Recommendations for Fiction Set in Eastern Europe

[Kelsey]

Hey guys! I was so impressed by everyone's knowledge in another thread, I am hoping you all can help me by recommending some historical fiction set in Eastern Europe. Specifically, the following cities/regions:

Prague
Warsaw
Krakow
Budapest
Transylvania (but not Dracula:) )
Ljubljana (or just Slovenia)
Dubrovnik, Split, or Zagreb (or just Croatia)

Right before I went to Ireland last Summer, I read Morgan Llewellyn's fantastic novel set during the 1916 uprising, and seeing all of those things, and places when I actually went to Dublin made the experience all the better. So I'd like to get some historical perspective before this Summer's trip as well. I'm mostly interested in fiction, but if anyone happens to know a really great non-fiction title, I'd love to hear that too.

Thanks in advance, I hope it's okay to post this here :)

[firedrake]

Csardas - by Diane Pearson. It's set in Hungary and runs from before WW1 to just after WW2. It's gorgeous.

Schindler's List - Thomas Keneally

[dolores haze]

The works of Milan Kundera.

[donroc]

The Bridge on the Drina by Ivo Andric
Dance of the Assassins forgot author's name.
Novels by Sinkiewicz

[cooeedownunder]

Blow me - I have led a sheltered life. I haven't even heard of the names of some of those places.

[Doogs]

Second Milan Kundera.

I also read The Streets of Warsaw by Steve Wiggins a few years back. It's about the Polish Resistance during World War II. I wouldn't call it great, but it was solid enough.

[dolores haze]

Several of the historical/spy novels by Alan Furst. The Polish Officer is one; can't remember the names of the rest. Be warned - they're addictive.

[Kelsey]

Ooooh, I'm so excited. Thanks guys! Keep 'em coming if you think of any more :)

[Priene]

Radetzky March by Joseph Roth and The Post Office Girl by Stefan Zwieg are good Austro-Hungarian novels. Miklos Vamos' The Book of Fathers covers a couple of centuries in Hungary. The Good Soldier Švejk by Jaroslav Hasek is a magnificently absurd war comedy. Dubravka Ugrešić is a good modern Croatian writer.

And then there's Antal Szerb's Journey by Moonlight, which was technically set in Italy, but the characters were Hungarian and it's absolutely beautiful.

[pdr]

if you haven't read John Biggins's quartet of novels set in the last years of the Hapsburg Empire you're in for a treat.

Start with 'Tomorrow the World', then find 'A Sailor of Austria', The Emperor's Coloured Coat' and 'The Two-Headed Eagle'.

He's a fine writer, with a dry wit and his research is, according to the historians, impeccable.

[L.C. Blackwell]

If you're willing to read non-fiction, Romuald Spasowski's The Liberation of One is the book to read on the history of modern Poland. It's a personal as well as a national history, vivid and powerful and brilliantly written. After I put it down, I felt like I'd lived those years and seen the events that happened.

Still gives me a little shiver in my spine....

[lkp]

Rakossy and Until the Sun Falls, both by Cecilia Holland.

[Ariella]

I recommend Tales from Ancuta's Inn (sometimes translated as simply Ancuta's Inn) by Mihail Sadoveanu. Think of the Canterbury Tales set in nineteenth-century Moldavia. It's not strictly Transylvanian, but the setting is on just the other side of the mountains and you can still see vestiges of that same world of shepherds, monks, and isolated villages in Transylvania today.

Another novel by Sadoveanu, The Hatchet, is also very good.

[autumnleaf]

Under the Frog by Tibor Fischer is a black comedic novel, set in Hungary in the period leading up to the 1956 revolution.

Veronika Decides to Die by Paulo Coelho is set in Slovenia.

[Tocotin]

Elizabeth Kostova's Historian is set in Eastern Europe for the most part.

[Tocotin]

Novels by Sinkiewicz

Sienkiewicz.

[downtherabbithole]

The novel "Prague" is set in Budapest.

Also, Jonathan Safran Foer's "Everything is Illuminated" is partly set in an area around Odessa I think.

Imre Kertesz, or Kertesz Imre (the Hungarian name way) sets most of his novels in Budapest or Eastern Europe. Many of them are about Holocaust survivors, though.

[Eddyz Aquila]

I recommend Tales from Ancuta's Inn (sometimes translated as simply Ancuta's Inn) by Mihail Sadoveanu. Think of the Canterbury Tales set in nineteenth-century Moldavia. It's not strictly Transylvanian, but the setting is on just the other side of the mountains and you can still see vestiges of that same world of shepherds, monks, and isolated villages in Transylvania today.

Another novel by Sadoveanu, The Hatchet, is also very good.

Wow, I never thought Sadoveanu's works were even translated into other languages!
The Hatchet (Baltagul) is very good. But I've had to read it so many times I got sick of it, I don't want to see it again...

Anyways, read Sienkiewicz, mainly the Teutonic Knights story and With Fire and Sword.
Kostova, as said before, focuses on Eastern Europe with her epic Historian.

[backslashbaby]

You can't walk up to Buda castle without having read this:

http://www.amazon.com/Bridge-at-Andau-James-Michener/dp/0449210502

The apartment I lived in still had the bullet holes from 1956, btw. They are all over the place if you know where to look.