Witness to the Eastern Bloc revolutions of the 1980s with Professor Timothy Garton Ash (158)

Jan 9, 2021

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Professor Timothy Garton Ash is a British historian, author, commentator and Professor of European Studies at Oxford University. Professor Garton Ash witnessed some of the most critical moments in the Eastern Bloc during the 1980s as these populations threw off Communist rule.

He provides us with vivid details of his time in East Germany, Gdansk, Poland where in 1980 the first free trade union in the Eastern Bloc was formed, and his time with then dissident Vaclav Havel when the Czechoslovak Communist government resigned in 1989.

Professor Garton Ash genuinely had a front row seat to history and provides us with fascinating and profound analysis of those incredible years.

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I am delighted to welcome Professor Garton Ash to our Cold War conversation…

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Episode photo by By Daniel Vegel (www.vegeldaniel.com) - This file has been extracted from file: Timothy-Garton-Ash-Daniel-Vegel-CEU-Lecture-2017.jpg, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=59301308

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0:00 Introduction and background of Professor Timothy Garton Ash

2:02 Donations and support options

3:23 Professor Timothy Garton Ash's experiences and research in East Berlin

12:37 Discussion on the Stasi file and its contents

20:05 The eruption of the Solidarity movement in Poland and the strikes in Gdansk

33:20 Professor Garton Ash's involvement in the Solidarity movement

39:00 The political climate in Poland during the 1980s and the journey towards freedom

43:59 Hungary's role in the fall of the Soviet block

45:30 The Velvet Revolution in Prague and Vaslav Havel's leadership

54:07 Reflection on pivotal moments of the Cold War era in Eastern Europe

1:02:00 The regional collaboration of anti-communist groups during the Cold War

1:09:02 Acknowledgements and closing remarks from Ian Sanders

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