Goodbye, Eastern Europe!

After the fall of the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe is rarely spoken of as a unified whole. When asked where Estonia is located, you are more likely to receive the answer "in the Baltics," while Croatia is more likely to be referred to as part of the Adriatic or the Balkans. Eastern Europe effectively does not exist in public consciousness today. Meanwhile, this land has a colorful history: each of the many nations that inhabit it has its own myths, customs, and memories of centuries of hard work and the struggle for a bright "tomorrow." Literature lover, historian, and researcher of his own family past Jakub Mikanowski paints a detailed portrait of this region and ponders its future. From the book, you will learn about the remarkable blend of Islamic and Christian traditions in Romania and Albania; the role of the Ottomans in shaping the Balkan countries and the Black Sea region; Prague and Warsaw as capitals of magic and occultism; the struggles of the peoples that were part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire; the quirky forms of the cult of personality of communist leaders in the Eastern bloc; as well as the places with the highest concentration of vampires, cases where marriages were held in cemeteries, and the European who converted the Golden Horde to Islam.