Is this a curse?

It is a feeling/impressing/kind of story I wanted to write for a long time already. And thought about it over and over again, considered at the beginning very interesting, then boring and at the end completely erased from my writing priority list. But maybe the time has come to share my poor experience. As shortly as possible, I hope.

For me, one of the most disgraceful experience is to answer this kind of questions: "Really, you were born in Eastern Europe? Cannot believe it?" Most part of the people never been there, have a completely distorted image - the same for other part of the world. I could understand the reasons as well of this misunderstanding as many of the countries from this part of Europe do not have any coherent strategy of branding or the first contact with these country is very bad - bureaucracy, corruption, rude behaviors. But, being born in a certain country is just an occurrence.

Second, and the most boring part of the story is when you have to do a kind of public testimony of "how was then, during the communism". Of course, it is interesting to hear and many of my dialogue partners never had the occasion to know directly from the source these information. But, on the other side, for me, it is simply an occasion to remember facts and events I do not want to remember any more. Mostly when your dialogue partner is trying to convince you that, from a certain level, this kind of ideology was, maybe good.

At the end of the discussion, what I feel is that, in fact, our worlds are different and I have to live with this. In the same time, it is an acknowledgement of the fact that, in very small details, between me and this world there are only purely accidental historical connections. I can speak some "rare" languages, I know the history and the geography as well as the literature. My degree of representativity is extremely low, if not non-existent.

The Post-Communist Generation in the Former Eastern Bloc

www.pewglobal.org
January 20, 2010

Members of the post-communist generation, who are now between the ages of 18 and 39, offer much more positive evaluations of the political and economic changes their countries have undergone over the past two decades than do those who were adults when the Iron Curtain fell. The younger generation is also more individualistic and more likely to endorse a free market economy than are those who are ages 40 or older.

Throughout 2010, the Pew Research Center will release a series of reports that explore the values, attitudes and behavior of America's Millennial Generation, which first came of age around the time of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and played an important role in the election of President Barack Obama. The Pew Research Center's Global Attitudes Project's contribution to this project focuses on a somewhat different age group: the post-communist generation in the former Eastern bloc. The generation gap on attitudes about democracy and capitalism in Eastern Europe reflects a divide among the past, present and future. Concerns about the way things are going span all ages, but while the older generation looks back longingly, often saying that people were better off financially under communism, the younger generation expresses more confidence that democracy can solve their countries' problems.

Read the full commentary: http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1467/post-communist-millennial-generation-more-positive-democracy-free-market

End of the project

After more than 10 years of focusing on Central and Eastern Europe, and sometimes on the Balkans, my project is about to finish. Not because 20 years after, the topic is no more fashionable - this is also true in some respects, but hope to do not forget to write about once.

But because it is time to end and my interests are shifting in another direction of research. I will always keep an eye - professional - in this region. In many situation, knowing more than the facts - but some professional trajects and personal feedbacks - are useful for a better understanding of the region.

It is why, in the next maximum two weeks I will try to post as much as possible in terms of relevant ideas and stories about Central and Eastern Europe and its minorities. After, the blog will remain online, but will be feed only from time to time, when something interesting would catch my interest.

Old posters

from pre- and Soviet Russia.

1989

one of the best in the history of Europe.

1989-The Struggle to Create post-Cold War Europe

1989-2009 - 20 years after the start of the changes in Europe. A process still on the run, as long as even integrated as full EU and NATO members, the Central and Eastern European countries are still struggling to create functional market economies and political institutions. And, other countries - former parts of the Yougoslav Federation - are at various stages of the process of meeting the Western criteris.

1989-The Struggle to Create Post-Cold War Europe is based on documents, television broadcasts, and interviews from many different locations including Moscow, Berlin, Bonn, Paris and Washington. The aim is to recontruct the starting process of the new Europe: the reunification of Germany, the NATO expansion and the redefinition of the role played by Russia on the world stage. A wide array of political players - from leaders as Mikhail Gorbatchev, Helmut Kohl, George H.W. Bush and James Baker, to organisations like NATO and the European Commission, as well to dissidents - all proposed courses of action and models for the future. The author explains how the aftermath of this fateful victory, and Russian resentment of it, continue to shape world politics today. The author is presenting diverse perspectives from the political elite as well as ordinary citizens.

Mary Elise Sarotte is associate professor of international relations at the University of Southern California. Her previous work includes the book, Dealing with the Devil and German Military Reform and European Security. She has served as a White House Fellow and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Read Central! Europe

Read Central! Europe is an informal association of four publishing houses from Central Europe: Magveto from Budapest, Hungary, Arhipelag from Belgrade, Serbia, Studentska zalozba from Ljubljana, Slovenia, and Fraktura from Zapresic, Croatia.

The common trait of all is the concern to publich literary works speaking to readers around the world and to offer a common basis of understanding in an area where disagreements were more often than the common perspectives.