The Lands Between
‘The Lands Between’ takes readers on a personal journey through central eastern Europe, that old and elusive land. From Prague and Vienna, the journey extends to cover the 2015-16 Near Eastern immigration crisis from the Austrian-Slovenian border, COVID’s 2020-21 grip from Prague to Trieste, and Russia’s 2022 Ukraine invasion with its refugee tidal wave into the region. ‘The Lands Between’ details the intricate beauties, horrible conflicts, and interwoven histories of a place whose disparate cultures have also been unified by successive imperial waves, Roman, Magyar, and Habsburg – but what about Avars and Great Moravians, let alone Gepids and Lombards, not to mention Přemyslids, Piasts, Arpáds, Jagiellonians? ‘The Lands Between’ delves deeply into the region’s historical layers even as its roving author meets today’s central eastern Europeans.
Andrew Giarelli is an author and journalist based in Prague, as well as a senior lecturer in literature and journalism at Anglo American University there. His Ukraine-related reporting and his central European travel writing have appeared in various U.S., Czech, Slovak and Moldovan media. His novel ‘The Talking Statues’, a historical thriller set in contemporary Rome, was published by danzig & unfried in 2021.
Photo: David Kummerman