Suchergebnisse

The German Association for East European Studies, which was originally launched for the study of Russia, was born of science and politics. The way the Germans treat their eastern neighbours is reflected in East European Studies. It is marked by fascination and enmity, embracing rapprochement and establishing boundaries, scientific findings and empirical analysis, but also by participation in war and genocide. Only since 1989 has the east found its own voice again. East European Studies, which wants to keep up with conditions, remains as exciting as developments themselves: the field is incalculable and full of surprises - because history does not stick to plans or programmes. Adapted from the source document.

There is no historical zero second. All of that talk about the break with Communism in 1989 coming "out of the clear blue sky" only says something about 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 & the "merchant ants" from Europe's east, for whom Berlin became their point of transfer. These people are the heroes of this break with Communism. Together with the bridge engineers, budget airlines, & bus companies, they created the new Europe. Give Eurolines the Charlemagne Prize! Adapted from the source document.

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 behavior, traffic have become different; the cell 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 modernization, 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. Adapted from the source document.

East-Central & Eastern Europe was the core zone in the epoch of world wars & revolution. Violence raged in unprecedented form here. The region was caught between the fronts of National Socialism & Soviet Communism; it was the main theatre of wars, policies of social & ethnic cleansing, the genocide against the Jews, a scorched earth policy, & enormous forced population & refugee movements. There is no language capable of finding a single denominator. Only when all the nameless millions of victims of this violence have been named can there be any serious talk of a European memory. Adapted from the source document.

Europeans of pre-1989 did not share the historical & cultural experiences of "the other Europe." The re-unification of Europe after 1989 challenges & undermines the traditional perceptions of West-Europeans. They are forced to cope with experiences with which they are not very familiar: the position of being "in-between" -- between Germany & the Soviet Union, being victimized by two totalitarian powers, & suffering from forms of violence different from what Westerners got to know. European reunification brings the Westerners, especially former West-Germans, back into a historic & cultural context which has been abandoned or forgotten for decades. This reintegration obviously will have a strong & painful impact on our understanding of what 20th century Europe was like. Adapted from the source document.

The Europe of the Cold War has vanished. In the place of what was once a homogeneous space consisting of "the East" & "the West," we now find fragments, enclaves, & islands. Some see this as unfinished work, but in reality these are the parts that are fitting themselves together to form the new Europe. This renewal takes the form of disintegration, for the time being at least. It is more fruitful to pay attention to the very real fragments than to the whole, which for the time being is only a promise. Official rhetoric accepts this when it celebrates fragmentation & disintegration as pluralization or "diversity in unity." Disintegration is a time of disillusion, & so of enlightenment. It also reveals the forces that must enter into play if something new is to emerge. Adapted from the source document.

Moscow now has 12 million inhabitants, & Berlin 3.5 million; the two cities can look back on a century in which they developed dramatically. There are many similarities, but even more differences. Both cities have, in quite different ways, been marked by the excessive dynamics & the unfolding of violence that characterized the 20th century. Both went through a period in which they were no longer counted among the great cities of the world, & both are now regaining that status & redefining their role. Adapted from the source document.