BREATHING UNDER WATER AND OTHER EAST EUROPEAN ESSAYS

Stanislaw Baranczak, a Polish writer in exile, turns to his colleaguesand their plights, in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and the SovietUnion, to explain why oppressive regimes could not succeed in theirattempts to transform the Eastern European into Homo sovieticus. Thesesuperb essays focus on the role that culture, and particularly literature,has played in keeping the spirit of intellectual independence alive inEastern and Central Europe. Exploring a variety of issues from censorshipto underground poetry, Baranczak shows why, in societies where peoplestruggle to survive under totalitarian rule, art is believed to have thepower to make things happen. He brings into sharp relief the works andpersonalities of many legendary figures of recent Eastern Europeanpolitical and cultural history from Lech Walesa and Pope John Paul II toVáclav Havel and Adam Michnik to Czeslaw Milosz, Witold Gombrowicz, BrunoSchulz, and Joseph Brodsky- and makes vivid the context from which theyspring. Some of the essays probe the sense of inarticulateness experiencedby writers in exile; many represent the literary essay at its best; allreveal that Baranczak is a sophisticated, often savagely funny writer onwhom nothing is lost. This refreshing and provocative book guides ustoward a clearer understanding of what has led to the present moment, inwhich the nations of Eastern and Central Europe, tired of striving to"breathe under water," are finally "coming up for air." It is rewardingreading for anyone interested in art's conrontation with an intractablepolitical reality--wherever it occurs in the world.