Peter Graf Kielmansegg
The second October Revolution
A stroke of luck in European history
The historical significance of the revolution of 1989 can be most clearly defined by examining individual moments of this complex event, but also by also putting the event as a whole into the context of the century that it ended. The Leipzig demonstration on 9 October is one of those moments worth study. Here one can study the conditions for overcoming fear which, according to Montesquieu, is the "principle" of despotism. The centenary significance of the revolution of 1989 lies in the fact that it refutes the October Revolution of 1917.

Karl Schlögel
Fighting a losing battle?
Russia and her friends twenty years after 1989
The end of the Soviet Union was no mere change of political order. It was the dissolution of a way of life. The impact of destruction and regeneration affected every aspect of everyday life. Taste, individual behaviour, even traffic have become different; the mobile phone has dissolved the vastness of the Russian expanse. Another sense of time reigns. But Russia remains a country of different tempi. What is mutually exclusive elsewhere stands next to one another here: boom towns and ghost towns, dynamism and rigidity, modernity without modernisation, personal responsibility and authoritarian state. The practice of authoritarian rule perplexes. Russia's friends are tired of hearing that the outside world is primarily to blame for the country's weakness. Pseudo-patriotic retro-culture, stereotypes of the enemy and self-pity will not impress in the long term. However, there is no cause for triumphal gestures. The crash of the global economy in 2009 has burst some illusions in the West as well. But disillusionment is a form of self-enlightenment.

Boguslaw Bakula
The burden of freedom
Polish Culture 1989-1999
For Poland, the year 1989 marks the return from socialist alienation to a responsible handling of history. This change was carried forward by euphoria but it also brought about risks, breaks with the past, and burdens. The historical challenge lay not least of all in combining the once separate cultural spheres of dissidence, exile and official policy. The debates of the 1990s often fundamentally called into question Poland's conventional self-image. However, through these debates Polish culture gained in freedom.

Severin Fischer, Barbara Lippert
Making tracks
EU energy policy and the neighbourhood
With the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) and the beginnings of a common energy-driven foreign policy, the European Union is integrating increasingly different strategies of co-operation. With the ENP, energy-policy rules are to be exported and guarantees of supplies improved. A multi-level course of action that takes into consideration regional differences promises success: vis-à-vis the eastern neighbours, the emphasis should be on a differentiated, bilateral approach. With the neighbours in the south, the EU should put their wager on multilateral and regional solutions. But with regard to an energy-driven foreign policy, the ENP has its shortcomings, for the two key countries, Russia and Turkey, are ignored.

Eckart D. Stratenschulte
Sur(f)plus value Baltic Sea
EU Baltic Sea strategy – and Russia
The European Union considers the Baltic Sea to be an inland sea. Eight of the countries located around it belong to the EU but they are marked by great disparities. The Baltic is threatened by overuse. In June 2009, the European Commission submitted a draft Baltic Sea strategy which the European Parliament and European Council have passed. The goal of this policy is to boost security and the sea's ecological quality and to promote the prosperity of the region. Now 160 projects are to be realized. Success will depend on whether it is possible to integrate the ninth country into the Baltics: Russia. So far, there is no sustainable concept. This weakens the EU and raises doubts as to whether the Baltic Sea strategy can be realized.

Mykola Riabchuk
Longing for the bomb
Ukraine, myths and nuclear weapons
Parts of the Ukrainian elite and public are quarrelling over Ukraine's nuclear disarmament after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Some see it as a mistake. This nostalgia for the bomb feeds on a widespread inferiority complex. The occasionally hysterical, anti-Ukrainian tone in Moscow, worries about the escalation of a conflict over the Crimea, and the feeling that Ukraine is being ignored by the West, do the rest. But this nuclear nostalgia is harmful. It confuses myth and reality and distracts society from real security and economic problems as well as substantial reforms that must have one goal: the country's integration into western structures.

Andreas Umland
The Orange Revolution as crossroad
Democratization surge in Ukraine, restoration impulse in Russia
The Orange Revolution, which marks its fifth anniversary on 21 November 2009, was a significant step in the democratization of Ukraine. This concerns in particular the emancipation of the mass media, the strengthening of civil society and the institutionalization of free elections. By contrast, Russia's leadership reacted with continued regression in its domestic and foreign policies. Some new elements of Putin-style authoritarianism can be described as "para-totalitarian". However, western support for the colour revolutions cannot be held responsible for the strengthening of autocratic tendencies in the post-Soviet realm.

Sören Urbansky
Off to the provinces!
Research in Russia's regional archives
It is easier to work in most of the archives in the Russian provinces than in the centre. Restrictions that encumber archival work in Moscow are not put into practice outside the Russian capital. Thus historians are able to dig up treasures here and there. Nonetheless, there are archives in the provinces where arbitrariness and a lack of transparency impede access to the sources.

Claudia von Selle, Dirk von Selle
Take responsibility!
Nazi-looted art between law and morality
The handling of art looted by the Nazis remains an issue. The semi-official publication "Taking Responsibility" makes it clear that the German government derives from the singularity of the Holocaust a moral obligation that will never fall under the statute of limitations. It therefore follows: the call for an end to requests for restitution is out of place. The search for art looted by the Nazis must continue, and restitution must be made for such artistic property. Surprisingly, to this day, there is no law that would provide public facilities a constitutional basis for restitution, which is often worth millions. But museums and the art market are beginning to look for systematic solutions.

Andreas Heinemann-Grüder
"Second national rebirth"?
Nationalism in late and post-Communist Europe
The flourishing of national movements was a central phenomenon throughout late and post-Communist Europe. A three-volume collection of articles dedicated to the study of nationalism traces this development. In it, special attention is given to language and cultural rights. Unfortunately, this collection largely neglects the fact that post-Communist nationalism has a lot to do with a Communist-Socialist elite's determination to survive, the instrumental use of the past for political ends, the struggle over redistribution, and protectionism. Nonetheless, these three volumes provide a comprehensive, empirically rich orientation for post-Communist nationalisms.

Published 2009-12-14