Balkan Academic Book Review 11/2000
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Sorin Antohi and Vladimir Tismaneanu (Eds.), Between Past and Future: The
Revolutions of 1989 and Their Aftermath. Budapest: Central European
University Press, 2000. 414pp., USD 28.95, GBP 17.95 ISBN
963-9116-71-8 (paperback)

Reviewed by Irina Gigova (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign).
E-mail: gigova@...
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1999 celebrated a decade after the Eastern European revolutions of 1989. It
is only natural that the anniversary has spurred lay and scholarly
recollection, analysis and evaluation of the past ten years. An example of
this is Between Past and Future: The Revolutions of 1989 and Their
Aftermath, edited by Sorin Antohi and Vladimir Tismaneanu. Published by
Central European Unviersity Press, Budapest, the volume is composed of
papers delivered at a March 1999 conference at the CEU, which brought
together intellectuals, politicians, diplomats, scholars and journalists.
Due to this occupational diversity, the essays included differ greatly in
their approach and opinions, yet they are interestingly - by and large
similar in tone. As the editors put it, Between Past and Future derives its
coherence from the contributors’ “common quest for the meanings of what
1989 epitomizes and symbolizes” (xii), and the conclusions made are not
necessarily optimistic.
Unlike most collected volumes, this one offers no introduction attempting
to negotiate the opinions expressed at the conference. Only partly
overcoming this deficiency, the single synthetic attempt made is the
division of the twenty included essays in four thematic sections, each
addressing, though not limited to, a particular set of questions. Thus the
first five essays search in individual ways for the meaning of the events
of 1989 in Eastern Europe. Karol Soltan and Jeffrey Isaac are interested in
the importance of 1989 respectively for understanding the modern world and
predicting the future of democracy. Agnes Heller views the present in
Eastern Europe as bounded by past experience, and on its turn limiting the
alternatives for the future. Sorin Antohi looks at how the symbolic
geography of Eastern Europe changed after 1989, consolidating the split of
Central from Eastern Europe. Least abstract is Jacques Rupnik, who offers a
set of hypotheses for the emergence of the important during the 1990s fault
line between Southeastern and Central Europe.
In the second part of the book, “Winners and Loosers in the Great
Transformation,” one of the ‘winners,’ Polish intellectual and journalist
Adam Michnik, explains the process and price of change in post-1989 Poland.
Martin Palouš sees the development of the region characterized by an
“epistemic deficit,” taken to mean a lack of knowledge of the process and
direction of change. Unlike Palouš, who develops a general pattern of
transformation, Valerie Bunce analyzes the genesis of several
“postsocialisms” in Eastern Europe. Vladimir Tismaneanu wraps up the
section by arguing for the continuing relevance of intellectuals in a
postsocialist society that is obviously still torn among opposing
alternatives for its future development.

The chapter “Vulnerabilities of the New Democracies” offers some of the
most intriguing and novel approaches in the present volume. Katherine
Verdery looks at privatization of property in Eastern Europe proposing an
anthropological understanding of private property to trace both the
changes that privatization has introduced in the individual’a place in
society and its economic consequences, which are more often than not
negative. Gail Kligman and Sasal Gal display a gendered reading of the
political process, with a particular focus on the politics of reproduction
in Eastern Europe. Kazimierz Poznanski and Istvan Rev are both concerned
with the moral aspect of social and ideological revolution. Turning to the
field of contemporary politics, Miklós Haraszti notes with concern the
decline of consensus politics in Hungary, while Ivan Vejvoda addresses the
relationship so crucial for Serbia of today between freedom and politics.

The final section tries to elevate the discussion on a wider level, beyond
Eastern Europe. It address issues such as the relevance and utility of
liberal-democratic principles in transitional societies (Karen Dawisha’s
discussion of electoral processes in the area); the contribution of the
European Union to the economic and political recovery of the region
(Bartolomiej Kaminski); and the crucial role of national identity, national
ideology and nationalism for social and political stability (Ilya Prizel on
Russian national identity at a crossroad and Irena Grudzinska Gross’
argument about the fluidity of supposedly ‘for all time’ national symbols).
Finally, Chinese specialist Jeffrey Wasserstrom suggests important ways in
which Eastern Europe could and should be studied comparatively for both
scholarly-analytical and policy purposes.

Interestingly, although hardly surprising, the tone of the majority of the
essay is not entirely but on the whole “cautious, skeptical, and
increadulous about the prospects for democracy in the wake of 1989” (40).
Most contributors reveal that the collapse of the socialist system did not
have clear-cut positive consequences, and thus discuss both the bright
(such as the economic success of Central Europe) and the dark side of
transition (be it the civil war in Yugoslavia or the widespread domestic
and Western disappointment with the speed and results of the reforms).
Despite its title, the volume as a whole communicates a discomfort with the
notion of the events of 1989 as revolutions. A compromise between
established terminology and reality is offered by Timothy Garton Ash, who
in his concluding remarks suggests “evolutionary revolution” as a
definition for what took place in 1989. In fact, according to Ash, it is
this peaceful pattern of overthrowing of a social and political system that
is the most important contribution of Eastern Europe to contemporary
politics and ideology.

On the basis of such a diversity of appoaches, issues, and countries
examined, and without an introduction that ties up the numerous
contributions, it is very difficult to arrive at a unambiguous conclusion
about the meaning and significance of 1989 and the achieved during the past
decade. The positive side of this eclectic collection is that one cannot
but be left with the impression of how dynamic and fruitful Central and
Eastern European field is for research. Put simply, the book present an
excellent overview of who is working on what in the field. In addition,
most of the contributors are aware of and emphasize the broader pertinence
of the events in the region to our better understanding of where the world
is heading in the new century, and how current theoretical discussions of
society, economy, politics and ethics need to alter in order to reflect the
changing international scene.
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Book available at: www.ceupress.com
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© 2000 Balkan Academic News.

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