The Cold War's hidden histories

As a child of people who had a huge portion of their life pass behind the Iron Curtain, I was more than interested to hear what the academics who led Monday evening's event had to say. They started the event with each of them telling the audience their own personal experience of how they became interested in stories of espionage during the Cold War. Each of those experiences, equally intriguing and engaging, made me want to know more.

They continued by telling us stories from their upcoming book, Cold War Spy Stories from Eastern Europe. Informants, secret police, people whose lives had been reduced to pages of files- all of those were subjects of the stories. Not only was I kept at the edge of my seat the entire time, but I became more and more surprised with each detail as to how little I had actually known up to this point about the subject.

The amount of time that Valentina Glajar, Alison Lewis and Corina L. Petrescu have put into their work- reading files, trying to put the pieces together- to be able to bring all of this information to the public is incredible. I think their book gives a very important insight into facts that weren't always accessible and although history tends to repeat itself, if people became more aware of those facts, we could prevent it from doing that. You can pre-order the book here.


Adriana Aleksandrova

The writing is on the cake

I'm having a quick look through the Cultural Exchanges brochure when I see a picture a big pink cake. Written on it in icing is the word "PINGGG...K!" This instantly intrigues me. I get the feeling this is that one event  I'm going to be really excited about.
 
Reading on, I discover it's going to be an open mic poetry evening. I've never been to an open mic event which makes me want to go even more. It seems like a good opportunity to meet new people and have a nice time listening to live poetry performances. When I listen to a poem being performed, most of the time I'm almost instantly immersed. The direct communication between poet and listeners takes the experience of poetry to an entirely new level.

The event is especially supportive of poetry discussing matters of gender and sexuality - another point in its favour. I am definitely looking forward to the evening. It's a chance to have a good time with interesting people while exploring relevant, important topics through poetry.

Book tickets for the event here. 


Adriana Aleksandrova