When escapism was pursued collectively, rather than individually, it forged important social bonds. In Bulgaria, historian Maria Todorova has argued that post-Communist nostalgia emerges from this “feeling of loss for a specific form of sociability,” which frayed with the development of free markets. In Romania too, political scientist Mihaela Miro

It’s political and it’s cultural: At some point in the last few years, a feeling has set in that the future is being foreclosed

The worse reality becomes—the more, for example, foreclosures and unemployment sky-rocket—the more people seek refuge and comfort in illusions. When opinions cannot be distinguished from facts, when there is no universal standard to determine truth in law, in science, in scholarship, or in reporting the events of the day, when the most valued skill