Rooms for Manoeuvre

The volume focuses on emerging rooms for manoeuvre in the socialist societies of Central and Eastern Europe after the Second World War. Unlike in other works, these areas of activity are not viewed as isolated spheres where citizens could act independently from political and societal constraints. They are rather conceptualized here as geographical, social or institutional spaces whose existence was either outside of political control or more or less intentionally allowed by authorities and other decision-makers. The contributions investigate how East Germans, Poles, Romanians, Slovaks and Czechs coped with the limitations of socialist reality. How did they adopt and successfully adapt given norms to their own specific interests? To what extent were the resulting rooms for manoeuvre not only essential aspects of the state socialist system, but even necessary to stabilize it?

Dr. Claudia Kraft ist Professorin für Zeitgeschichte (Kulturgeschichte, Wissens- und Geschlechtergeschichte) an der Universität Wien mit Schwerpunkten u.a. auf der Geschichte des Staatssozialismus in Mittel- und Osteuropa, Rechtsgeschichte und Zwangsmigration.

This volume takes a fresh look at the state socialist societies in Eastern and Central Europe from the perspective of the history of everyday life.