Table of Contents

Introduction: biographical research and historical watersheds, Robert Miller, Robin Humphrey and Elena Zdravomyslova. The Potential of Biographical Research: Context, authenticity, referentiality, reflexivity: back to basics in autobiography, J.P. Roos; The usefulness of life stories for a realist and meaningful sociology, Daniel Bertaux; Three dimensions of biographical narratives, Valery Golofast. Communists, Informers and Dissidents: Estonian- inclined communists as marginals, Aili Aarelaid-Tart; Portrayals of past and present selves in the life stories of former Stasi informers, Barbara Miller; Czech dissidents: a classically modern community, Vladimir Andrle; Anti-Soviet biographies: the dissident milieu and its neighbouring milieux, Sofia Tchouikina; The caf Saigon Tusovka: one segment of the informal-public sphere of late-Soviet society, Elena Zdravomyslova. Exile, Migration and Adapting to Social Change: Living the life: exile in the experience of the Polish Intelligentsia, John A. Jackson; Biographical continuities in East-West migration before and after 1989: two case studies of migration from Romania to West Germany, Roswitha Breckner; Trajectories of coping strategies in Eastern Germany, Olaf Struck; Inequality and exclusion in the history of poor Slovak families, Zuzana Kus . Ethnicity and Sexuality: Different generations of Leningrad Jews in the context of public/private division: paradoxes of ethnicity, Viktor Voronkov and Elena Chikadze; Shame, promiscuity and social mobility in Russian autobiographies from poor working-class milieux, Anna Rotkirch; The construction of sexual pleasure in women's biographies, Anna Temkina.