Abstract:
A buzzword of the first post-Cold War decade, “transition” held out the promise of a fresh start for most countries of the former Eastern Bloc and, as such, seemed preferable to the inanely retweeted “end of history.”¹ But the quantum leap out of pre-1990 economic, social, and cultural modes such as centralized planning, single-party rule, and politically Aesopian postmodernism did not quite happen. Repeatedly botched “shock therapies” slowed the rebound down to an agonizing crawl all over the East, and before long, the euphorically advertised narrative of smooth progress toward a prosperous society would ring hollow in the face of bruising realities: the implosion or hasty liquidation of manufacturing industries, the collapse of national currencies, skyrocketing inflation, surreal corruption, and the quiet return of apparatchiks and secret-police cadres as “entrepreneurs” and nouveaux riches. Glaring disparities between recently minted categories of “winners” and “losers” went hand in glove with dire poverty, homelessness, crime, an exodus to the affluent West, and a culture of cynicism that made empathy, dedication to the common good, and hope look foolhardy. These were some of the basic ingredients of what would come to be referred to as postcommunist precarity. To many, this was late twentieth-century reality, even though, in and of itself, it was not entirely new; to be sure, there had been plenty of venality, indigence, and scarcity under the obscenely overfed communist oligarchies of Central and Eastern Europe, when people scraped along amid all manner of shortages and indignities. New was writers’ freedom to tackle the transition hardships openly by availing themselves of the unprecedented degree of permissiveness publishing houses, magazines, and the other media began to enjoy after 1989.
