CfP The End of Communism. Changes of 1989 in Central Europe.pdf (original) (raw)
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After Twenty Years – Reasons and Consequences of the Transformation in Central and Eastern Europe
The Majority of the papers in the present volume are the result of a series of seminars which took place between autumn 2007 and spring 2009 at the Department of the History of Eastern Europe at Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, headed by Dr. Tamás Krausz, under the auspices of the doctoral programme entitled ‘The History of Eastern Europe first in a wider historical context and then concentrating on the processes of the past twenty years. "The project helps young researchers to join in with the international debate on their subject matter and to foster the emergence of a common discourse. We believe it is important that the young generation of historians born around or after the transition who did not live through the pre-1989 period as children or young contemporaries should come to play an increasing role in this discourse. A certain distance in time is an important condition for a deeper understanding of the events and processes of the time. Not only do we gain access to the sources for this exciting sequence of historical phenomena – a distance in time also allows the subject matter to shift from the boundary zone between political sciences and history clearly into the sphere of the latter, thus becoming free of daily political interests. We trust that the authors of the present volume will become active participants in shaping this process."
1989 Twenty Years On: The End of Communism and the Fate of Eastern Europe
For those in the former Soviet Bloc, 1989 has been called an annus mirabilis—a year of miracles. With astonishing speed, communist rule ended in Eastern Europe, the Berlin Wall came tumbling down, and the nature of Europe was changed entirely. In 2009, those countries, from Germany to Bulgaria to Poland, have all mounted celebrations of the twentieth anniversary of this hope-filled year. Yet, two decades after the collapse of communism, many in those countries found themselves unsure of what, precisely, they were celebrating. Did 1989 really mark a moment of out-with-the-old-and-in-with-the-new, and how much had really changed in the intervening years? This month historian Theodora Dragostinova explores the impact of 1989 on the region and the legacy of history in today's Eastern Europe.
THE ASCEND AND DESCEND OF COMMUNISM IN EAST-CENTRAL EUROPE: AN HISTORICALOPINIONATED ANALYSIS
The year of 1989 marked a turning point in world history. During the last six months of that year, the world witnessed the collapse of communism in East-Central Europe. Two years later, communism was abolished in the Soviet Union, and that country began to fall apart. These changes were stunning and unprecedented in terms of their breadth, depth, and speed. In 1989, Hungary and Poland led the way, though cautiously. In February of that year, the Hungarian communist party leadership officially sanctioned the emergence of opposition parties the beginning of the end of the party's monopoly of power. In Poland a few months later, after a long series of roundtable negotiations between the communist party leadership and the opposition, the regime agreed to partially contested elections to the country's national legislature. Within the countries of East-Central Europe, the social, economic, and political changes were as fundamental as were those in France and Russia after their revolutions. In every country in the region the transition to Western style parliamentary democracy meant a fundamental restructuring of the political system, a proliferation of new interest groups and parties, and upheaval within the bureaucracy and administration. At the same time, all of these new regimes attempted an economic transition from centrally planned economies to market-oriented ones with increasing degrees of private ownership of property. Trying to accomplish both of these transitions simultaneously, from authoritarianism to pluralism and from plant to market, was a huge task, and the two occasionally pulled against each other.
In 1989, 30 years had passed since the fall of communism – a system installed in Central and Southern Europe following World War II. The changes which took place in 1989–1991 were the beginning of a political transformation in the states of Central and Southern Europe as well as in the Soviet Union. The triple transformation encompassed the reconstruction of free market economy, parliamentary democracy, and – in the case of the former Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, or Czechoslovakia – state building. The aim of the conference is, in particular, to analyze, in the comparative perspective: – the role and significance of the opposition in particular societies of Central and Eastern Europe, – the position and role of churches and denominational associations in the transformation process, – various paths of the transition from the totalitarian system in the communist version to a democratic one in particular states of Central and Eastern Europe, combined with an attempt at a verification of various models of the fall of communism (the domino effect, structural contradictions of centrally planned economy, the breakdown of the faith in Marxism, etc.) – strategies (or the lack thereof) of implementing free market economy, – relationships of the states of Central and Eastern Europe with the external world: the USSR, the USA, EEC, and NATO, and attitudes toward globalization processes, – settlement of the communist past in the form of lustration and decommunization, and the presence of communism in historical memory. Place and time of conference: Poznań, Poland, 24 June, 2019