Title: Shifting borders
Description: Shifting Borders, which brings together a substantial body of East European poetry published in the 1980s, emphasizes the work of a decade that culminated in one of the most significant turning points in the history of that region, if not the modern world. Organized by language rather than political boundary, this anthology reveals the vital role of poetry in each society and gives voice to many of the emotions behind the drive for political independence and cultural identity. Included are the poetries of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Ukraine, and Croatia, Serbia, and Slovenia. Each section is edited and introduced by a leading poet, translator, or scholar noted as an authority on that particular poetry.

Although their subjects, styles, and techniques often differ, in total these poems make clear the distinctions between the nature of poetry in Eastern Europe and that in the West. While several of the languages represented here are limited to a small number of speakers, each has a commitment to the central role of poetry in the history of its people and as a source of their unity.

All of the poems in this collection were written during a time of political oppression, and many are marked by that unhappy circumstance, with the issue of the ability to express oneself often at the center of the work. Some were written in virtual secrecy, shown only to a few readers or smuggled to the West. In a few cases, the English translations in this collection would not have been possible before the changes of 1989. The reaction to oppression can be defiant anger or satire, or - less directly - a statement of historical ethnic affirmation that implicitly challenges any external authority that would deny that culture. Of course, many other poems in Shifting Borders evoke the human subjects familiar to the literature of many times and places - love and longing, life and death.

While these works stand on their own, their role in the expression of culture is illuminated by their grouping with the works of other poems from their nation and their era. Poetry, of course, is not history, and poetry as an art has the power to live beyond one time and place; but as a compilation the poems in this anthology offer some deep insights into a crucial period.
Subjects: East European poetry, Translations into English, Poetry, collections, East european literature
Time periods: 20th century