Reclaiming the Personal: Oral History in Post-Socialist Europe

‘The volume is an excellent collection of how different researchers address bias in oral history research… It is an excellent source of qualitative data on "less talked-about" experiences of socialism, and an interesting exposition of case study addressing narrator bias in oral history research.’

Sara Rzayeva, Oral History Forum vol 37:2017

‘The individual analyses of diverse oral testimonies make a compelling case for the value of individual accounts of the critical moments in 20th century history. These personal perspectives bring to light narratives under-represented in official histories.’

Marysia H. Galbraith, Slavic Review Summer 2017

"The varying level of analytical sophistication makes it easy to imagine using Reclaiming the Personal in a variety of graduate and undergraduate contexts and disciplines. For more advanced scholars, the anthology provides useful glimpses of rarely acknowledged tensions within post-Soviet societies…"

Kimberly Redding, Oral History Review

"I recommend this volume to anyone working in the region and interested in oral history and ethnography, and more generally to those interested in historical narratives and unfinished stories."

Frances Pine, Goldsmiths College, University of London, Canadian Slavonic Papers

"The publishing of such an edited volume is definitely timely. The research cases pull back the curtain from the life stories of those people who were unseen, marginalized, and underestimated during the communist era."

Iuliia Buyskykh, The Centre for Applied Anthropology, Anthropology of East Europe Review

“Oral history is enjoying a remarkable efflorescence in post-Soviet, post-Communist Eastern Europe. The social and intellectual transformations occurring there provide an exceptional rich context for examining key issues in contemporary oral history.”

Linda Shopes, past president, US Oral History Association

“Reclaiming the Personal is one of the first volumes to address many of the topics that are missing in the fields of oral history, women’s history, and Soviet and post-Soviet history. The field research of all these scholars is impressive and invaluable.”

Ali Igmen, Department of History, California State University, Long Beach