Freedom within sight
1989 and Europe's new start

Adam Michnik
In defence of freedom
Reflections on 1989
The year 1989 brought a revolution without revolution. The struggle against Communism revealed a belief in the importance of human freedom. But this freedom brought about paradoxes. The workers who went on strike to win their freedom were the first victims of the transformation. Solidarnosc strongholds went bankrupt. But throughout this great expanse, save for the Balkans and Russia, there have never been a better 20 years than the past two decades. Today, Europe is being put to the test. Cynicism, which undermines every value system, and authoritarian temptations are threatening freedom. The defence of the republic is at stake.

György Konrád
Without beatings and gunfire
Notes from the turning point: December '88–January '89
What is left of socialism? Us. The lessons and traces, the style, the moral, and logic of these 40 years cannot simply be tossed in the rubbish bin. An experiment is being carried out here. How can one prepare the way for democracy by intellectual means? How can we develop our human dignity? How can we learn the courage and calm of freedom? Time of acceleration, almost revolution. A revolution of normality. Instead of Moscow's road to integration, we have chosen Brussels's concept. Not a single Belgian tank was needed.

Petr Pithart
Birth mark
How the "Velvet Revolution" degenerated into a "regime change"
The Prague Spring did not come to an end in August 1968. Only the internal occupation by the armed Czechoslovak state power a year later broke the resistance. What followed was the demise of society, the retreat of people to the private sphere. The destruction of trust between people in the 20 long years of "normalisation" had consequences that went far beyond the year 1989. Predatory capitalism has turned the disorder of the shadow economy into law. What remains is "the solidarity of the shaken", which is what Charta 77 held together as a pluralistic community without ideology.

Tomas Venclova
Those who lived in the cold
The Lithuanian dissidence 1953–1980
Lithuania is not Hungary. What sounds banal was cruel reality. The Soviet Union repressed the will to freedom in the Baltic republics even more than in the east central European satellite states. Therefore, after the defeat of the partisan struggle against Soviet occupation, many nationally minded Lithuanians considered open resistance pointless. They behaved as if they had conformed to the system, in order to expand the limits of what was allowed. Only in the 1960s did noteworthy underground groups again come into existence. A year after the 1975 CSCE Final Act, several dissidents, together with the Lithuanian Helsinki Group, dared to found the first non-conspiratorial association of non-conformists. Unlike most Lithuanian dissident groups, they struggled not only for national independence but for the freedom of the individual as well. With that, they laid the cornerstone for modern Lithuania.

Karl Schlögel
The "merchant ants" of Zoo station
On history on the sidelines and forgotten Europeans
There is no historical zero second. All that talk about the break with Communism in 1989 coming "out of the clear blue sky" only reveals the limited horizons of contemporaries. The year 1989 was not made by "great men" either. The fall of the Berlin Wall was preceded by a long phase of attrition. It is connected with the movement of the East-West Express and the "merchant ants" from Europe's east, for whom Berlin became the point of transfer. These people are the heroes of this break with Communism. Together with the bridge engineers, budget airlines, and bus companies, they created the new Europe. Award Eurolines with the Charlemagne Prize!

Wolfgang Eichwede
Don Quixote's victory
Civil rights activists and the revolutions of 1989
The civil rights activists did not make the revolutions of 1989. But with their key concepts and definitions of law, non-violence, and dialogue as well as the institutionalisation of the latter at the round table, they gave the events of 1989 a certain profile. The birth of the human rights movement was 5 December 1965. From then on, civil rights activists in the Soviet Union, Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and the German Democratic Republic tried to exert influence on society and those in power. The power of the powerless proved stronger than the coercive force of the repressive regimes.

