HØEK03331U From the Zoo to the Jungle, and to Europe: Central European Political Developments in a Historical Perspective

After the devastations of the Second World War Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary were turned into ‘people’s democracies’ and, within only a few years, to communist dictatorships firmly controlled by Moscow. Attempts to overthrow or transform this order were met with Soviet military intervention (Hungary 1956, Czechoslovakia 1968), or with martial law (Poland 1989). A combination of international and domestic factors finally led to the collapse of communism in Central Europe in 1989. Despite being branded as a ‘return to Europe’, the transformation of the three states (four after the division of Czechoslovakia in 1993) into democratic regimes with open market economies and pro-European foreign policies represented an enormous challenge and a leap into uncharted waters.

The course offers a survey of these transformations with a special focus on communist rule and the dismantling thereof in politics, including foreign policy, economy, and society at large. We will discuss if today, twenty-six years after the fall of communism, we can also declare the end of post-communism. Though primarily focusing on contemporary history, our approach will be multi-disciplinary and so we encourage students to employ their hopefully diverse BA backgrounds to shape the analysis and the discussions.