Eastern Europe

Eastern Europe’s20th CenturyHistorical Geography

East Berlin & the Cold War

East German combat troops, 1961

Conrad Schumann defects to the West, 1961

Building the Wall, 1961

Czech ‘hedge hogs’ and the line of death, 1984

Lenin statue in a public square, East Berlin, 1986

JFK visited the Wall in June 26,1963“Ich bin ein Berliner”

American students at Checkpoint Charlie, 1986

President Reagan at the Brandenburg Gate, June 12, 1987“Mr. Gorbachev: Tear down this wall.”

1989

12/21/1989

Temporary memorial to those who died trying to cross the wall

(2004-5)

Potsdamer Platz, 2009

A Cold War monument becomes a 21st century refuge

Tempelhof Airport Repurposed.

Wall site

Tempelhof Park, formerly airport

A Fourth Chair for FreedomEdward Snowden, Julian Assange, and Bradley Manning,

Alexanderplatz, Berlin by sculptor Davide Dormino, 1/5/2015

Poland

Poland is about the size of New Mexico, with about 40 million people today The Poles, a Slavic-speaking and largely Roman Catholic people, stretch

back to, ~AD 900, the age of Kievian Russ. At various times in the modern period (since 1500s), it was controlled by the

Lithuanian empire, the Kingdoms of Russia, Prussia, and the Hapsburg Empire, the Germans, and the Soviets.

Most of it is on the North European Plain, sandwiched between Russia and Germany.

It has been conquered many times, most recently, Nazi Germany and Communist Russia invaded during WWII and crushed Poland. It essentially disappeared from the political map, with millions of Polish deaths.

It is an EU and NATO member.

Warsaw

Lech Wałęsa, Solidarność

An electrician at the Lenin Shipyard in Gdansk.

In the 1970s, dramatic rises in food prices led to strikes all along the Baltic.

Walesa led the striking Polish workers. The communist Polish government declared martial law.

The Solidarity movement, the first union organization in a Warsaw Pact country that was not controlled by the communist party formed under his leadership. He was arrested many times.

He won a Nobel in 1983. In the late 80s elections began and a

Solidarity government was formed. In 1990, Walesa became president of Poland.

Gdansk

Famous Poles

Nicolaus Copernicus, astronomer Frederic Chopin, composer Marie Curie, physicist Tadeusz Kosciuszko (ko-JOOS-co): A

hero of the Polish and American Revolutionary Wars.

Pope John Paul II

Czech Republic/Slovakia

Cathedral of the Bones, Kutná Hora, outside of Prague, Czech Republic.

An ossuary that commemorates the Black Death

Defenestrations of PraguePart of Czech political culture has involved throwing opposition members from windows. The first in 1419 of the city council, the second in 1618 when Protestants tossed four Catholics. Jan Masaryk, a foreign minister, was thrown from a window by Communists in 1948.

Prague liberated from the Nazis by the Red Army, 1945

The “Prague Spring,” 1968

Alexander Dubček, attempted to reform the Czech communist regime, was forced to resign as PM after the Prague Spring was crushed. He received the Sakharov Prize for Freedom in 1989.

Prague Spring, 1968Crushed by the USSR

Read: Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being

It began as a student movement in opposition to Dubcek’s replacement and Soviet hegemony in Czechoslovakia

It ended badly

Jan Palach, self-immolated in protest of the crushing of the Prague Spring 1/16/69

Václav Havel, 1936-2011. Imprisoned Czech intellectual dissident. Became the last president of Czechoslovakia and presided over the Velvet Revolution on 1989.

Velvet Revolution, Czechoslovakia, December 29, 1989

Vaclav Havel, recently released from prison, soon to be the democratically elected Czech president, marvels at the Velvet

Revolution, December 1989

Gothic meets Ghery, Prague

Hungary

BudaPest

Buda & Pest on the Danube

The “Golden Horde” the western later end of the Mongol invasion with Tatar and Turkmen alliance, 13-14 th

centuries, the Juchi Khanate, Ghengis’s son and Batu, his grandson.

