On the night of November 9, 1989, after months of unrest in Europe and East Germany, the checkpoints between East and West Berlin were suddenly, almost accidentally, opened, reuniting the two sides of the divided city, and bringing together a divided Europe and two worlds that had been apart for nearly thirty years. However, the fall of the Berlin Wall was just one of many signs of change that came with 1989; before long a spate of revolutions, the "Autumn of Nations," had spread across Europe and by December, it appeared that the Cold War was over.
To mark the twentieth anniversary of this momentous collapse, and to shed some light on how it came to pass, Words without Borders presents The Wall in My Head, an exciting anthology that features fiction, essays, images, and original documents to pick up where most popular accounts of the Cold War end, and trace the path of the revolutionary spirit of 1989 from its origins to the present day.
The Wall in My Head combines work from the generation of writers and artists who witnessed the fall of the Iron Curtain firsthand with the impressions and reflections of those who grew up in its wake and whose work, childhoods, and memories are all colored by the long shadow that it cast. The Wall in My Head provides a unique view into the change, optimism, and confusion that came with 1989 and examines how each of these has weathered the twenty years since that fateful year.
Highlights within include seminal excerpts from the work of Milan Kundera, Peter Schneider, Ryszard Kapuściński, Vladimir Sorokin and Victor Pelevin and new work from Péter Esterházy, Andrzej Stasiuk, Muharem Bazdulj, Maxim Trudolubov, Dorota Masłowska, Uwe Tellkamp, Dan Sociu, David Zábranský, Christhard Läpple, and a host of others.
Twenty years ago yesterday, the Hungarian government agreed to open its border in the small town of Sopron for just three hours. Hungary had been gradually introducing greater social reforms for some time, making it a desirable place for East Germans to move to. When Hungarian officials announced a so-called Pan-European Picnic as a symbolic gesture, many East Germans living in Hungary set off for Sopron, hoping for a break to flee to the West. In just three hours, nearly 700 East Germans walked across the border from Hungary into Austria, while Hungarian border police, given orders to shoot, bravely stood by and let them pass. From there, they were taken to the West German embassy in Vienna, where they were granted asylum as refugees.
Although this may seem like a small event, it proved to be a significant turning point in the events leading up to the fall of the Berlin Wall. Empowered by the picnic, East Germans sought out vulnerable, unguarded stretches of the Hungarian-Austrian border and continued to cross inconspicuously by night. West German chancellor Helmut Kohl spoke out, threatening to cut off economic support to the GDR. Remarkably, no action was taken, not by Erich Honecker nor Mikhail Gorbachev. Tens of thousands of East Germans started fleeing to Hungary, having heard news of the nocturnal border crossings and hoping that another such picnic might take place. On September 11, 1989, Hungary permanently opened its border, and another 60,000 East Germans crossed over into Austria—until November 9th, when the Berlin Wall came down.
Yesterday, Hungarians and Germans alike, including Angela Merkel, Germany’s first chancellor from the former East Germany, gathered in Sopron to commemorate the picnic. Hungarian president Laszlo Solyom called the picnic “a step forward for all of Communist East Europe in its efforts to emerge from behind the Iron Curtain.”
To see photos from the Pan-European Picnic in Sopron, follow this link:
Annie Janusch is a translator in the forthcoming Wall in My Head anthology
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