Oldrich Tuma
When the shadow disappeared
The collapse of the Czechoslovak Regime in comparison
The collapse of the communist regime in Czechoslovakia came late, but was swift. When the shadow of 1968 disappeared and fear was banished, society reacted spontaneously and the fall of communist rule accelerated sharply. Although the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia stayed put longer than the Polish or Hungarian regime, there were many similarities between them. The collapsing regimes had relied on the same ideology and the same methods. Thus the same forces confronted the Communist regimes with the same tactics. Above all, developments reinforced one another. The interaction between events in the German Democratic Republic and Czechoslovakia was especially intense. The fact that the Soviet Union had withdrawn every support for these regimes was decisive for its unconditional surrender without putting up any resistance.

Andrzej Paczkowski
The Polish civil war
The unrelenting decline of communism
The process of overcoming communism in Poland began at the end of the 1970s. The unstable economic situation led to strikes. Workers closed ranks to form Solidarnosc. Together with the Catholic Church, the labour union campaigned for non-violence and reforms. The regime reacted with repression and introduced martial law. With that began a decade of civil war by other means. At home, the regime lost all of its legitimacy. Abroad, Gorbachev's perestroika led to the loss of reinsurance in alliance policy. Poland's regime saw itself forced to integrate the opposition in order to find a way out of the crisis. The round table became the forum of dialogue, the partially democratic elections a plebiscite against communist rule.

Gerhard Simon
History's cunning
Perestroika, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the end of the Soviet Union
In Germany, Mikhail Gorbachev is considered the architect of unification, in Russia, the destroyer of the Soviet Union. Both processes form a continuous chain of events. The Communist Parties' loss of power in east central Europe and the end of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union were the result of perestroika in the Soviet Union. Without the CPSU, however, there was nothing to hold the Soviet Union together. The mobilisation of anti-Soviet forces profited from east central Europe's new start. In 1991, a majority, including the communist functionaries, considered the dissolution of the Soviet Union unavoidable.

Fedor Luk'ianov
Looking back to the future
Russia between history and globalisation
Without perestroika and "new thinking" in the Soviet Union, the East-West conflict would not have been ended, nor would east central Europeans have achieved their freedom. Twenty years after 1989, Russia is still trying to find its political identity and its place in the world. Russia's political elites have not gotten over the collapse of the Soviet Union. Their longing for empire and a new great power consciousness on one hand, and the economic and demographic possibilities on the other, are contradictory. In domestic politics, Russia's path remains different from the one taken by the post-communist states of east central Europe. In foreign policy, a readjustment of relations with the European Union is on the agenda.

Jerzy Holzer
Taking leave of a illusion
Solidarnosc and the idea of a society free of conflict
Solidarnosc and its communist opponent had one thing in common: the dream of a society free of conflict. But Solidarnosc was no more successful than the communists in convincing Poland's citizens of their model of society. In the 1980s, Solidarnosc was weakened by martial law and internal conflict. Most of the population turned its back on it and withdrew into the private sphere. After 1989, the struggle within the post-Solidarnosc camp continued. The dispute over the proper treatment of the past and the speed of transformation has split Polish society. To this day, the political trenches run through the camp of the former Solidarnosc movement.

Jirina Siklová
Freedom is not masculine
The Czech women's movement before and after 1989
Socialism maintained that it had resolved the issue of the sexes. But for women decreed equality meant above all a double burden of job and family. In any event, they did not have access to decision-making positions and, even worse, their elementary civil and human rights were constantly violated. While the Czech women's movement was nationalised, strong-willed Czech women fought for the freedom of all members of society. It may still not be clear to many western feminists, but the preconditions for addressing women's issues were something the women of east central Europe won only in 1989. Since then, a lively civil society and gender studies have developed.

Edmund Wnuk-Lipinski
The great transformation
Poland on the road to the "round table"
The break with communism in 1989 began in Poland at least ten years earlier. The peaceful dismantling of communism was the result of a transition that took place within society. The visit of the Pope in 1979 overcame the atomisation of society. The economic crisis advanced the establishment of a mass movement around Solidarnosc. With martial law, the regime lost the rest of its legitimacy, but the opposition was not in a position to take power. The Round table broke the stalemate in favour of the opposition and set in motion the political about-face within the Socialist camp.

