Cafe Europa: Life After Communism [Paperback]

Slavenka Drakulic (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0140277722 | ISBN-13: 978-0140277722 | Publication Date: February 1, 1999

Today in Eastern Europe the architectural work of revolution is complete: the old order has been replaced by various forms of free market economy and de jure democracy. But as Slavenka Drakulic observes, "in everyday life, the revolution consists much more of the small things-- of sounds, looks and images." In this brilliant work of political reportage, filtered through her own experience, we see that Europe remains a divided continent. In the place of the fallen Berlin Wall there is a chasm between East and West, consisting of the different way people continue to live and understand the world. Little bits--or intimations--of the West are gradually making their way east: boutiques carrying Levis and tiny food shops called "Supermarket" are multiplying on main boulevards. Despite the fact that Drakulic can find a Cafe Europa, complete with Viennese-style coffee and Western decor, in just about every Eastern European city, the acceptance of the East by the rest of Europe continues to prove much more elusive.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Drakulic (How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed) notes that Eastern Europeans are so anxious to become like their Western counterparts that every city and town has a Cafe Europa that is a pale imitation of similar establishments in Paris and Rome. She presents here a collection of essays that explore life in various Eastern European countries since the fall of communism. As a citizen of Croatia (formerly a part of Yugoslavia) living now in Vienna with her Swedish husband, she writes knowingly as a survivor of a communist regime, as one who realizes that pitfalls still lie ahead for nations emerging from the Soviet yoke. In Albania, she observes rage everywhere in people who seem to want to smash all vestiges of the Hoxha regime. In Romania, she comments on the execrable state in which public toilets are maintained: "[T]he standard of Romanian toilets reflects the nature of the communist system of which it is a legacy"; "the absence of any improvement is... a warning for the future of democracy" there. Drakulic's pungent and insightful ruminations not only describe life in her part of the world?she makes us feel it as well. Author tour.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Library Journal

Drakuli'c '(How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed, LJ 3/15/93) has a rare reporting talent. She observes country soil rising from beneath urban asphalt, and she knows how to explain to urbane reader the passions and desires of a marginalized Eastern culture. The specter of an international European community may be a mundane sidebar in Western newspapers, but for Drakuli'c it represents far more. Diapers, royalty, Bucharest toilets, and presumptuous cafes serve as apocryphal symbols in her collection of political essays. To the daughter of an antifascist hero, the West represents the realization that money can transcend the future and that there is more to life than the "living in the present" that communism offered. Rather than using the language of traditional economic and political analysis, Drakuli'c offers the language of everyday life to describe a momentous cultural evolution. This important book from a very talented European writer is highly recommended.
-?Mary Hemmings, Univ. of Calgary Lib., Alberta
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) (February 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140277722
• ISBN-13: 978-0140277722
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #29,365 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #18 in Books > History > Europe > Eastern

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Drakulic Again Considers Everyday Life in Eastern Europe, May 13, 1999

By 

richard_t "richard_t" (Overseas) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Cafe Europa: Life After Communism (Paperback)

Drakulic delivers another series of short essays, in the style of her earlier "How We Survived Communism". In "Café Europa", the reader is carried from Croatia across western Europe during the few short years since Croatia emerged from war as an independent state, caught somewhere between its Balkan history and its European ambitions. She ruminates on subjects as far afield as her distaste for the word "we" because of its communist overtones, which leads to the verdict that the western concept of "I", of self-reliance and modernity in a civil state, is a notion still to be embraced in eastern Europe. It is for precisely the same reason that she admires Americans their fetish for perfect teeth, because they represent self-respect and independence from shoddy state-sponsored dental care.

Many of the essays in the book deal with the peculiar talent in eastern Europe for hiding and forgetting the past, thereby evading responsibility and missing the opportunity to learn from it. This flair for forgetfulness causes Drakulic's mother to fear for the sanctity of her husband's grave, marked by a communist star vulnerable to those who would destroy symbols of forty years of communism. It is this same talent that allows fascist "Ustasha" symbols from the 1940s to be revived in the 1990s under the guise of nationalism. The same phenomenon that impels each generation of politicians to rename streets and plazas in order to avoid any public recognition of historical figures whose views place them, at least temporarily, on the wrong side of today's political fences. It is this same failure of history that forces a Croatian journalist to mince words and ask facile questions during an exclusive interview with Dinko Sakic, the notorious concentration camp commander.

Drakulic is a bit exasperated when, on a visit to Israel, she is barraged with questions about Croatia's fascist role during World War II. "To grow up under communism means to live forever in the present. Once the final social order had been established, there was no need to look backwards - or forwards, for that matter.... Perhaps this is the reason why we are now, with this recent war, sentenced to live in the past. Sometimes I ask myself whether this is the punishment for our lack of interest in history, for our fear, silence and irresponsibility towards ourselves. For our ingnorance." She realizes that Croatia as a society has failed to examine and integrate the lessons of its fascist period, and this failure, this willful forgetfulness, is itself a type of evil complicity perpetually spawning new crises, including the high-tension ethnic conflicts that yielded the 1991-1995 wars.

The only jarring note is the essay titled "Why I Never Visited Moscow", in which Drakulic bemoans the fact that she has been categorized as an eastern European writer. This seems a bit hypocritical given that all of "Café Europa" including the very cover blurbs, much like her previous books, is premised on the fact that she is a particularly talented eastern European writer and astute social critic who has interesting and insightful things to say about the region. Perhaps Drakulic, who has won awards, fame, and money with her admirable accounts of eastern Europe, is being a bit self-righteous when she complains about being viewed as an eastern European writer.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Cafe Europa serves up a good cup, June 20, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Cafe Europa: Life After Communism (Paperback)

Slavenka Drakulic is unquestionably a perceptive and keen observer of what is happening in Easter Europe today. However, in my opinion, she is an even better observer of the human condition in general. In fact, for me, this book went beyond the scope of the topic of Easter Europe and its people and, in a way, felt like a more general philosophical analysis of people and history.

With her detailed examination of the discourteous behavior of an Easter European hotel receptionist towards Westerners, or the ingratiation with which a Croatian journalist interviews an alleged concentration camp commander or even the true meaning behind an American "hello, how are you," Drakulic exhibits an uncanny ability to read people and cultures and to understand human nature thereby enabling us to better understand ourselves.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Now you know..., February 14, 2002

By 

Stacey M Jones (Conway, Ark.) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Cafe Europa: Life After Communism (Paperback)

If you're wondering about the impact of revolutions, falling dictotatorial regimes and the end of Communism in Eastern Europe, Cafe Europa will answer your questions. I've read third-person reportage and scholarly works on the Balkans, the region's history, and the political issues, but the daily life of those who live here has rarely been presented to me in such a personal and descriptive way. Slavenka Drakulic makes powerful associations and draws connections that allow the reader more opportunities for insights about how the people have in many ways stayed the same, and yet how the changes in government impact daily life in the tiniest and most intimate ways.

The book is easy to pick up and put down, as it has topical chapters that stand beautifully as separate pieces, but that culminate powerfully in the final chapters for a strong overall effect.