Picnic At The Iron Curtain

Author : Matthew Longo
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
Page : 329 pages
File Size : 55,8 Mb
Release : 2023-11-07
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9780393540789

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The Picnic: A Dream of Freedom and the Collapse of the Iron Curtain by Matthew Longo Pdf

The gripping story of a collective passion for freedom that shook the world. In August 1989, a group of Hungarian activists organized a picnic on the border of Hungary and Austria. But this was not an ordinary picnic—it was located on the dangerous militarized frontier known as the Iron Curtain. Tacit permission from the highest state authorities could be revoked at any moment. On wisps of rumor, thousands of East German “vacationers” packed Hungarian campgrounds, awaiting an opportunity, fearing prison, surveilled by lurking Stasi agents. The Pan-European Picnic set the stage for the greatest border breach in Cold War history: hundreds crossed from the Communist East to the longed-for freedom of the West. Drawing on dozens of original interviews—including Hungarian activists and border guards, East German refugees, Stasi secret police, and the last Communist prime minister of Hungary—Matthew Longo tells a gripping and revelatory tale of the unraveling of the Iron Curtain and the birth of a new world order. Just a few months after the Picnic, the Berlin Wall fell, and the freedom for which the activists and refugees had abandoned their homes, risked imprisonment, sacrificed jobs, family, and friends, was suddenly available to everyone. But were they really free? And why, three decades since the Iron Curtain was torn down, have so many sought once again to build walls? Cinematically told, The Picnic recovers a time when it seemed possible for the world to change. With insight and panache, Longo explores the opportunities taken—and the opportunities we failed to take—in that pivotal moment.

Author : Susan Viets
Publisher : Delfryn Publishing and Consulting Incorporated
Page : 262 pages
File Size : 49,9 Mb
Release : 2012
Category : Berlin Wall, Berlin, Germany, 1961-1989
ISBN : 0987966405

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Picnic at the Iron Curtain by Susan Viets Pdf

Based on diaries, reporting notebooks, letters and memory, the author, a student turned journalist, tells of her adventures in Europe within a ten-year period (1988 to 1998) which included major historical and political change in countries such as Budapest, Bishkek, Chornobyl and Chechnya. She finishes her stories with an eyewitness account of Ukraine's Orange Revolution in 2004.

Author : György Gyarmati
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 130 pages
File Size : 54,9 Mb
Release : 2012
Category : Austria
ISBN : 9632365429

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Prelude to Demolishing the Iron Curtain by György Gyarmati Pdf

Author : Anne Applebaum
Publisher : Anchor
Page : 803 pages
File Size : 50,5 Mb
Release : 2012-10-30
Category : History
ISBN : 9780385536431

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Iron Curtain by Anne Applebaum Pdf

In the long-awaited follow-up to her Pulitzer Prize-winning Gulag, acclaimed journalist Anne Applebaum delivers a groundbreaking history of how Communism took over Eastern Europe after World War II and transformed in frightening fashion the individuals who came under its sway. At the end of World War II, the Soviet Union to its surprise and delight found itself in control of a huge swath of territory in Eastern Europe. Stalin and his secret police set out to convert a dozen radically different countries to Communism, a completely new political and moral system. In Iron Curtain, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Anne Applebaum describes how the Communist regimes of Eastern Europe were created and what daily life was like once they were complete. She draws on newly opened East European archives, interviews, and personal accounts translated for the first time to portray in devastating detail the dilemmas faced by millions of individuals trying to adjust to a way of life that challenged their every belief and took away everything they had accumulated. Today the Soviet Bloc is a lost civilization, one whose cruelty, paranoia, bizarre morality, and strange aesthetics Applebaum captures in the electrifying pages of Iron Curtain.

Author : Astrid Kirchhof,J. R. McNeill
Publisher : University of Pittsburgh Press
Page : 324 pages
File Size : 48,7 Mb
Release : 2019-06-05
Category : History
ISBN : 9780822986485

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Nature and the Iron Curtain by Astrid Kirchhof,J. R. McNeill Pdf

In Nature and the Iron Curtain, the authors contrast communist and capitalist countries with respect to their environmental politics in the context of the Cold War. Its chapters draw from archives across Europe and the U.S. to present new perspectives on the origins and evolution of modern environmentalism on both sides of the Iron Curtain. The book explores similarities and differences among several nations with different economies and political systems, and highlights connections between environmental movements in Eastern and Western Europe.

Author : Bruce L. Brager
Publisher : Infobase Publishing
Page : 173 pages
File Size : 41,5 Mb
Release : 2004
Category : Berlin Wall, Berlin, Germany, 1961-1989
ISBN : 9780791078327

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The Iron Curtain by Bruce L. Brager Pdf

Visiting Central Europe, in 1962, a visitor would not see a real "Iron Curtain." There was no huge piece of grim drapery splitting Europe between Communist dictatorships and democracies. The Iron Curtain represented the Central European part of the Cold War, the generally peaceful, but highly dangerous, forty-year competition between the United States and its allies and the Soviet Union and its allies. The Iron Curtain symbolically represented the attempt to permanently, artificially, and arbitrarily split one part of Central Europe from the other. Although there was no real iron curtain, there was lots of steel in the form of barbed wire, ground radar, watchtowers, and machine guns in the hands of troops willing to use them. The boundary between democracy and totalitarianism was clear. This book tells the story of the Iron Curtain, and the Cold War it so vividly represented, from the start of World War II to its end with the dramatic fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Book jacket.

