The volume focuses on emerging rooms for manoeuvre in the socialist societies of Central and
Eastern Europe after the Second World War. Unlike in other works these areas of activity are
not viewed as isolated spheres where citizens could act independently from political and
societal constraints. They are rather conceptualized here as geographical social or
institutional spaces whose existence was either outside of political control or more or less
intentionally allowed by authorities and other decision-makers. The contributions investigate
how East Germans Poles Romanians Slovaks and Czechs coped with the limitations of socialist
reality. How did they adopt and successfully adapt given norms to their own specific interests?
To what extent were the resulting rooms for manoeuvre not only essential aspects of the state
socialist system but even necessary to stabilize it?
