Introduction

Wither the intelligentsia

Sergej Oushakine

in: Sergej Oushakine (ed), Wither the intelligentsia, Studies in East European Thought 61 (4), 2009.

Abstract

As the editor of a book series devoted to translations of contemporary East European literature, I am frequently asked, “Why has no new Milan Kundera appeared in Eastern Europe since the collapse of communist regimes?”… I can say with some confidence that the sociocultural conditions that once allowed for the appearance of “Milan Kundera” no longer exist in most of postcommunist Eastern Europe, and they are unlikely to return in the near future. The disappearance of these conditions was an indirect and unexpected consequence of the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. (Andrew Baruch Wachtel 2006, pp. 1–2).

Cited authors

Kundera Milan