Stefan Samerski
The devil and holy water
John Paul II and the erosion of communism
John Paul II contributed to the erosion of communist rule in eastern Europe. While being Archbishop of Cracow, he had championed freedom of religion and human rights. After his election to the Papacy in 1978, he continued this strategy. Through his travels and addresses, he called for dialogue with the regime, defended the independence of Solidarnosc, and so advanced the break with communism. He avoided being instrumentalised for political ends. From the Christian message he derived an equidistance vis-à-vis all political and economic systems the moment he saw the dignity of man violated.

Jáchym Topol
From the asylum to Europe
On the obsession of history and the irresistible desire to provoke the controllers
Czech writer Jáchym Topol does not think much of worshipping dissidents – of whose ranks he was once one of the youngest. However, he vehemently struggles against disparagement of freedom. In order to understand what east central Europe has achieved in the past 20 years, one needs only to travel to Belarus.

Katharina Raabe
A reading room
Literature in east central Europe since 1989
Eduard Goldstücker's prediction that the historically significant novel of the present would come from east central Europe was promptly fulfilled in Péter Nádas's A Book of Memories. The works of Aleksandar Tisma and Imre Kertész left their readers shaken. Their literature proved itself to be sufficiently mature to recount the break with civilisation that was Auschwitz and the horror of war, the contamination of every square meter of central European soil with guilt and crime. Young writers are now making accessible historical metropolises, landscapes, and expanses that had lain in the shadow of the iron curtain and over which the fog of forgetting had settled. As already had been seen on the ruins of the Habsburg Empire: melancholy and the grotesque permeate great central European literature.

Ales Steger
Mercy! Mercy!
Professor, do you understand the world?
The collapse of Yugoslavia is an omen: it all started with the aim to centralise and standardise education policy and culture – and failed. Europe should learn from that. The European Union's tendency to centralise and standardise culture by means of an affirmative policy is obvious. The price is high. Uniformity is moving in where there was once diversity, PR and propaganda where there was once discourse in and about Europe. Europe is at risk of degenerating into an empty phrase, the freedom of culture into farce.

Gemma Pörzgen
Dynamism and Persistence
A European Public and Its Borders
More and more frequently, calls are heard for a European public sphere – although it has existed for a long time: as a polyphonic choir of national media that reflects the diversity of Europe and can hardly be controlled. The European Commission harbours a strong desire to gain influence within this sphere and to form a EU public sphere. But these numerous media projects are to a certain degree artificial, only very few do justice to the high standards set. The internet may offer many chances for cross-border debate, but as a globalised medium, it can hardly be limited to the European Union. Furthermore, there are few personalities who could become role models for Europe.

Christina Links, Katharina Raabe
"The literature of which we sreamed"
The book and ambivalent outcomes of 1989
The cold war and the division of Germany had a strong influence on the reception of literature from eastern Europe. In the German Democratic Republic, the publishing house Volk und Welt served as a hub for the procurement of literature. The systematic approach and competence of employees were exemplary, but ideological demands and censorship put limits to their work. The Federal Republic of Germany, where it was possible to publish works forbidden in the GDR, provided room for complementary reception. Individual enthusiasts served as intermediaries. The year 1989 was a watershed. While new chances opened up for the publishing houses from the West, those in the East lost their exceptional position. Editors Christina Links and Katharina Raabe discuss bestsellers and under the counter goods, the laws of the market and the loss of expertise, differing reader experiences as well as the search for good literature.

Doris Liebermann
"I understand only the man who falls"
East European influences in the work of H.-H. Grimmling
Painter Hans-Hendrik Grimmling was represented at the great Moscow-Berlin exhibition with early murals and a self-portrait that he created while still living in the German Democratic Republic. Doris Liebermann spoke with him about his ambivalence towards the state decreed friendship with the Soviet Union, the serious encounter with Russian art and culture, and their influence on his work.