Author : Vesna Goldsworthy
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
Page : 213 pages
File Size : 43,6 Mb
Release : 2023-02-14
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 9781324021735

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Iron Curtain: A Love Story by Vesna Goldsworthy Pdf

East and West collide in a “timely” and “bittersweet tale of loyalty, love, and the siren call of freedom” (Rebecca Abrams, Financial Times). Milena Urbanska is a red princess living in a Soviet satellite state in the 1980s. She enjoys limitless luxury and limited freedom; the end of the Cold War seems unimaginable. When she meets Jason, a confident but politically naive British poet, they fall into bed together. Before long, Milena is planning her escape. She follows Jason to London, where she’s shocked to find herself living in bohemian poverty. The rented apartment is dingy, the food disgusting, and Jason’s family withholding, but at least there are no hidden cameras recording her every move. As she adjusts to her new life, however, Milena discovers the dark side of Jason’s idea of freedom. With cool wit and tender precision, Vesna Goldsworthy delivers a razor-sharp vision of two worlds on the brink of change, amidst the failures of family and state. Iron Curtain is a sly, elegant comedy of manners that challenges the myths we tell ourselves.

Author : Jaroslav Svelch
Publisher : MIT Press
Page : 401 pages
File Size : 47,8 Mb
Release : 2023-09-19
Category : Games & Activities
ISBN : 9780262549288

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Gaming the Iron Curtain by Jaroslav Svelch Pdf

How amateur programmers in 1980s Czechoslovakia discovered games as a medium, using them not only for entertainment but also as a means of self-expression. Aside from the exceptional history of Tetris, very little is known about gaming culture behind the Iron Curtain. But despite the scarcity of home computers and the absence of hardware and software markets, Czechoslovakia hosted a remarkably active DIY microcomputer scene in the 1980s, producing more than two hundred games that were by turns creative, inventive, and politically subversive. In Gaming the Iron Curtain, Jaroslav Švelch offers the first social history of gaming and game design in 1980s Czechoslovakia, and the first book-length treatment of computer gaming in any country of the Soviet bloc. Švelch describes how amateur programmers in 1980s Czechoslovakia discovered games as a medium, using them not only for entertainment but also as a means of self-expression. Sheltered in state-supported computer clubs, local programmers fashioned games into a medium of expression that, unlike television or the press, was neither regulated nor censored. In the final years of Communist rule, Czechoslovak programmers were among the first in the world to make activist games about current political events, anticipating trends observed decades later in independent or experimental titles. Drawing from extensive interviews as well as political, economic, and social history, Gaming the Iron Curtain tells a compelling tale of gaming the system, introducing us to individuals who used their ingenuity to be active, be creative, and be heard.

Author : Anne Applebaum
Publisher : Signal
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 49,6 Mb
Release : 2013-08-13
Category : History
ISBN : 9780771007644

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Iron Curtain by Anne Applebaum Pdf

In the long-awaited National Book Award--shortlisted follow-up to her Pulitzer Prize--winning Gulag, acclaimed journalist Anne Applebaum delivers a groundbreaking history of how Communism took over Central Europe after WW II and transformed in frightening fashion the individuals who came under its sway. At the end of WW II, the Soviet Union, to its surprise and delight, found itself in control of a huge swath of territory in Central Europe. It set out to convert a dozen radically different countries to a completely new political and moral system: Communism. Iron Curtain describes how the Communist regimes of Eastern Europe were created, and what daily life was like once they were completed. Applebaum draws on newly opened European archives and personal accounts translated for the first time to portray in devastating detail millions of individuals trying to adjust to a way of life that challenged their every belief, rendered worthless their every qualification, and took away everything they had accumulated. Today the Soviet Bloc is a lost civilization, one whose cruelty, paranoia, bizarre morality and strange aethestics Applebaum captures in the electrifying pages of this book.

Author : Jonathan Wilson,Jonathan Wilson Ltd
Publisher : Orion
Page : 204 pages
File Size : 46,5 Mb
Release : 2012-04-09
Category : Sports & Recreation
ISBN : 9781409109044

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Behind the Curtain by Jonathan Wilson,Jonathan Wilson Ltd Pdf

