Lucy's recent review of Benjamin Nathans' Pulitzer Prize-winning book for CEU Review of Books has been published this August (2025). She explains that Nathans' extensive archival research illustrates how soviet dissidents worked tirelessly to challenge the status quo by disputing legal texts, attending court proceedings, protesting, as well as producing and disseminating samizdat. She also notes that the parallels between soviet Russia and Russia today will not be lost on contemporary readers. You can read the full review here.

Lucy's recent review of Christopher Rundle, Anne Lange, and Daniele Monticelli's edited collection for CEU Review of Books has been published this March (2025). She explains how the book suggests that the history of translation is a vital part of the history of Communism; one that helps us to understand the political and cultural life of those living under a Communist regime. You can read the full review here. 

Lucy's recent review of László Borhi's latest monograph for CEU Review of Books has been published online on 24 September 2024. She discusses Borhi's analysis of the factors that impact the notion of survival during Nazi and Communist regimes in Hungary. You can read the full review here.

We're delighted to work with Memento Park as we develop our research for this project. In this article by Jack Power, Lucy was asked to talk about Communism's impact on Hungary. She describes the role of museums like Memento as avoiding the trap of replacing Soviet memorialisation with nationalist mythmaking in order to provide the visitor with an impartial platform from which to assess - either personally or academically - the legacy of the given communist regime. You can read the full newspaper article here.

If you'd like your research to be considered for publication in an edited collection, check out our Call for Chapter submissions below. 

After a successful symposium that took place on 1 December 2023, the co-founders of the multi-disciplinary ‘Replaying Communism’ project (which received funding from the UK’s Arts and Humanities Research Council) are looking for contributors to an edited collection entitled: Replaying Communism: Memories of Soviet Occupation in European Media and Culture. 

The book explores the cultural memory of Communist regimes in former Soviet satellite states, as portrayed in twenty-first-century media, cultural sites, and political rhetoric. The editors welcome submissions that examine contemporary portrayals of the Communist occupation of Central and Eastern Europe (1945-1990). 

The editors are looking for chapters that ask one or more of the following questions: 

·      Why is contemporary media ‘replaying communism’?

·      How do various media, cultural sites, and publications represent the Communist past?

·      How and in what ways have representations of ‘Eastern European’ identities changed?

·      How does contemporary media and culture created by artists/journalists born after 1989 differ to that by creatives who experienced Communism first-hand? And what impact is this having on the narrative of the Communist era?

·      Who controls representations of the Communist era (large technology conglomerates, governments, cultural institutions, privately owned media outlets, etc.) and in what ways does this shape our understanding of Communism? 

·      What can we gain from both scholarly and creative engagements with the synergies between the Communist era and today? 

The edited collection welcomes analyses of cultural memories of the Communist era in fictive and non-fictive accounts across all media and cultural institutions from a wide range of perspectives that include:

·      Nostalgia for communism or Ostalgie

·      Postcolonial perspectives (Eastern European identities)

·      Heritage and museum studies

·      Archiving Communism

·      Media studies (television; film; journalism; gaming)

·      Literary studies

·      Art historical approaches

·      Musicology

Please submit your abstracts (250 words) and bio to the editors Dr Lucy Jeffery and Dr Anna Váradi replayingcommunism@gmail.com by 19 January 2024.

The date for our first symposium is nearly here. If you're interested in joining, please get in touch via our contact page. We have a fantastic line-up and can't wait to enrich our understanding of cultural memories of Soviet occupation in European media. 

In February 2023, he researchers leading the RC project conducted an exclusive interview with Bálint Szentgyörgyi, the writer-director of A Besúgó. They talked about the inspiration behind the TV series, its global reception, and what Eastern European cinema and television might mean. The conversation will lead to publications about Szentgyörgyi and his work. A translated and contextualised version of the interview is forthcoming... watch this space! 

Many thanks to Bálint for collaborating with us and dedicating his time to answer our questions. We hope to do it again sometime!