Dobrochna Dabert
The turning point
1989 in Polish film
The overcoming of communism brought cinema a previously unknown artistic freedom. But expectations that film was the art form that could best depict the break with the past went unfulfilled. The evolutionary character of the "refolution" prevented that. The round table in 1989 was not a suitable pendant to the storming of the Bastille in 1789 or the material of which films are made. However, if one applies to Polish society the anthropological approach that stages of human life are marked by rituals of transition, this reveals that Polish film has expressed the experiences of the break with communism in all its facets and complexities.

Ivaylo Ditchev
Borderline cases
Instructions for use
The socialist state border was "defended". Since the end of the East-West conflict, the paradigm is "guard". Border controls have lost meaning, surveillance procedures have shifted into the interior. Economic, cultural, and political differences have not been abolished. The border is today no longer a sharp line of division, but a zone where national stereotypes overlap, the flow of goods converges, people meet, an area of contact for imaginary and real differences.

Stefan Auer
Who ist afraid of the 'new Europe'
Nationalism and European integration since 1989
EU enthusiasts are at risk to contribute to the decline of the European Union. The causes are distorted views about Europe's past and unrealistic expectations about its future. Integration can no longer be derived from the historical experiences of the founding states, nor are we dealing with a "post-national constellation" in which constitutional patriotism can endow the meaning of integration. The EU of 27 states is more heterogeneous than the European Economic Community of six. But this is not a burden that has to be overcome. Differences and conflicts represent a chance and are the core of what is political. The re-politicisation of the EU is now on the agenda.

Kai-Olaf Lang
Rebellion of the impatient
Populism in east central Europe
Populist politicians and parties are met with success. They are openly or latently calling into question the principles of liberal democracy such as the rule of law, pluralism, and the protection of minorities. In terms of content, issues, and ideology, populism has many facets. It extends from the extreme right via anti-modern agrarian parties and social populists to left-wing egalitarianism. Most are socially spirited, nationally minded, and Euro-sceptic. The populists receive support from the periphery, from the losers in urban centres, and increasingly from the "impeded middle-class" whose hopes have remained unfulfilled. The consensus at the time of the accession to the EU to accept social hardships no longer works. The populists' success is an indicator for a continuing deficiency of functions within state and administration.

Dorothee Bohle, Béla Greskovits
Economic miracle and national debt
On the political economy of east central Europe
20 years of democracy and market economics in east central Europe have been a great success. This distinguishes Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary from almost all of the other post-Socialist states. Their model of success has two components. First, these four states succeeded in becoming the manufacturing site for trans-national companies. That creates jobs and brings capital into the region. Second, the governments softened the social hardships of the transformation by means of welfare state policies. The price is an enormous national debt. Since EU accession, it has been necessary to take action against this. Dissatisfaction is growing, and populist forces are increasingly supported.

Vladimír Handl
From Soviet satellite to integration with the West
Twenty years of Czech Europe policy: a balance
East central Europe sees itself wedged between Germany and Russia. How to deal with this is a central task of foreign policy. The year 1989 made possible a new answer. "Return to Europe" was the slogan used to introduce orientation towards the West. The balance after 20 years, for the Czech Republic as well as the other countries of the region, is positive: As members of NATO and the EU, they are integrated economically and politically into the Euro-Atlantic area. Nonetheless, in the past few years, there has once again been talk about the "Europe in between".

Aleksander Smolar
The walls in people's heads
Memory culture divides Europe
With eastern enlargement in 2004 began the successful political and economic integration of Poland and the other east central European countries into the European Union. But this step has to be followed by another: the rapprochement of western and eastern memory culture. For the differing assessments of the Second World War, the Holocaust, the East-West conflict, even the break with Communism of 1989 as well as relations with Russia prevent a true intellectual and cultural integration of the EU.

Robert Brier
Sweeping Lines
On the Historicisation of the Transition around 1989
In east central and eastern Europe, the revolutions of 1989 have unleashed a social transition that is strongly oriented on Western modernity. However, it does not express historical determination. Rather, this form of change feeds on the character of the East-West conflict as ideological and cultural debate about the interpretation of modernity.

Published 2009-03-20

Original in German
Contributed by Osteuropa
© Osteuropa