Abstract: Our historical moment is often described as an illiberal “counter-revolution” that explicitly rejects the hopes and values of the annus mirabilis 35 years ago. I first hope to show that many of the aspects that we associate with the more recent populist rejection of liberalism are not new, but were present during the transition. Secondly, there was a good amount of border-crossing in 1989, but much of it was neither voluntary nor welcome. Thirdly and perhaps most importantly: while many barriers have been constructed to keep unwanted peoples from entering various territories, wall construction has not only been physical. We have done the same with the inheritance of 1989 itself, erecting a set of conceptual walls, doors, and bridges that have prevented us from acknowledging the underside of 1989 and its aftermath. I will revisit some of the forgotten events and legacies of that revolutionary year, and why its evolving relevance has become a new foundational past for our own time.  

Paul Betts is Professor of Modern European History at Oxford University. He has published widely on Modern European and German cultural history, including Ruin and Renewal: Civilising Europe after 1945 (2020), Within Walls: Private Life in the German Democratic Republic (2010), and The Authority of Everyday Objects: A History of West German Industrial Design (2004). He has also co-edited 8 volumes, among them an exhibition catalogue (with Radina Vučetić) on Tito in Africa: Picturing Solidarity (Belgrade, 2017) and a recent volume (with Marcus Colla) on Rethinking Socialist Space in the 20^th Century (2024). Currently he is writing a social-cultural history of 1989 for Penguin (UK) & Harvard University Press (US). 

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