Bernd Florath

Analysen und Dokumente des BStU. Bernd Florath

The democratic revolutions of 1989 changed the face of the states of Eastern Europe dramatically. Popular movements made democratic national states out of authoritarian dictatorships. The transnational nature of these processes forced the specific inner structures of the individual states to deal with the influences coming from without. Thus, the events of 1989 represent revolutions in both senses of the word: national and international upheavals. The contributions in this volume address these very different strands. They focus on the contrast between the "mild" transition the revolution took in Czechoslovakia and the bloody end to the dictatorship of Ceausescu. That all of these events were and still are open-ended ones is another theme of this collection.