News from the Eastern Realm: 1989. The End of the Cold War. 25 Years on.

The End of the Cold War

Twenty five years ago this November, the Berlin Wall was torn down and with it, the Iron Curtain fell, and the communist Bloc countries found themselves a bit freer. Many of countries then looked to the West for their ideas. One of the consequences for education in these countries was that Russian was dropped at schools and English replaced it as a foreign language.

1956 Hungarian revolt

I found a reminder of these historic events the other day in a central street in Vienna. An artist from Ukraine, Mykola Bilart, exhibited the following tailor’s dummies to the title ‘Europe Wake Up!’ Many of the dummies mention previous dates, such as 1956 and 1968 when attempts made by Hungary and Czechoslovakia to become free of Soviet influence failed.

1989 Czechoslovakia

1968 Czech revolt

End of Russian Involvement in afghanistan

Poland 1989

When Churchill made his famous ‘Iron Curtain’ speech in 1946 in Fulton, Missouri, USA, he included Austria as behind the curtain (communist controlled), probably not knowing himself which way Austria would fall. Vienna was mentioned in the written version, but if you watch a spoken version he didn’t mention Vienna as being behind the curtain.

Churchill's 'Iron Curtain Speech'.

As you can see Bilart’s works of art represent the various Eastern Bloc countries and the dates of counter-revolutions which date 25 years ago this month.

How does Vienna and Austria fit into the story? Well, the Russians ‘liberated’ Vienna, in 1945 (see the photos below of Denkmal der Roten Armee (Red Army Memorial) in Schwarzbergenplatz commemorating this.

Red Army Soldier

Commermoration of Liberation of Vienna

Schwartzbergenplatz

Schwarzbergenplazt

It was only in 1955 that they agreed to leave Vienna, along with the Allied forces (France, the UK and the USA . The Russians’ (led by foreign minister Molotov of cocktail fame) condition was that Austria declare themselves a neutral country, similar to its neighbour, Switzerland.

However, yet again the Austria, proved to be the eastern border of Western Europe. Austria accepted aid from the US backed Marshall Plan and in 1955, (negotiated on behalf of the Soviet Union, by Molotov, of the cocktail fame) with allied and Soviet support, Austria declared itself to be neutral, similar its neighbour, Switzerland.

If you look at a map of Europe, you can see that Austria, and particularly Vienna, was surrounded on three sides by Communist countries (Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Yugoslavia). In fact, it was the opening of the border between Hungary and Austria, that encouraged East Germans to escape to Western Germany and, pre-empting the fall of the Berlin Wall by 5 months.

One interesting titbit of history, is that four key players in WW2 and the subsequent Cold War (Adolph Hitler, Tito, Trotsky and Stalin were all in Vienna in 1913 and very possibly crossed paths in the famous cafés. (One of these, the Café Central, will be talked about later in this blog).