Studies of Romanian national imagination have historically focused on the formation of modern Romania after World War I, Romania's fascist movement and alliance with Germany during World War II, or the remobilization of nationalist discourse in the 1970s and 1980s -- moments in which Romanian intellectuals imagine their nation assuming or working toward major cultural status. Literary Translation and the Idea of a Minor Romania examines translationsby canonical Romanian writers Lucian Blaga, Constantin Noica, and Emil Cioran following the imposition of Communist rule, arguing that their works reveal a new, "minor" mode of national identity based on the model of the translator. The "minor," a term taken from critical theory, centers on tropes of interaction with other cultures, recreation through adaptation, and ironic distance. Drawing on theorists as diverse as Benedict Anderson, Gilles Deleuze, Felix Guattari, and Françoise Lionnet, Sean Cotter proposes that this decentered, multilingual, and multiply oriented imagination of the nation is better suited than older models to understanding a globalized cultural field, one inwhich translation plays an indispensable role. Sean Cotter is associate professor of literature and literary translation at the University of Texas at Dallas.

No region of the world has been more affected by the various movements of the twentieth century than East Central Europe. Broadly defined as comprising the historic territories of the Czechs, Hungarians, Poles, and Slovaks, East Central Europe has been shaped by the interaction of politics, ideology, and diplomacy, especially by the policies of the Great Powers towards the east of Europe. This book addresses Czech politics in Moravia and Czech politics in Bohemia in the nineteenth century, the international politics of relief during World War I, the Morgenthau Mission and the Polish Pogroms of1919, the Hitler-Stalin Pact and its influence on Poland in 1939, Hungarian-Americans during World War II, and Polish-East German relations after World War II.

Contributors: Bruce Garver, M. B. B. Biskupski, Neal Pease, William L. Blackwood, Anna M. Cienciala, Steven Bela Vardy, and Douglas Selvage.

M. B. B. Biskupski is Professor of History at Central Connecticut State University.

Kolodko, former finance minister of Poland, considers the links between issues of globalization and post-communist transition, the two most important economic features of the turn of the century. He discusses the pattern of economic growth and contraction of the past fifty years, and reviews the options for the next half century. He accounts for the severity of the transitional recession in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union as a result of both the legacies of the past and current policy mistakes, but demonstrates how structural reforms and gradual institutional building have enabled some postsocialist economies to recover. He proposes that, within the wider context of globalization, several of these emerging market economies will be able to catch up with the more advanced industrial countries, but emphasizes the need for quality growth policies and continuing coordination between development strategies and efforts toward structural reform.

Grzegorz W. Kolodko is John C. Evans Professor in European Studies at the University of Rochester, and Director of TIGER -- Transformation, Integration and Globalization Economic Research -- at the Leon Kozminski Academy of Entrepreneurship and Management [WSPiZ].

The opening up of Poland economically and politically to global influences after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, coupled with the rise of transnational approaches to the study of film, present ideal conditions for an examination of Polish cinema from a transnational vantage point. Yet not only have studies of Polish cinema remained largely within a national framework but Polish, and many other Eastern European cinemas, have also been virtually excluded from accounts of transnational cinema. 'Polish Cinema in a Transnational Context' addresses this lacuna in film studies by examining the international reception of Polish films in Europe and North America, Polish international coproductions and the presence of Polish performers in foreign films, and the works of subversive émigré auteurs like Andrzej Zulawski and Walerian Borowczyk. Authors in this collection present familiar films and filmmakers in a new and revealing light, while also shifting the focus to lesser known filmmakers and aspects of Polish cinema. The resulting volume moves discussion beyond the border of Polish national belonging. Contributors: Peter Hames, Darragh O'Donoghue, Helena Goscilo, Dorota Ostrowska, Charlotte Govaert, Eva Näripea, Izabela Kalinowska-Blackwood, Ewa Mazierska, Alison Smith, Lars Kristensen, Jonathan Owen, Michael Goddard, Robert Murphy, Kamila Kuc, Elzbieta Ostrowska. Ewa Mazierska is professor of film studies at the University of Central Lancashire. Michael Goddard is senior lecturer at the University of Salford.

The 1941 German invasion of the Soviet Union significantly altered the lives of the civilians in occupied Russian territories, yet these people's stories are overlooked by most scholarly treatments of the famous "Operation Barbarossa." This study, drawing on oral-history interviews and a broad range of archival sources, provides a fascinating and detailed account of the everyday life of Soviets, Jews, Roma, and Germans in the city of Smolensk during its twenty-six months under Nazi rule. 'Smolensk under the Nazis' records the profound effects of the invasion and occupation on the 30,000 civilian residents (out of a prewar population of roughly 155,000) who remained in this border town during these painful years -- including a high percentage of women. Laurie Cohen examines a variety of local propagandistic efforts by the Nazi and Stalinist regimes as well as the agency of Russian civilians, investigating what it meant to support -- or hinder -- the new Nazi-German and collaborating Russian authorities. By underlining the human dimensions of the war and its often neglected long-term effects, the book promotes a more complex understanding of life under occupation. 'Smolensk under the Nazis' thus complements recent works on everyday life in occupied Ukraine, Belarus, and the Baltic States as well as on the siege of Leningrad. Laurie R. Cohen is an Adjunct Professor at the Universities of Innsbruck and Klagenfurt.

Nazi Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941 and events on the Eastern Front that same year were pivotal to the history of World War II. It was during this year that the radicalization of Nazi policy-through both an all-encompassing approach to warfare and the application of genocidal practices-became most obvious. Germany's military aggression and overtly ideological conduct, culminating in genocide against Soviet Jewry and the decimation of the Soviet population through planned starvation and brutal antipartisan policies, distinguished Operation Barbarossa-the code name for the German invasion of the Soviet Union-from all previous military campaigns in modern European history. This collection of essays, written by young scholars of seven different nationalities, provides readers with the most current interpretations of Germany's military, economic, racial, and diplomatic policies in 1941. With its breadth and its thematic focus on total war, genocide, and radicalization, this volume fills a considerable gap in English-language literature on Germany's war of annihilation against the Soviet Union and the radicalization of World War II during this critical year. Alex J. Kay is the author of 'Exploitation, Resettlement, Mass Murder: Political and Economic Planning for German Occupation Policy in the Soviet Union, 1940-1941' and is an independent contractor for the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Research on War Consequences. Jeff Rutherford is assistant professor of history at Wheeling Jesuit University, where he teaches modern European history. David Stahel is the author of 'Operation Barbarossa and Germany's Defeat in the East and Kiev 1941: Hitler's Battle for Supremacy in the East.'