Pierogi Time

One of my favorite ways of exploring ethnic traditions is through culinary experience. Food is something we all need to survive, but it can also be a source of constancy (in thought), around which friends and family gather. I enjoy the idea that family recipes have been shared, modified and passed down throughout generations and across borders and have either inspired people or evoked a sense of nostalgia. Getting to know Central and East European cuisine has yielded some interesting flavors and unique dishes, many of which folks in the United States are unfamiliar with. One of my favorites, which is pretty well known and popular in certain regions of this country is the Pierogi. This traditionally Polish dish is a boiled or fried dumpling, filled with meat, potatoes, or cheese, and served with cucumber, sour cream, dill and apple sauce. I was first introduced through my own heritage to the Lithuanian Cepelinai, quite similar to the Polish Piergi, except that the outer shell is made of shredded potatoes instead of unleavened dough! The dish has inspired me to transform the delicious dumplings into something just as fun, which you can find here. Pierogis are often sold at local supermarkets, but for a more authentic experience, dining at Cafe Polonia in South Boston or cooking your own Pierogi or Cepelinai are a great way to get in touch with East European tradition!

Hedgehog in the Fog

Today I met a little hedgehog at work named Lola! I couldn't help but harken back to the time when my best friend and I saw Hedgehog in the Fog for the first time. It was viewed in our Russian language course a few years ago, and has since been an odd favorite to share with friends and family. If you click on the left image it will take you to a link where you can view this really interesting Russian animated film. I don't know too many details about the original incentive for the film, but it was created in the Soviet era in the 1970s. There's a hedgehog who has a tradition of meeting up with his good friend, a bear to look up at the stars as they always do. It's a comforting and regular routine that the bear always counts on, and while he waits for the hedgehog, his prickly friend gets lost in the fog on the way. While the hedgehog safeguards his jar of jam he wants to bring to share with his friend, the fog yields a spooky adventure, and he gets a bit side-tracked. In 2009, a monument to Hedgehog in the Fog was dedicated and erected in the center of Kiev, Ukraine, as you can see in the right image. I thought this was pretty neat, and am wondering how popular this film is still today, and what source of influence it had in the Soviet era. As it happens, I've often come across hedgehogs in my search for East European culture, and of course there is an East European hedgehog species, in addition to others found in Africa and Asia. Lola, by the way is an African hedgehog, so she is extra prickly! Take a look at Hedgehog Central for more information on the different hedgehog species, mind you that this website does need to update its sociopolitical terminology- Czechoslovakia is no longer a country (it's the Czech Republic and Slovakia)!!!

Goodbye, Lenin!

One of the benefits of spending a lengthy amount of time in your local library is the chance of stumbling upon something as awesome as this. I was fortunate enough to find Goodbye, Lenin! in my library's foreign section of movies; ones that I can rent for free. In what seemed like a past life, I'd come across the film before, not knowing of its significance several years ago. Now that I'm more in tune with my East European heritage and intrigue of post-socialist life, Goodbye Lenin! seemed like a good idea the second time around.

The film, directed by Wolfgang Becker illustrates the story of a young man trying to protect his mother; a staunch Party (Socialist Unity Party of Germany) supporter from the startling changes occurring as a result of the crumbling USSR. Alex Kerner, his mother, sister and baby niece live in East Berlin at a time just before the fall of the Berlin Wall, an event that Alex's mother misses due to a heart attack and subsequent coma. Her health condition puts an interesting twist on the plot because once she wakes from the coma, Alex can't bear to inform her that her comfortable, pro-communist lifestyle is no longer acceptable. Her children struggle with how to deal with the new social freedoms they've acquired, as well as the difficulties in keeping Berlin's drastic changes from her.

I thought that Berlin was an intriguing location to demonstrate the concept of Goodbye Lenin! because of its divided state between the formerly- 'fascist' West and 'communist' East (otherwise symbolizing the greater east/west divide installed by the Iron Curtain). Berlin illustrated just how far Sovietization had stretched, so much so that a wall was put up in the 1960s by the GDR, thinking that the FRG at that point wasn't de-Nazified enough. West Berlin/Germany however allotted its citizens much more freedoms and rights than its repressed, pro-Soviet neighbor, sparking emigration or at least attempted escapes by East Berliners to the other half. Mr. Kerner (Mrs. Kerner's former husband who made it to the FRG) was one such person, whom we do not meet in the film until later in the story. His absence makes an example of the strength of the unknown to East Berliners of the West and what types of more dynamic lifestyles they could possibly be experiencing.

What I liked about Goodbye Lenin! was the ability to visualize, even in one person's life what positive and negative experiences came with the reunification and the disappearance of Soviet ideology in Germany. While Alex and his sister embrace the excitement of being able to cross over a former boundary with little trouble, or the influx of capitalist media and consumerism, their mother's health evokes a sense of nostalgia for the past. This is not a yearning for the conditions set under the GDR, rather the 'little things' that people could rely on, such as the tasty brand of Spreewald pickles always found at the grocery. With the loss of jobs and economic uncertainty experienced by many groups of people formerly at the whim of the USSR, the loss of something as small as the limited, yet reliable brand choices at the grocery was something to remember.

One of the most alarming and hilarious scenes in the movie was the imagery presented when Mrs. Kerner escapes from her bedroom out onto the street. This is embodied in the statue of Lenin, whose legs are missing, and is being transported away from his former position of power and out of sight. The whole thing, that is, her five minute bathrobe-and-slipper stroll out onto the street is like a miniature trip into the West (and she still doesn't know about the wall). It presents the shock of change that I'm sure so many people underwent after years of oppression - being suddenly exposed to new concepts, new rights, and yet even new struggles. The hilarity of it however, is that such a scene allows people to poke fun at the Soviet era: to laugh at the tensions felt about the past, and at the chaos awaiting them as a result of change. Goodbye Lenin! is certainly odd and witty and extremely important to watch because it is so insightful and illustrative of how communism affected East Berlin, and suggests on a wider scale what life was like from 1989 onward.

A History of the Baltic States

Currently I am reading, and almost finished with Andres Kasekamp's A History of the Baltic States, published in 2010. Kasekamp is professor of Baltic Politics at the University of Tartu in Estonia, and he has written a delightful account of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania's rich history. I like it because he discusses the region's indigenous origins, the ethnic, political and linguistic changes over time, and the most recent political strife and independence movements. The book is detailed without being an extensive read, overwhelming or dry, and is especially interesting because Kasekamp seeks to clarify the many misconceptions about the region. These have been made in regards to the diverse ethnic and religious make-up, as well as how the Baltic has been politically involved with the USSR and previous systems of power. One of my favorite elements is the inclusiveness of the many grassroots independence movements, inspired by folk tradition! The Singing Revolution, for example was a massive song festival initiated in Estonia, and was designed as a peaceful protest against the Soviet regime in 1988. A great book for a concise historical background on how the Baltic States came to be as they are today!