Conference and Publication Project “1989 in a Global Perspective”

14th - 16th of October, 2009 / Lecture Hall of the University of Leipzig and Zeitgeschichtliches Forum Leipzig (Forum for Contemporary History Leipzig)

The University of Leipzig’s conference and publication project “1989 in a Global Perspective” considers 1989 to be the decisive caesura for Central and Eastern Europe with importance reaching far beyond these borders. 1989 is seen as the beginning of a new stage of globalization: the hopes for new forms of “global governance” and a time of peace and prosperity following the cold war attest to this. To place 1989 into this context of global history also means rethinking the importance of the revolution which had its origins in Leipzig.

The Peaceful Revolution as a Field of Research in a Global Context

The undertaking finds itself at the crossroads of two important traditions: as a result of the peaceful revolution, Leipzig has taken on an important place in world history at the end of the 20th century. For two decades this breakthrough, which led to the nonviolent end of European division and the real socialist order, has inspired a culture of self-confident civil involvement. Moreover, the University of Leipzig had, in the late 1800s, already established itself as a leader in internationally oriented research concerning global connections and continues to carry on this tradition in an age of advancing globalization.

If one combines these two traditions, they form an invitation to reflection on the global importance of upheaval such as the one that began in 1989. Four areas were the subject of the University of Leipzig’s project:

1. The European embedding of the peaceful revolution and the global context of the overcoming of European division.
   
2. The strategic reorientation of China and the development of East and South Asia in response to the weakened global-political role of the Soviet Union/Russia.
   
3. New opportunities to overcome encrusted regimes, stagnating economic development in exploited economies as well as apartheid in Africa by means of successful - or partially successful - democratization.
   
4. The new global-political role of the USA as the remaining superpower and the serious changes taking place in Central and South America.
   

These four areas were covered in prepared workshops together with international partners to create the basis for a large final conference in Leipzig in October of 2009. The conference was held in the Zeitgeschichtliches Forum and presented a worldwide research association’s newest results.

At the conference, a report resulting from the study was presented. In it, the history of the political upheaval of 1989 was discussed for the first time in a global perspective and four topics were documented:

• Substantiations of a new world order
  
• Global interweaving of events and their perception
  
• The cross-linking of events or the composition of structures
  
• Remembrance politics
  

• University of Leipzig
  
• Zeitgeschichtliches Forum Leipzig