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Communist Europe: Crisis, Transformation & Memory after the Second World War - HIS00092I

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  • Department: History
  • Module co-ordinator: Dr. Hugo Service
  • Credit value: 30 credits
  • Credit level: I
  • Academic year of delivery: 2022-23

Module summary

The Second World War brought huge devastation to the eastern half of Europe. Reckless, brutal and genocidal acts by Eastern Europe’s Nazi occupiers undermined the foundations of societies there to such a degree that total transformation appeared unavoidable once the war was over. To the West, Eastern Europe seemed to disappear behind an ‘Iron Curtain’ after 1944 – as the new hegemonic power of the region, the Soviet Union, took control. The rhetoric and writing of Cold War era politicians and commentators in the West constructed a simple image of countries dominated by the USSR and gripped by intolerable living conditions and incompetent officials – lasting until the collapse of Moscow’s 'empire' in 1989-90. This module seeks to move beyond such simplifications and pull open the Iron Curtain for a more complex view.

This module will range across the eastern half of the continent, with a particular focus on Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania and East Germany. Students will examine the radical social, political and economic transformations which took place in the first decade after WWII, as well as the sweeping repression of the Stalinist era. They will examine mass opposition and uprisings, including the Hungarian ‘Revolution’ of 1956. They will investigate the everyday lives of ordinary people, dissident activities and attempts to reform communism, including the Prague Spring of 1968. They will study international and transnational relations as well as the collapse of Communism in the 1980s. They will also look at how the legacy of Communism has been handled since 1989.

Module will run

Occurrence Teaching period
A Spring Term 2022-23 to Summer Term 2022-23

Module aims

The aims of this module are:

  • To provide students with the opportunity to study particular historical topics in depth;
  • To develop students' ability to examine a topic from a range of perspectives and to strengthen their ability to work critically and reflectively with secondary and primary material; and
  • To combine seminar preparation and discussion of the topic being studied with extended independent work on a project devised by the student.

Module learning outcomes

Students who complete this module successfully will:

  • Have acquired a deep knowledge of the specific topic studied
  • Have developed their ability to use and synthesise a range of primary and secondary sources
  • Be able to evaluate the arguments that historians have made about the topic studied
  • Have developed their ability to study independently through seminar-based teaching
  • Gain experience of working collaboratively through an assessed group project

Module content

This 30-credit module is taught through a weekly two-hour seminar run from weeks 2-10 in the spring term and a four week period of project work undertaken in weeks 1-4 of the summer term. Students will complete their group project work within that period and tutors should arrange to be available for consultation with students twice during that time. There will be no formal seminar teaching during this period.

Seminar topics are subject to variation, but are likely to include the following:

  1. Aftermath of war and occupation

  2. Stalinism and trials 1948-53

  3. Uprising 1953-56

  4. Spring 1968

  5. Everyday Life

  6. Dissent, opposition and Polish Solidarity

  7. International, transnational and inner-bloc relations

  8. 1989 Revolution and Collapse

  9. Memory after Communism

For the Group Project in Summer Term, you will use your independent research skills to find, analyse and contextualise, in small groups, primary sources (texts, images, objects) which throw light on the communist-era history or post-communist memory of the eastern half of Europe.

Indicative assessment

Task Length % of module mark
Groupwork
Group Project		 N/A 33
Online Exam - 24 hrs (Centrally scheduled)
Open Exam - Communist Europe		 8 hours 67

Special assessment rules

None

Additional assessment information

Formative assessment will be a group presentation between weeks 5 and 7 of the spring term.

For summative assessment students take a 24-hour open exam in the summer term assessment period, usually released at 11:00 on day 1 and submitted at 11:00 on day 2. For those taking two Explorations modules the 24-hour open exams are held on consecutive days, with both papers released at 11:00 on day 1 and both due for submission on 11:00 of day 3.

Students also submit a piece of written work for their group project of no more than 3,000 words in week 5 of the summer term.

The exam carries 67% of assessment and the project element 33% for this module.

Students who need to be reassessed in the project component of this module (for example due to Exceptional Circumstance) will be required to submit in the summer reassessment period a shorter individual project (2,000 words) which should include a short reflection (500 words max) on group work, considering how this project could be expanded if a team of three to four people were working on it. Students should consider how they would divide up the research tasks, and reflect briefly on problems which might arise and how they would manage them. Module tutors will advise on the content and design of this project.

Indicative reassessment

Task Length % of module mark
Groupwork
Group Project		 N/A 33
Online Exam - 24 hrs (Centrally scheduled)
Open Exam - Communist Europe		 8 hours 67

Module feedback

Following their formative assessment task, students will typically receive written feedback that will include comments and a mark within 10 working days of submission.

Work will be returned to students in their discussion groups and may be supplemented by the tutor giving some oral feedback to the whole group. All students are encouraged, if they wish, to discuss the feedback on their procedural work with their tutor (or module convenor) during student hours. For more information, see the Statement on Feedback.

For the summative assessment task, students will receive their provisional mark and written feedback within 20 working days of the submission deadline. The tutor will then be available during student hours for follow-up guidance if required. For more information, see the Statement of Assessment.

Indicative reading

For term time reading, please refer to the module VLE site. Before the course starts, we encourage you to look at the following items of preliminary reading:

Ash, Timothy Garton. We The People: The Revolution of '89 Witnessed in Warsaw, Budapest, Berlin and Prague. Cambridge: Granta, 1990.

Judt, Tony. Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945. London: William Heineman, 2005.

Pittaway, Mark. Eastern Europe 1939-2000. London: Arnold, 2004.


The information on this page is indicative of the module that is currently on offer. The University constantly explores ways to enhance and improve its degree programmes and therefore reserves the right to make variations to the content and method of delivery of modules, and to discontinue modules, if such action is reasonably considered to be necessary. In some instances it may be appropriate for the University to notify and consult with affected students about module changes in accordance with the University's policy on the Approval of Modifications to Existing Taught Programmes of Study.