#Adrian George Matus
Book Reviews
Bob Dylan’s Hagiography
Nine years after Bob Dylan received the Nobel Prize in Literature, the volume of literature dedicated to better understanding his life and work has grown exponentially. A certain and undeniable fascination for the emblematic American musician and writer haunted literary critics, historians, movie directors and journalists alike. At the same time, this editorial increase is not only intellectually stimulating but also a marketable commodity that always attracts a large public segment. The most recent example in this regard is James Mangold’s movie A Complete Unknown. In this context, Jeffrey Edward Green’s book Bob Dylan- Prophet Without A God seems to be determined by these two vectors: fascination and appeal to the public. Thus, it raises a crucial question: to what extent does this work offer a new perspective into Bob Dylan’s persona, or does it merely repack interesting ideas for a broader audience?
4.04.2025
Book Reviews
A Fight within the Law – Benjamin Nathans on the Fight for the Rule of Law inside Soviet Dissident Circles
How did the dissident circles from the Soviet Union develop into a concrete movement that first aimed to set limits on the Soviet state and then to challenge it? This pungent question has stirred academic debates virtually from the moment dissident movements emerged, debates which increased exponentially after the fall of Soviet regimes. By now, the scholarly canon on Soviet-era dissent is vast and it stretches from analysing the role of dissident movements in shaping public discourse and public memory, as Barbara Martin’s 2021 book Dissident Histories in the Soviet Union does, to proposing new frameworks within the post-revisionist context to understand this phenomenon (such as Alexei Yurchak does in his 2006 work Everything Was Forever Until Was No More) or even more recent developments that focus on less visible cases, such as hippies, as with Juliane Fürst’s 2020 book Flowers through Concrete. Yet, some topics have remained unclarified up to this day.
18.10.2024
Book Reviews
Women of Portuguese Guinea (Guinea-Bissau) in the Anticolonial Struggle
To what extent have the memories of anticolonial struggles in the 20th century silenced the voices of important participants? Aliou Ly's Women of the Portuguese Guinea Liberation War. De-Gendering the History of Anticolonial Struggle aims to bring a fresh understanding to this troubling question. It approaches an anticolonial struggle in Africa from a de-gendered perspective, writes Adrian Matus in this review.
16.08.2024
Podcasts
Why Was Central-South-East Europe Labeled as “Corrupt”? – Silvia Márton on Transnational Histories of Corruption
In this podcast, Silvia Márton, principal investigator within the ERC Project “Transnational Histories of ‘Corruption’ in Central-South-East Europe,” discusses the multiple understandings of the concept “corruption” in the context of Central-South-East Europe.
8.07.2024
Book Reviews
Navigating Changes on the Danube – Steamboats, Epidemics, and Modernity in the 19th century
Discussions around the Danube's role in shaping modern East-Central Europe have captured significant attention among scholars in recent years. By now, there is a broad consensus that this river helped create and define a specific cultural space. By using terms such as the Danube Monarchy, Donauraum, or variations of the same idea, some scholars go as far as to center it as an alternative geography to East-Central Europe.
18.06.2024
