Kenney - The Burdens of freedom: eastern Europe since 1989

GLOBAL HISTORY OF THE PRESENT

Series editor | Nicholas Guyatt

In the Global History of the Present series, historians address the upheavals in world history since 1989, as we have lurched from the Cold War to the War on Terror. Each book considers the unique story of an individual country or region, refuting grandiose claims of the end of history, and linking local narratives to international developments.

Lively and accessible, these books are ideal introductions to the contemporary politics and history of a diverse range of countries. By bringing a historical perspective to recent debates and events, from democracy and terrorism to nationalism and globalization, the series challenges assumptions about the past and the present.

Published

Thabit A. J. Abdullah, Dictatorship, Imperialism and Chaos: Iraq since 1989

Timothy Cheek, Living with Freedom: China since 1989

Alexander Dawson, First World Dreams: Mexico since 1989

Padraic Kenney, The Burdens of Freedom: Eastern Europe since 1989

Stephen Lovell, Destination in Doubt: Russia since 1989

Forthcoming

Alejandra Bronfman, On the Move: The Caribbean since 1989

James D. Le Sueur, Between Terror and Democracy: Algeria since 1989

Mark LeVine, Impossible Peace: Israel/Palestine since 1989

Hyung Gu Lynn, Bipolar Orders: The Two Koreas since 1989

Nivedita Menon and Aditya Nigam, Power and Contestation: India since 1989

Helena Pohlandt-McCormick, What Have We Done? South Africa since 1989

Nicholas Guyatt is assistant professor of history at Simon Fraser University in Canada.

About the author

Padraic Kenney divides his time between Wrocaw, Poland and the University of Colorado at Boulder, where he is professor of history. He is the author of several books on Eastern European history and politics, including A Carnival of Revolution: Central Europe, 1989 (2002). His next book will examine the experience of political prisoners in twentieth-century world history.

The Burdens of Freedom: Eastern

Europe since 1989

Padraic Kenney

Fernwood Publishing

NOVA SCOTIA

Zed Books

LONDON | NEW YORK

The Burdens of Freedom: Eastern Europe since 1989 was first published in 2006

Published in Canada by Fernwood Publishing Ltd, 32 Oceanvista Lane, Site 2a, Box 5, Black Point, Nova Scotia B0J 1B0

This ebook edition was first published in 2013

Published in the rest of the world by Zed Books Ltd, 7 Cynthia Street, London n1 9 JF , UK and Room 400, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010, USA

Copyright Padraic Kenney, 2006

The right of Padraic Kenney to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

Cover designed by Andrew Corbett
Set in OurType Arnhem and Futura Bold by Ewan Smith, London
Index <>

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
US CIP data are available from the Library of Congress.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication:

Kenney, Padraic, 1963

The burdens of freedom : Eastern Europe since 1989 / Padraic Kenney.

ISBN 1-55266-205-5

1. Europe, Eastern--History--1989-. 2. Europe, Eastern--Politics and government--1989-. I. Title.

DJK 51. K 464 2006 947.0009049 C 2006-902638-6

All rights reserved

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

ISBN 9 781 84813 620 5

Contents

Acknowledgments

The very existence of this book owes a great deal to series editor Nicholas Guyatt. His prompting led me to consider and accept the project, and he has been an extraordinarily thoughtful and helpful reader throughout. My colleagues Elizabeth Dunn and Jacek Lubecki, and my father Michael Kenney, also read drafts and offered excellent suggestions. Students in a seminar I taught in the International Affairs Program at Colorado in the spring of 2005 helped me to work out many of the ideas in this book. Thanks to all of you.

Much of this book took shape with a view of the Park Nowowiejski in Wrocaw. It owes a great deal to colleagues, friends and family across Eastern Europe. I am grateful to my wife, Izabela, for her support and encouragement, and to Fredzio Zapaka and all his friends.

Introduction: the shock of the new

Eastern Europe: whats in a name? One can start quite a debate over the proper terminology for the region that is the subject of this book. East-Central Europe, Central and Southeast (or Balkan?) Europe, West-Central Europe, Mitteleuropa Perhaps finding the right combination of terms makes no difference. Yet these can be fighting words, too. I first learned this in Moscow, in 1984. Sitting in a beer hall near our dormitory, I burbled enthusiastically to my Slovak friend Jano about a course I had taken at Harvard on East European literature. East European literature what could that be? he wondered. Kundera! Ki! Miosz! I chattered on until he cut me off, somewhat grimly: Czechoslovakia is Western Europe. Eastern Europe thats India.

Janos geography was clearly of the extreme variety. But any sharp-eared visitor to the region today will notice the same chill around the words Eastern Europe or Balkan. They connote backwardness, or Russianness. Central is the preferred term or, better yet, just Europe.

Yet Eastern is unavoidable in this book, as a term to unite what? The fifteen countries from Estonia to Macedonia that receive attention here share a few traits. All have definitively broken away not only from Soviet-style communism, but from the Russian sphere of influence, something that cannot yet be said about Ukraine, or Moldova, or Belarus. All have either joined the European Union, are slated to join within a year or two, or are at least considered potential candidates, with some hope of beginning membership negotiations someday. Of course, in other ways these fifteen have little in common, while the borders of the region are sometimes indistinct. The Czech Republic is much more like its neighbor Austria than it is like Albania; Lithuanians and Ukrainians have many common experiences that even a Pole born and raised under communism would find unfamiliar. But overall, the paths these fifteen are taking, and the difficulties they face, are quite similar economically, culturally, politically.

Now for another caveat: Fifteen countries, no matter how comparable, are a lot for a book of any length. Nor would it be interesting, even for the specialist, to follow each of them in detail, one after another, over nearly two decades of post-communism, whether in alphabetical or some other order. The approach in this book, then, is synecdochal: while there are very many interesting stories about every country, in this book a part must stand for the whole. The Lithuanian commemoration of communism may be as compelling as the Hungarian, or Czech corruption scandals as important as those in Albania, but one simply has to choose. To be clear, though: Choice is made not simply for brevity, but more because what is interesting are the overall trends, which are as well illustrated with one or two examples as with a dozen.