Goodbye Eastern Europe: An Intimate History of a Divided Land SOLD OUT
Jacob Mikanowski
Saturday, 16 March 2024
2:00pm
1 hour
Oxford Martin School: Seminar Room
£7 - £13.50
Writer and academic Jacob Mikanowski argues that there is more to the 20 nations grouped as Eastern Europe than the bonds they forged under the Soviet empire, they have tragicomic character like no other.
Mikanowski looks back at a history that includes the rise and fall of the Ottoman, Habsburg and Russian empires. He describes a region where Muslims helped Catholics to cut the yule log, where you could live in six countries without leaving your house, and where an Orthodox monk could be a Sufi saint in disguise.
‘Mikanowski carefully argues that if something marks out Europe’s eastern half, it is not homogeneity but wild, glorious diversity, including the long presence of Judaism, Islam and religious practices that blended Christianity and paganism’ Economist
Mikanowski is the son of Polish immigrants to the US and spent his childhood between Poland and Pennsylvania. His essays and writing have appeared in the Guardian, New York Times, Atlantic, New Yorker, Harper’s, Slate, Aeon, and Prospect Magazine.
This event is part of the festival’s voices of Europe programme.
Event supported by
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