as a Soviet Politburo member and masterminded a scheme to loosen Russian control over its former colonies in the Caspian region; and all manner of rogues, adventurers, and others drawn by the irresistible pull of untold riches and the possible "final frontier" of the fossil-fuel era. The broader story is of the geopolitical questions of the Caspian oil bonanza, such as whether Russia can be a trusted ally and trading partner with the West, and what Washington's entry into this important but chaotic region will mean for its long-term stability.
In an intense and suspenseful narrative, The Oil and the Glory is the definitive chronicle of events that are understood by few, but whose political and economic impact will be both profound and lasting.
A SMALL CORNER OF HELL: DISPATCHES FROM CHECHNYA by Anna Politkovskaya (2003, University of Chicago Press)
From the publisher: The recent murder of Anna Politkovskaya is grim evidence of the danger faced by journalists passionately committed to writing the truth about wars and politics. A longtime critic of the Russian government, particularly with regard to its policies in Chechnya, Politkovskaya was a special correspondent for the liberal Moscow newspaper Novaya gazeta. Beginning in 1999, Politkovskaya authored numerous articles about the war in Chechnya, and she was the only journalist to have constant access to the region.
Politkovskaya's second book on the Chechen War, A Small Corner of Hell, offers an insider's view of this ongoing conflict. In this book, Politkovskaya focuses her attention on those caught in the crossfire. She recounts the everyday horrors of living in the midst of war, examines how the Chechen war has damaged Russian society, and takes a hard look at the ways people on both sides profited from it. Now available in paperback, A Small Corner of Hell ensures that Politkovskaya's words will not be erased.
AN ANTHOLOGY OF RUSSIAN LITERATURE IN THE SOVIET PERIOD: FROM GORKI TOPASTERNAK edited, translated and annotated by Bernard Guilbert Guerney (1960, Random House)
From the back cover: The great tradition of Russian literature did not end abruptly with the Revolution of 1917, but echoed, however tenuously, in the works of a number of authorswho continued to write after the Revolution. The best examples of these Soviet writers are represented here in selections from the works of Gorki, Block, Mayakovsky, Yessenin, Alexis Tolstoi, Babel, Fadeyev, Sobol, Erenburg, Olesha, Greeevsky, Iilf and Petrov, and Pasternak, among others. The anthrology contains short stories and poems as well as a complete novel, Eugene Zamiatin’s We. These new translations are by the editor, Bernard Guilbert Guerney, who has included biographical notes on the authors as well as comments on the various selections.
RUSSIAN ICONS: FROM THE TWELFTH TO THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY Introduction by Victor Lasareff (1962, A Mentor-UNESCO Art Book)
From the back cover: The Mentor-Unesco Art Series brings you MASTERPIECES OF EARLY RUSSIAN ART in full color, finest quality, full-page and double-page reproductions. This handsome volume of Russian icons from the twelfth to the fifteenth century features an informative introduction by authority Victor Lasareff, who discusses the history of the Russian schools of painting, describes the themes of the icons, and studies the artists’ style, composition, and use of color.