Review - Police Aesthetics: Literature, Film, and the Secret Police in Soviet Times (Cristina Vatulescu)

In one sense, I only reading Cristina Vatulescu's Police Aesthetics because the ebook was available on Hoopla Digital through my public library, and I was looking for something interesting to read. The reality is that this is primarily how I discovered it, because in all likelihood if I had learned of its existence otherwise I would have requested it from interlibrary loan and read it anyway. It's exactly the kind of book that would have been very useful to me for various term papers as an undergraduate Russian Studies student, too, so there's almost a nostalgia factor for me when reading books like this.

That said, I imagine its appeal to a general American audience is probably somewhat limited. It's a book about the role of the secret police in the literary/film world of the Soviet Union and Communist Romania, among other things, and it's at times a bit dry. But it's also an interesting look into what is (and isn't) to be found in the opened archives of post-Communist countries, and it's worth a look through for anyone who finds themselves interested in that.

Especially if it's available through your public library's Hoopla subscription.