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It is clear that the Russian takeover of the Crimean Republic from Ukraine in 2014 had a major impact on security perceptions of the three Baltic nations and Poland. However, what was the reaction of Central European nations such as the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Slovakia? In this chapter, the authors will explore those perceptions in an effort to determine how broad were the
how to be a historian Chapter 9 Of communism, compromise and Central Europe: the scholarly persona under authoritarianism Monika Baár Introduction What does it take to be a (good) historian under a system of institutionalized repression? What kind of professional and ethical choices are scholars compelled to make and what motivates them in reaching these decisions? What are the implications of the exposure to an oppressive regime for one’s professional career and does the study of scholarly persona in ‘exceptional conditions’ endorse, refine or refute existing
East-Central European countries, the Visegrád Four to include the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia, have developed a divergence of approaches to key issues of national defense. Measures of defense capability include size of defense budgets, numbers of persons in the armed forces, and willingness to engage in foreign deployments led by NATO and the EU that act as integrating forces within the region. The communist experiences of earlier decades have acted as legacies that have shaped countries’ post-1989 approaches to national and regional defense. However, the evolution of liberal-democratic patterns and systems have played a meaningful role as well. In spite of those convergence experiences and patterns, divergence among them has characterized their interactions as well. Poland has been more willing to take on regional defense obligations, while the other three have been more reluctant. Since the 2014 Ukrainian Crisis, a strident and divisive nationalism has shaken each of them and modified their approaches to defense issues.
followed relief operations for starving populations, refugees and genocide survivors in Central and Eastern European countries. The defeat of Germany and the partitioning of multinational empires led to the creation of new states, thus sending millions of displaced persons on the road, which – together with the war – provoked unprecedented deprivations throughout Europe. The 1917 Bolshevik Revolution and the civil war in Russia also threatened Central Europe to fall under Soviet influence. The 1921–22 Russian famine thus triggered a large-scale international response
This book reassesses a defining historical, political and ideological moment in contemporary history: the 1989 revolutions in central and eastern Europe. It considers the origins, processes and outcomes of the collapse of communism in eastern Europe. The book argues that communism was not simply an 'unnatural Yoke' around the necks of East Europeans, but was a powerful, and not entirely negative, historical force capable of modernizing societies, cultures and economies. It focuses on the interplay between internal and external developments as opposed to an emphasis on Cold War geopolitical power struggles and the triumphalist rhetoric of how the 'freedom-loving' USA 'defeated' the 'totalitarian' Soviet Union. The book also approaches the East European revolutions from a variety of angles, emphasizing generational conflicts, socio-economic and domestic aspects, international features, the 'Gorbachev factor', and the role of peace movements or discourses on revolution. It analyses the peace movements in both parts of Germany during the 1980s from a perspective that transcends the ideological and geopolitical divides of the Cold War. The history of the East German peace movement has mostly been written from the perspective of German unification in 1989-1990. Many historians have read the history of the civil rights movement of 1989-1990 backwards in order to show its importance, or ignored it altogether to highlight the totalitarian character of the German Democratic Republic.
1 The origins of the refugee problem German settlements in Eastern and Central Europe Even before the end of the Second World War, German refugees and expellees began to flood into Central Europe from the eastern territories of the Reich. Many of those who fled or were expelled from their homelands in Eastern Europe from 1944 onwards were the descendants of German settlers who had arrived as early as the twelfth century. Some of the earliest recorded settlements took place in Silesia and the Carpathian mountains where the political elites encouraged the
, but could hardly speak any German and had never been to the continent. By the late 1950s these newly minted specialists founded a German Documents committee, created a Conference Group for Central European History and also a journal of the same name. 25 Within Germany, historians sought to revive their institutions and to resume academic work during the restoration climate of the Adenauer years. The first challenge was to reopen the universities and recover libraries and archives in order to return to professional teaching and research without
dissent, and its strategies of resistance developed under late socialism. It is the dissident milieux, the “parallel poleis,” and the “second” cultures of late socialism that served as new containers, but also as the lid, for postsocialist cultural reforms. This chapter turns its attention to “antipolitics,” a word for what is seen as the dominant form of the resistance of East-Central European intellectuals to socialist totalitarianism. It will argue that “antipolitics” should not only be regarded as the main oppositional strategy and force
1968 and the controversial roles of WTO partners It is vital to look at the picture that the Brezhnev Regime had of East-Central Europe during the mid-1960s, for the invasion of Czechoslovakia was accomplished against that backdrop. Leonid Brezhnev had replaced Nikita Khrushchev as First Secretary of the Communist Party in 1964, and it was not certain what his position would be on key issues within the bloc. As early as 1966