Magyar speakers

Uralic language origins

Ural Mountains

Hungarian Uprising, 1956

The first spontaneous protest against the Soviet-dominated Hungarian communist government by students

Short-lived October-November 1956 Crushed by the Soviets

Budapest, November 1956

2015 refugee crisis in Europe

The Terrible Flight from the Killing. Hugh Eakin

Viktor Orban, Hungary’s “rabid right” Prime Minister

He sees gypsies: “Most Gypsies are not suitable for cohabitation. They are not suitable for being among people. Most are animals, and behave like animals. They shouldn’t be tolerated or understood, but stamped out. Animals should not exist. In no way.” Zsolt Bayer, Orban’s personal pal.

Why the Hungarian resistance to the refugees?

Many are middle class Syrians, most, but not all, are Muslims Afghans and African refugees are among them Hungary is a “Christian” nation. It seeks to maintain cultural

homogeneity They forgot about the Holocaust and the 1956 uprising They fear that Islamic Jihadis will be among the refugees The Hungarian government is a far-right, white supremacist regime They can’t afford the support, but they can build the fences on the

Serbian and Austrian borders They don’t like being dictated to by the EU, although they are

members. In fairness, other eastern EU members are also rebelling against the

EU requirement to take quotas of refugees

Ghouta, near Damascus, Syria:Why the Syrians can’t just go home.

Yarmouk Camp, Damascus

Romania

The Romani (Roma, or Gypsies)6-700,000 in Romania

Roma are believed to have originated in the Punjab of northern India. As nomads, they entered Europe in the 8th to 10th centuries.

They were called “gypsies” because Europeans mistakenly believed they were from Egypt.

Romani Flag

Indian Flag

Nicolae Ceauşescu (chow-CHESS-que)

Romania’s despotic communist leader from 1965-89, when he was over-thrown and killed on Christmas day.

Brutal and repressive, his extravagant Bucharest palace essentially bankrupted the country. Below on left with Kim Il Sung of North Korea. At right, the palace

Andrei Codrescu, Romanian/America Poet, 1968 & 2008

Frontline World: Romania after Ceausescu

The Romanian Orthodox Church considers a popular monk for sainthood

. AP 10/1/15 Alison Mutler

BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) — The Romanian Orthodox Church said Thursday it is considering a Romanian monk persecuted by the communists and known as the "saint of Transylvania" for sainthood.

The Metropolitan of Transylvania church authority said Thursday it had begun the lengthy process of canonization for Arsenie Boca, a Romanian Orthodox monk and priest whose grave in western Romania attracts tens of thousands of pilgrims every year.

The Romanian Orthodox church is autonomous and makes its own canonizations.

Boca, who became a monk in 1940, fell afoul of communist authorities because of his support for the anti-communist resistance.

The communists accused him of having sympathies for the pro-Nazi Legionnaire movement, something he denied.

Boca, who enjoys broad support, is a key figure for Romania's far-right groups, who critics say are pushing for his canonization.

He was harassed by the Securitate secret police, detained and did forced labor on the Black Sea Canal, a notorious labor camp where tens of thousands of political prisoners worked in the 1950s.

In 1959, he was banned from leading worship and the Prislop monastery, where he is now buried, was converted into a retirement home. He was forced to retire from the church in 1968 and spent 15 years painting religious images and icons in the small church of Draganescu in southern Romania.

The church's interiors are now considered among the most beautiful in the country.

Boca died in 1989, a month before Romania's anti-communist revolt. Some Orthodox priests have been criticized for collaborating with communist authorities.

They argued they needed to have links with state authorities in order for the church to survive. More than 80 percent of Romanians are Orthodox believers.

Religious rights were restricted under communism and the Eastern Rite Catholic Church was banned.

2015

NATO

Bulgaria

From the 7th century, Bulgars were nomadic people of the Asian Steppe Settled around the Black Sea and the Danube Valley, they were dominated by

the Romans, Byzantium, the Ottomans, the Russians, and the Soviets. Most Bulgarians, Slavic-speakers, are Eastern Orthodox Christians, but about

¼ of the population is Sunni Muslim. Its largest ethnic minority are the Romani, many of whom speak no

Bulgarian. Bulgaria has the highest percentage of Romani in Europe (~4%). As in Hungary, Romania, and other parts of the Balkans, they are a despised under-class.

It is a member of the EU and (oddly) NATO

Romani ghetto, Sofia, Bulgaria

St. Mary’s, Bulgaria

Christian caves, 5th century