A Cold War Chronology / 1945-1989

In December 2006 OSA Archivum (www.osaarchivum.org) is hosting the travelling exhibition A Cold War Chronology within the framework of a three year cooperation project of the European Union Culture 2000 program History After the Fall. The program advances cultural and scholarly communication among the old and new member states. The exhibition has been already shown in Dresden and Prague.

The exhibition was edited and compiled by Fundatia Academia Civica (Bucharest). The Sighet Memorial (www.memorialsighet.ro) is a memorial site and museum of the victims of Communism and of the Resistance, located in Maramures , Romania . The museum is situated in the former Prison of Ministers, which took its name from the period during the 1950s when it held many political prisoners (former government ministers, generals, academicians, and religious leaders the cultural and political elite of Romania) under terrible conditions.

The panels of the exhibition follow the main developments of the cold war period year by year in world politics, diplomacy, military history and culture from the end of WW II until the break-up of the Soviet bloc in 1989/1990. The rich and profound visual and archival materials, combined with plain and transparent explanations, provide an excellent opportunity for visitors to get acquainted with the most important aspects of the prehistory of our recent world. The panels not only display European developments or the American-Soviet relationship but also cover events in the Middle East, the Far East, Africa and Latin-America.

The exhibition will open on December 14 2006 at 6 p.m. In OSA Archivum, Budapest , Arany Janos. u. 32.

History After the Fall - The Interdeterminacy
of the Short Twentieth Century
Project description introduction, 2004

In 2004 the Open Society Archives received support from the European Union Culture 2000 program to realize its three year cooperation project, the "History After the Fall - The Interdeterminacy of the Short Twentieth Century". Six recent history research institutions from five countries participate in the project: The Romanian Institute for Recent History (Bucharest) www.irir.ro, The KARTA Center (Warsaw) www.karta.org.pl, The Institute for Contemporary History (Prague) www.usd.cas.cz, the Hannah Arendt Institut fuer Totalitarismusforschung e.V.(Dresden) www.tu-dresden.de/hait, Fundatia Academia Civica (Bucharest) www.memorialsighet.ro and the Open Society Archives at Central European University , Budapest www.osaarchivum.org.

The complex project, which consists of a series of seminars, workshops and exhibitions concentrates on the intricate issues of historical revisionism. The participants are particularly interested in the way different themes and aspects of the history of the twentieth century became rewritten, reinterpreted and re-presented by a variety of means in different media. They are particularly interested in the new presentation of the two World Wars; the new interpretation of the traditional and radical right of the inter-war years; the anti-Communist resistance movement; the theme of collaboration with inhuman regimes; nationalism and the national questions; foreign occupation; poverty and well-fare measures and present understanding of public health policy and record of over-centralized, authoritarian, totalitarian and anti-democratic regimes.

The first countries from Central and Easter Europe have just joined a common Europe . We believe that at this crucial moment it is imperative for all of us to initiate wide-ranging, professionally, intellectually, and morally informed public debate on the use and abuse of recent history in a European frame.