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.
Please send paper proposals consisting of paper title, a brief (up to 250 words) abstract and a short biographic entry (up to 100 words) to Prof. Krzysztof Brzechczyn (krzysztof.brzechczyn@ipn.gov.pl)
https://www.connections.clio-online.net/event/id/termine-39683