Anthropology of East Europe Review 32(1) Spring 2014 81 

Socialist Escapes: Breaking Away from Ideology and 
Everyday Routine in Eastern Europe, 1945 – 1989.  Eds.  
Cathleen M.  Giustino, Catherine J.  Plum, and Alexander 
Vari.  New York: Berghahn, 2013.  ix, 284 pp.  List of 
Figures.  Preface.  Bibliography.  Index.  Hard bound: 
Paper.    
Petra Rethmann, Ph.D.  McMaster University 
 

 Socialist Escapes: Breaking Away from Ideology and Everyday Routine in 

Eastern Europe, 1945 – 1989 is a rare book.  It is rare because amidst a plethora of social 

sciences and historical literature it does not join a chorus of socialism’s dismissal, and 

amidst a range of anthropological literature it does not simply investigate socialism’s 

effects on people’s everyday economic, cultural, and social lives.  Rather, it seeks to 

highlight those effects that are usually neglected and negated: the possibility of pleasure 

and fun of living in the socialist world.  It is, in fact, Socialist Escapes’ ludic emphases, 

which provide the volume with a light tone, and that—paradoxically—convey a strong 

sense of normality of living “under socialism.”  Methodologically, this is achieved by the 

contributors’ deep immersion in socialist worlds, especially East Germany, Poland, 

Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria.  Building on extensive fieldwork, 

interviews, and observations, as well as fostering a comparative approach, the 

contributors to this volume bring discussions of agency and fun into conversation, thus 

expanding our understandings of both Eastern Europe and understandings of socialist 

politics that tend to focus on political power and depression.     

Socialist Escapes traces the idea of fun through various practices in Eastern 

Europe, including music festivals, nature tourism, increasingly bohemian life-styles that 

include nudist practices and beach parties, hiking, and the spectacle sports of motorcycle 

racing and soccer.  Of particular importance is the fact that the forms of entertainment 

and leisure investigated in this volume are not necessarily spectacular in the sense of 

being always visually or physically exciting, but that they provide a measure of freedom 

and autonomy to those who engage in or with them.  For example, across many parts of 

the East European (and larger) socialist world, hiking, and to some extent mountain 

climbing, provided a pleasurable exit strategy from the demands of socialist economic 

and political party life.  In fact, as numerous contributors including Dabrowski, Plum, 

Costache, Neuburger, and Keck-Szajbel convincingly show, the cultural and emotional 

practices of nature loving became so widespread and popular that individuals, families, 

and outdoor-oriented organizations and clubs left the more urban world on a regular basis 

to enjoy what we usually think of as wild and free nature.” In correlation, what seems 

important here is the fact that some spaces provided a greater degree of autonomy and 

freedom than others.  So, apart from socialism’s infamous “kitchen culture” that marked 

a private space in which people could often talk with a certain degree of frankness and 

trust, more public spaces such as motorcycling tracks, soccer stadiums, hotels, music 

festivals, and chateaux turned into sites where a variety of people and groups could and 

did experience pleasure and fun.  Tompkins, Giustino, Vari, Fricke, and Poenaru in 



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particular trace the ways in which people express desires for diversion and leisure.  

However, as Fricke and Poenaru show, cultural practices of leisure also led to the 

formation of dissident-like (although this may be too strong a word) subcultures that were 

not always appreciated by their nations’ respective parties.  For example, soccer games 

and motorcycle races marked forms of leisure that removed spectators from the 

supervision of the state while also offering liberatory spaces away from the holiday 

resorts and camps organized by socialist parties.  Together, the volume provides a much-

needed antidote to stereotyped representations of socialism as monotonous, dreary, and 

dull.    

If I could express one criticism, it would concern the book’s title, especially the 

idiom “escapes.” As a term, escapes is too resonant of avoidance, evasion, and elusion.  It 

smacks of holiday and/or getaway.  And, of course, this is what many of the volume 

contributors deal with: people hiking in mountains, attending soccer games, visiting 

chateaux, etc.  At the same time, in relational ways the term also implies that Eastern 

European forms of state socialism produced- to paraphrase Cathleen Giustino —“dull 

everyday routines of work, school, and home” and, in metaphorical ways, produced a life 

marked as gray.  Furthermore, escapes seems to accept an overarching logic that the party 

controlled “everything,” and that the little autonomy that could be had could only be 

found in leisurely practices and entertainment.  While I do not necessarily doubt the need 

for leisure, autonomy, or even escape, this need seems to allegedly exist only—or at least 

more—in and under socialism.  As a cultural anthropologist and reviewer with some 

experience of working in socialist contexts myself, I would finally like to see analyses 

that transcend the conceptual iron curtain of East and West.  This is not the job of the 

book under review, yet novel analytical routes might be beneficial for the anthropology 

of Europe and beyond.  That way, we might also begin to understand concepts such as 

“socialism” and “escapes” in new light.  Scholars and students of anthropology, 

sociology, political science, and Eastern European and Slavic studies are sure to enjoy 

this book.