Orion 2009. Hard cover with dust jacket, 451 pp. Ex-library copy
For more than 40 years after the Second World War the Iron Curtain
divided Europe physically, with 300 km of walls and barbed wire fences;
ideologically, between communism and capitalism; psychologically,
between people imprisoned under totalitarian dictatorships and their
neighbours enjoying democratic freedoms; and militarily, by two mighty,
distrustful power blocs, still fighting the cold war. East-West rivalry
and a cruelly divided continent seemed to be unalterable facts of life.
Few statesmen, diplomats, soldiers or thinkers imagined these
certainties would change in their lifetimes. At the start of 1989, ten
European nations were still Soviet vassal states. By the end of the
year, one after another, they had thrown off communism, declared
national independence, and embarked on the road to democracy. One of
history's most brutal empires was on its knees. Poets who had been
languishing in jails became vice presidents. When the Berlin Wall fell
on a chilly November night it seemed as though the open wounds of the
cruel twentieth century would at last begin to heal.The Year of
Revolutions appeared as a beacon of hope for oppressed people elsewhere
who dared to dream that they too could free themselves. In a dizzying
few months of almost entirely peaceful revolutions the people's will
triumphed over tyranny. An entire way of life was swept away along with a
half dozen incompetent, corrupt and at times vicious dictatorships. It
happened with little violence, apart from a few days in Romania. Now,
twenty years on, Victor Sebestyen reassesses this decisive moment in
modern history.