Name: Dancing Bears
ISBN: 9780143129745

Witold Szabłowski

An account of people in formerly Communist countries holding fast to their former lives.

True Stories of People Nostalgic for Life Under Tyranny

Dancing Bears

• Incisive, humorous and heartbreaking oral histories of people living in formerly Communist countries holding fast to their former lives, from one of Poland’s finest journalists. • Like Anna Funder’s Stasiland or Svetlana Alexievich’s Secondhand Time, readers are guided through the aftereffects of authoritarian rule and the challenges of freedom via Szablowski’s immediate, heartwrenching stories of the people who lived through the collapse of Communism. • The bold and brilliant allegory at the centre of Dancing Bears is of bears raised and trained by Bulgarian Gypsies. With the fall of Communism, the bears were released into a wildlife refuge. But even today, whenever the bears see a human, they still get up on their hind legs to dance. • Dancing Bears traces the remarkable true stories of people throughout Eastern Europe and Cuba who, like the bears, are now free, but seem nostalgic for a time when they were not. • Szablowski is an award-winning Polish journalist—his reportage on illegal immigrants flocking to the EU won the European Parliament Journalism Prize, and his previous book about Turkey, The Assassin from Apricot City, won an English PEN Award. • This book comes at a pivotal moment for oral histories, following the success of 2015 Nobel Prize for Literature winner Svetlana Alexievich’s Secondhand Time. • For fans of Stasiland by Anna Funder, Nothing to Envy by Barbara Demick and Tale of Two Cities by John Freeman.

True Stories about Longing for the Old Days

Moray Lyle McIntosh

This is a fascinating oral history that in its first part tells the story of Bulgarian dancing bears, removed from performance into (relative) freedom in nature reserves. In the second half Szablowski speaks to a variety of people from Cuba. to Estonia, to Kosovo about their experiences of the post-Soviet world. From dyed-in-the-wool party members to black-marketeers, pro-EU campaigners and those determined to roll back capitalism. He paints a striking, complex and often uncomfortable picture of what the fall of Communism has really meant for those formerly of the Soviet Bloc. In particular he focuses on those prepared to overlook the crimes of the old regimes in the face of rising prices, unemployment, homelessness, and cultural alienation in modern Europe. He compares the current trend towards revisionism and nostalgia to the habit of the old dancing bears, who, even after years of freedom still dance to the old tunes when given the right cues.

Szablowski features very little in the interviews he records. There is no direct Interwiewer’s voice, only the responses his questions receive. It is often funny to hear vehement refusals and accusations to questions the readers doesn’t hear and I imagine the technique is to bring reader and interviewee closer and give the impression of unedited speech. It’s very effective for the reading experience and maintains a lively and engaging read but on such a divisive and ideological subject it does leave me wondering about the technique of the interviews. What is there in these gaps? 

Szablowski shows sympathy with all of his subjects, even the most hostile and there is a marvellous dry tone to his writing. He clearly doesn’t agree with the most vehement apologists but he demonstrates understanding for those struggling with the flaws of the new system. After all, nostalgia is a powerful ameliorative force and for many capitalism and liberalism has not transformed their difficult lives. There is an excellent interplay of the funny and the profound and the parallels he draws between the two halves of the book are more sensitive than they might appear.

Dancing Bears True Stories of People Nostalgic for Life Under Tyranny

Reviews

Highlights