How We Survived Communism & Even Laughed (Paperback)

by Slavenka Drakulic (Author) "The title of my book feels wrong, I kept thinking as my plane soared off the runway at Zagreb airport..." (more)
Key Phrases: communist eye, Eastern Europe, New York, East Berlin (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal
Drakulic's fine collection of essays draws strength from her keen powers of observation and sensitivity to her readers' interests. Her achievement is to depict the starkly common identity of everyday life in socialist Eastern Europe before its unlamented loss becomes irretrievable. It is a world in which party authority can create the "sudden invisibility" for an offending journalist, where public buildings share a "shabbiness and color of sepia," and one that makes the post office an impenetrable "institution of power." The essays are also about people, about the obsessive " communist eye " (italics original) disturbed by the injustice of New York's homeless yet neurotically envious of those wearing fur coats at home. The tragic irony lies in the book's title. Hoarding material objects enabled people "to survive communism," but hoarding wartime memories and the inability to "let the dead be dead" may destroy the author's native Yugoslavia. Recommended for all public and academic libraries.
- Zachary T. Irwin, Pennsylvania State Univ.-Erie
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Kirkus Reviews
A poignant and truthful look at what living under Communism was really like, by Croatian journalist and novelist Drakuli. The author, daughter of a former partisan who was a high- ranking Communist army officer, was never a member of the Party herself. Here, she conveys the reality of life under Communism through ordinary but telling detail: the wonder of a man who, for the first time in his life, was able to eat a banana--and ate it skin and all, marveling at its texture; Draculi's own bewilderment at finding fresh strawberries in N.Y.C. in December; the feel of the quality of the paper in an issue of Vogue; the desperate lengths to which women under the Communist regime would go to find cosmetics or clothes or something that would make them feel feminine in a society where such a feeling was regarded as a bourgeois affectation. Drakuli dismisses the argument that Western manufacturers have manipulated these needs: ``To tell us that they are making a profit by exploiting our needs is like warning a Bangladeshi about cholesterol.'' Though herself a feminist, she willingly turns amusing in describing the uncomprehending questions sent to her by a New York editor who asked about the role of feminism in political discourse in Eastern Europe, when there was no political discourse and when feminists were--and apparently still are--regarded as enemies of the people. ``We may have survived Communism,'' Drakuli writes, ``but we have not yet outlived it.'' To the author, Communism is more than an ideology or a method of government--it is a state of mind that is yet to be erased from the collective consciousness of those who have lived under it. A sometimes sad, sometimes witty book that conveys more about politics in Eastern Europe than any number of theoretical political analyses. -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Harper Perennial (May 12, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060975407
• ISBN-13: 978-0060975401
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.7 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #178,501 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Should be required reading for all women's studies classes!, February 5, 1999

By A Customer

I read this book while I was living in Prague. Living in Eastern Europe does not automatically ensure an understanding of the people or the culture, and this book was very helpful. The position of women in Eastern Europe (and of course, the world over) is consistently marginalized, so this book is important in that it finally brings the woman's perspective and experience in Eastern Europe out into the open.

The other thing that makes this book extremely worthwhile is that it continues to bring home the difference between Eastern Europe and the West. As a woman from the US, it was impossible for me to conceive of and understand these women's experiences, and where those experiences have brought them today. It becomes very easy, in the interests of simplification, to essentialize the experiences of all european women, or all white women. This book shows us that it is not that simple, or easy, or fair, to do so.

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Provocative Look at How Communism Failed it's People, July 9, 1999

By A Customer

Slavenka explores the perplexing lives of Eastern European women living in Communism through her short essays. There is nothing funny about these stories. The author displays how Communism failed its people, and how it failed its women. A visit to Yugoslavia in the 1980's, opened my eyes to the trials these women faced. I lived like these women. I brought with me stockpiles of medicine, sanitary napkins, soap and detergent. These items were impossible to buy and if you could find these items they were outrageously expensive. I washed my clothes by hand, scrubbed them in the basins Slavenka talks about. I walked around with the same fear, the same hopelessness for the future. Live for today, survive today. No bother to worry about tomorrow. This book should be a part of all woman studies programs, it gives insight to the lives of women living in Eastern Block countries. It gives insights to the trials they face and the fear of the future that goes along with it.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Short stories about women's lives in Eastern bloc countries, September 15, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed (Hardcover)

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.