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CEU Press books are distributed also in digital version. See the top 20 e-sales from 2005 till June 2008.

Bestsellers on two tracks. Five titles figure both among traditional and digital top 20: A Cardboard Castle, A Biographical Dictionary of Women's Movements, Russian Foreign Policy, Ascensions on High, and Ideologies and National Identities.

"A sharp, thoughtful, graciously written study, based on impressive research in the archives of the French and Italian parties, as well as East German records, for insights into Soviet actions. The book does not change the overall understanding of the positions and roles of the two parties, but it adds much rich detail and subtlety. Summing up: highly recommended". – Choice on Which Socialism, Whose Détente?

"The four case studies provide substantial grist for those interested in generalizations about successful state building. Furthermore, specialists should find the cross-country comparisons on the development of tax regimes interesting. Summing up: recommended." – Choice on State-Building

"Filled with new information and original ideas and offering intriguing incentives for further research, this well-edited volume is not only a remarkable edition to the literature on European eugenics but provides invaluable insights into the broader currents of intellectual life in central and southeast Europe.” – Slavic Review on Blood and Homeland

Both From Solidarity to Martial Law and Islam and Tolerance in Wider Europe are highly recommended by Choice.

In the past few years Carleton University, as well as the Universities of Kansas and Maryland have excelled in adopting CEU Press books for courses. Our most popular titles were Prague Tales, A Life Under Russian Serfdom and Between Past and Future.

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The Birch Grove
and Other Stories

by Jaroslaw Iwaszkiewicz

Translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones

With an Introduction by Leszek Kolakowski

"The four beautiful stories in The Birch Grove and Other Stories by Jaroslaw Iwaszkiewicz are written in the language of dreams that have come true: wistful and full of gentle melancholy. They are set in the rolling hills and forests of an idyllic but reorganizable rural Europe, sometime between the two World Wars … An explanation for Iwaszkiewicz's unexpected focus is offered in the introduction by the philosopher Leszek Kolakowski (written for this addition to the excellent series of Central European Classics, whose aim is to show the West the genius of the other, Eastern Europe, hidden for half a century behind the Iron Curtain). Kolakowski gives just enough thoughtful context and background to guide English-speaking readers to an understanding of an author whose work is familiar to every Polish reader, yet remains unknown to the outside world … As the Western and Eastern halves of a continent that has been divided by ideology finally prepare to reunite in the European Union, fictions such as these, which bring back the breath and colour of humanity to the Western world's picture of Poland, deserve to be celebrated." - Times Literary Supplement, August 2003

"Themes of these stories are the opposition eros/thanatos, old/young, jealousy, the prime impulses of humanity. His scenery is the Polish countryside with its noblemen and peasantry. His technique is modern, mingling past and present with flashbacks."- Amazon (extract from a reader's online review)

Jaroslaw Iwaszkiewicz's work is familiar to every Polish reader, yet remains unknown to the outside world. The stories in this selection were all written in the 1930s, and provide an extraordinary evocation of Poland's first brief era of independence between the wars. They are also timeless sonatas of love and loss.

In 'A New Love', Iwaszkiewicz uses masterful brevity to take a wry, comical look at the illusion of romance from the viewpoint of a jaded, cynical lover. One of his best-known works, 'The Wilko Girls', tells of a middle-aged man's quest to recover his lost youth in the aftermath of the First World War, which has left him psychologically scarred. He travels to the scene of his pre-war summer holidays in the eastern borderlands, where he renews his friendship with the fascinating sisters whom he knew when they were girls. But no one is the same and nothing can be as it was.

'The Birch Grove' is the moving story of a woodsman who, spiritually destroyed by the death of his wife, has buried himself away in an isolated forest. When his lively younger brother unexpectedly comes to stay, his self-centred peace is disrupted. But his brother has come home to die. The lives of two young men, one a deeply religious poet, the other a sceptical, worldly estate owner, are touchingly contrasted in 'The Mill on the River Utrata'. Confirming these stories' central place in Polish cultural history, 'The Wilko Girls' and 'The Birch Grove' were made into classic films by Andrzej Wajda, Poland's leading director.


Jaroslaw Iwaszkiewicz (1894-1980) was one of Poland's outstanding twentieth-century writers. Best remembered for his novels and stories, he also wrote poetry, plays and essays. He was an active participant in Warsaw's cultural life between the wars as a member of the Skamander group of poets. During the wartime occupation he helped a number of writers and artists to hide. After the war he was editor of Poland's leading literary journal, and chairman of the Polish Writers Union.

Leszek Kolakowski is one of the Europe's most eminent philosophers. His books include Main Currents of Marxism, God Owes Us Nothing, Presence of Myth, and Metaphysical Horror. He is a Fellow of All Soul's College, Oxford.

Timothy Garton Ash is well known for his writings about Central Europe. His books include The Polish Revolution: Solidarity, The Uses of Adversity: Essays on the Fate of Central Europe, The File: A Personal History, and, most recently, History of the Present. He is Director of the European Studies Centre at St Antony's College, Oxford.

Antonia Lloyd-Jones is an editor and translator. Born in 1962, she read Russian and Ancient Greek at Oxford. Her translations from Polish include Who was David Weiser? by Pawel Huelle (nominated for the Independent Foreign Fiction Award) and House of Day, House of Night by Olga Tokarczuk.

2002
200 pages
ISBN 978-963-9241-45-9 paperback $16.95 / €13.95 / £9.95

Published in the series:
Central European Classics
ISSN 1418-0162

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