Lecture 6: Post-communism & the break-up of multinational states

                                            8. 11. 2005

   

   The communist bloc in Central-Eastern Europe experienced massive changes in the 1980s. In 1985
   Mikhail Gorbachev was voted new head of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, a year later
   for the first time speaking of perestrojka (restructuring) and glasnost (openness). The Polish
   reformers' movement Solidarność was given the green light and one by one the former Soviet
   satellite states were urged to restructure.

   

   The end of the 1980s brought the end of the Cold War and the collapse of communism in
   Central-Eastern Europe. The barbed wires symbolising the closed East/West borders were torn
   down. After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the subsequent collapse of the Soviet
   Union, the world changed. What used to be known as the `communist bloc' or simply `East' was
   not a monolithic counterpart to the `West' any longer. Communists were ousted from their
   monopolistic positions of power, while social, economic and political restructuring began to
   take place.

   

   Next lecture will be on 22 November:

   Post-communist construction of new states & the concept of 'nationalising' nationalism;
   case-study: the break-up of Yugoslavia and 'ethnic cleansing'

   

   Readings:

   From Xenophobia and Post-Socialism (Pajnik, 2002): Maria Marczewska-Rytko `The problem of
   xenophobia in the context of populism and European enlargement' (pp. 73-78)

   

   Magaš, Branka (1993): The Destruction of Yugoslavia: Tracking the Break-up 1980-92. Verso,
   London. (parts for review)

   

   Ramet, Sabrina Petra (1996): Balkan Babel: The Disintegration of Yugoslavia from the Death of
   Tito to Ethnic War. Westview Press, UK. (parts for review)

   

   If you have not read it yet, read also:

   Holmes, Leslie (1997): Post-communism: An Introduction. Polity Press, Cambridge (parts for
   review)

   

   Frentzel-Zagorska, Janina (ed.) (1993): From a One-Party State to Democracy: Transition in
   Eastern Europe. Rodopi, Amsterdam (parts for review)

   

   From Xenophobia and Post-Socialism (Pajnik, 2002) Tonči Kuzmanić `Post-socialism, racism and
   the reinvention of politics' (pp. 17-25)