In "Room with a View: Fall of the Berlin Wall," experts active during the events of '89 reflected on the realities of life after European communism. Journalist Michael R. Meyer, Newsweek's Eastern Europe correspondent in 1989 and author of the book, The Year that Changed the World; András Bozóki, Professor, Department of Political Science, Central European University, Budapest, Hungary, and Visiting Professor, Department of Political Science, Columbia University, New York; and András Szántó, writer, cultural advisor, and Senior Lecturer, Sotheby's Institute of Art, discussed their perspectives, their memories and their hopes for the future of the region. The event was part of Extremely Hungary, the Hungarian cultural season in New York and Hungary.
Meyer said the Hungarian leadership's decision to allow several hundred East German tourists to pass over the country's border into Austria, unheeded, during the so-called Pan-European picnic in the summer of '89 was at the heart of the secret history of changes in Central and Eastern Europe. Meyer praised Hungary's prime minister at the time, Miklós Németh, to whom he dedicated The Year that Changed the World, for the decision to let the East Germans use Hungary as their path to escape.
Bozóki, Hungary's former culture minister, said Meyer described a role for Hungary in the fall of communism that is much bigger than that in the public conscience. He added that Miklós Németh had "absolutely earned" Hungary's highest state honour, presented to him at a ceremony last August.
"The aim was to make Eastern Europe, Europe, so we could become a part of European integration," Bozóki said of '89.
Szánto noted that some were disappointed with the change in '89 because the transformation into a market economy did not bring the degree of welfare they had hoped for.
Source: Hungarian News Agency (MTI)
