Vladimir Tismaneanu is a professor of political science at the University of Maryland (College Park, USA) and author of numerous books, including The Devil in History: Communism, Fascism, and Some Lessons of the Twentieth Century. Together with Marius Stan he co-authored Romania Confronts its Communist Past: Democracy, Memory, and Moral Justice (Cambridge University Press, 2018).
The comeback of ethnocentric populism is disquieting, but does not necessarily mean the end of the liberal engagement the revolutions of 1989 inaugurated. It may as well be a short-lived return of repressed emotions and phobias, an effect of the disenchantment that follows almost every revolution.
