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Was societal dissent to authoritarian regimes always an important point of academic interest? Unsurprisingly perhaps, given the Cold War mind-set's preoccupation with warheads and state leaders, domestic dissent in Eastern Europe attracted Western attention quite late. This introductory chapter reviews the literature on societal opposition to Communist rule and lays out the approach of this book. Since dissidents function as transnational actors, the history of dissidentism needs to be transnational and makes use of various materials from both sides of the Iron Curtain and from across the region. Finally, I explain the theoretical underpinning and methodological approach resulting from emphasis on representation and following the Western gaze with its tendency to select and exclude certain objects over others.

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-22613-8_1

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