Rethinking the Historiography of the Soviet Bloc

Manuela Ungureanu is associate professor of philosophy at the University of British Columbia, Okanagan. She has published on Donald Davidson’s interpretation theory and has examined issues in the philosophy of language following Chomsky’s universal grammar. Her work, which is at the interface between cognitive psychology and social epistemology, has appeared in journals such as Dialogue and AVANT as well as edited volumes including Romanian Studies in the Philosophy of Science (2015) and From an Analytical Point of View (2025).

• List of IllustrationsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Historians Reassess Totalitarianism TheoryManuela L. UngureanuPart I: Main Paradigms and their Evolving FortunesChapter 1. Remarks on the Historiography of Rapid Political and Social ChangeDaniel LittleChapter 2. Carl Friedrich’s Path to “Totalitarianism”Stephen TurnerChapter 3. Soviet Society, Social Structure, and Everyday Life: Major Frameworks ReconsideredMark EdeleChapter 4. The GDR: A Special Kind of Modern DictatorshipJürgen KockaChapter 5. Totalitarian Syndrome as a Case of an Essentially Contested Concept: An Overview of Discussions Held in the Humanities and Social Sciences in PolandKrzysztof BrzechczynChapter 6. Framing the Rising Discontent with Totalitarianism Theory: The View from Social OntologyManuela L. UngureanuChapter 7. Totalitarianism and the HistoriansCharles TurnerChapter 8. Why I say “Totalitarian Regimes”: A Response to Totalitarianism DenialAviezer TuckerPart II: Approaches to Control, Legitimation of Power and Forms of ResistanceChapter 9. Beyond Totalitarianism: Rethinking Approaches to the GDR and the Nazi PastMary FulbrookChapter 10. The Soviets Abroad: The NKVD, Intelligence, and State Building in East-Central Europe after World War IIMolly PucciChapter 11. Postwar Show Trials: The Apogee of Totalitarianism or Political Processes?Barbara J. FalkChapter 12. The Communist Public Sphere: A Sociolegal AnalysisMihaela ŞerbanChapter 13. Industrialization, Independence, Identity: Legitimation of Power in Communist Romania, 1965–1971Dragoş PetrescuChapter 14. Homo Sovieticus and the Greengrocer: On Varieties of Dissident Critique of Post-Totalitarian Political CulturePiotr WciślikChapter 15. On the Origins of “Totalita”: A Social Epistemology of a Non-ConceptMuriel BlaivePart III: Soviet-Style Institutions for Higher-Education and Research and the Powers of the New ElitesChapter 16. The Counterintuitive Effects of Soviet Totalitarianism: Soviet Universities during Late Stalinism, 1945-1953Benjamin TromlyChapter 17. Sergei Vavilov and the Soviet Modes of Science ProductionAlexei KojevnikovChapter 18. A Friendship Inside Romanian Academia under Cultural Stalinism: Mihai Ralea and Tudor VianuCristian VasileChapter 19. Gatekeeping Institutions of Literary Translation in Soviet UkraineValentyna SavchynChapter 20. Intellectual Autonomy in Socialist Romania: Theories, Methods, and the Case Study of Sociology after 1966Adela HîncuChapter 21. Writing Contemporary History in Late Socialist Hungary: Dissecting Institutional LegaciesRéka KrizmanicsChapter 22. “The Tale of Two Cities”: The Historical Multicultural Bucharest Vs. the Communist Capital of RomaniaCristina PetrescuAfterword: The Makings of Rethinking the Historiography of the Soviet Bloc or How to Take Stock of an Elephant, and Still Keep Your BearingsManuela L. UngureanuIndex