February 26th, 2010 - February 27th, 2010

Since the collapse of communism, the world has seen rapid globalization, the emergence of new geopolitical realities and conflicts, and a global economic crisis. Have these events called into question the certainties of the early post-Cold War world, or does the advance of liberal democracy around the globe suggest that the optimism of the early 1990s was justified? How do those countries that directly experienced the events of 1989 understand the transition now?

This multi-day symposium brings together public intellectuals, policymakers, cultural figures, dissidents, and academics from both sides of the Atlantic to assess the global meaning of the 1989 revolutions in Central and Eastern Europe. Speakers will discuss not only the changes in our understanding of the communist system and the source of its collapse, but also the age of "post-communism"-a condition whose contours and duration have remained persistently unclear. Further, we will examine the legacies of communism and the dissident movement in order to forge an understanding of the larger meaning of the revolutions of 1989.


Presented by The Harriman Institute at Columbia University in association with the Polish Cultural Institute in New York, Romanian Cultural Institute New York, and Austrian Cultural Forum as part of Performing Revolution in Central and Eastern Europe, a performing arts festival marking the 20th anniversary of the fall of Communism in Central and Eastern Europe, presented by The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts in partnership with key New York City cultural organizations and academic institutions, November 2009 - March 2010.