ABSTRACT
All of the stories in this collection are “sociological autobiographies” in the Mertonian sense, i.e., the authors use the sociological perspective, and sociological categories of analysis to present their own biographies within the context of the history of their own times. As C. Wright Mills suggests to scholars who wish to exercise their sociological imaginations, they link history and structure to agency and their own lives. But what else could we have expected? From the autobiographies, we can learn a great deal about the growth and development of sociology as a scholarly discipline in Central and Eastern Europe, about the ways it was studied in various institutions of higher education, and about the various career paths of sociologists. We can also learn about the topics that were of interest to Central and Eastern European sociologists and the methods and theories they used. But we don't need to repeat this fascinating information here.