'Epic... Wilson writes captivatingly with humour...anyone with an interest in eastern European sport will be consulting this book for years to come' FINANCIAL TIMES 'This fascinating and perceptive travelogue includes a fine collection of anecdotes too colourful for fiction' SUNDAY TIMES 'A blissful book, lovingly and stylishly written' DAILY TELEGRAPH From the war-ravaged streets of Sarajevo, where turning up for training involved dodging snipers' bullets, to the crumbling splendour of Budapest's Bozsik Stadium, where the likes of Puskás and Kocsis masterminded the fall of England, the landscape of Eastern Europe has changed immeasurably since the fall of communism. Jonathan Wilson has travelled extensively behind the old Iron Curtain, viewing life beyond the fall of the Berlin Wall through the lens of football. Where once the state-controlled teams of the Eastern bloc passed their way with crisp efficiency - a sort of communist version of total football - to considerable success on the European and international stages, today the beautiful game in the East has been opened up to the free market, and throughout the region a sense of chaos pervades. The threat of totalitarian interference no longer remains; but in its place mafia control is generally accompanied with a crippling lack of funds. In BEHIND THE CURTAIN Jonathan Wilson goes in search of the spirit of Hungary's 'Golden Squad' of the early fifties, charts the disintegration of the footballing superpower that was the former Yugoslavia, follows a sorry tale of corruption, mismanagement and Armenian cognac through the Caucasuses, reopens the case of Russia's greatest footballer, Eduard Streltsov, and talks to Jan Tomaszewski about an autumn night at Wembley in 1973...

Author : Jim Willis
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Page : 380 pages
File Size : 40,8 Mb
Release : 2013-01-24
Category : History
ISBN : 9798216070757

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Daily Life behind the Iron Curtain by Jim Willis Pdf

This compelling book describes how everyday people courageously survived under repressive Communist regimes until the voices and actions of rebellious individuals resulted in the fall of the Iron Curtain in Europe. Part of Greenwood's Daily Life through History series, Daily Life behind the Iron Curtain enables today's generations to understand what it was like for those living in Eastern Europe during the Cold War, particularly the period from 1961 to 1989, the era during which these people-East Germans in particular-lived in the imposing shadow of the Berlin Wall. An introductory chapter discusses the Russian Revolution, the end of World War II, and the establishment of the Socialist state, clarifying the reasons for the construction of the Berlin Wall. Many historical anecdotes bring these past experiences to life, covering all aspects of life behind the Iron Curtain, including separation of families and the effects on family life, diet, rationing, media, clothing and trends, strict travel restrictions, defection attempts, and the evolving political climate. The final chapter describes Eastern Europe after the fall of the Berlin wall and the slow assimilation of East into West, and examines Europe after Communism.

Author : Astrid M. Eckert
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
Page : 445 pages
File Size : 49,9 Mb
Release : 2019
Category : History
ISBN : 9780190690052

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West Germany and the Iron Curtain by Astrid M. Eckert Pdf

West Germany and the Iron Curtain takes a fresh look at the history of the Federal Republic and the German re-unification process from the spatial perspective of the West German borderlands that emerged along the volatile inter-German border after 1945. The book is the first environmental history of the Iron Curtain.

Author : Dóra Vargha
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 267 pages
File Size : 53,8 Mb
Release : 2018-11
Category : History
ISBN : 9781108420846

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Polio Across the Iron Curtain by Dóra Vargha Pdf

Through the lens of polio, Dóra Vargha looks anew at international health, communism and Cold War politics. This title is also available as Open Access.

Author : Patrick Wright
Publisher : OUP Oxford
Page : 540 pages
File Size : 53,6 Mb
Release : 2009-10-29
Category : History
ISBN : 9780191622847

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Iron Curtain by Patrick Wright Pdf

'From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. . .' With these words Winston Churchill famously warned the world in a now legendary speech given in Fulton, Missouri, on March 5, 1946. Launched as an evocative metaphor, the 'Iron Curtain' quickly became a brutal reality in the Cold War between Capitalist West and Communist East. Not surprisingly, for many years, people on both sides of the division have assumed that the story of the Iron Curtain began with Churchill's 1946 speech. In this fascinating investigation, Patrick Wright shows that this was decidedly not the case. Starting with its original use to describe an anti-fire device fitted into theatres, Iron Curtain tells the story of how the term evolved into such a powerful metaphor and the myriad ways in which it shaped the world for decades before the onset of the Cold War. Along the way, it offers fascinating perspectives on a rich array of historical characters and developments, from the lofty aspirations and disappointed fate of early twentieth century internationalists, through the topsy-turvy experiences of the first travellers to Soviet Russia, to the theatricalization of modern politics and international relations. And, as Wright poignantly suggests, the term captures a particular way of thinking about the world that long pre-dates the Cold War - and did not disappear with the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Author : Gertrude Enderle-Burcel,Piotr Franaszek,Dieter Stiefel,Alice Teichova
Publisher : Wydawnictwo UJ
Page : 310 pages
File Size : 41,7 Mb
Release : 2009
Category : Cold War
ISBN : 9788323380665

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Gaps in the Iron Curtain by Gertrude Enderle-Burcel,Piotr Franaszek,Dieter Stiefel,Alice Teichova Pdf

This volume explores relations between socialist planned economies of Central and East European countries and capitalist market economies of neutral states in Europe dyring the Cold War. It focuses on the significant role of neutral countries as path-breakers in building East-West contacts.