In “The Haunted Land: Facing Europe’s Ghosts After Communism” Tina Rosenberg delves into the topic of how the new governments of Eastern Europe deal with their respective country’s history. Rosenberg grapples with this profound topic in the former Soviet bloc countries of Poland, Czechoslovakia, Slovakia, and East Germany (GDR). Each with its own myriad of complexities she wonders if the tactics and logic of these evolving democracies can effectively evaluate their repressive histories. Rosenberg states in the introduction “For too many governments, dealing with past injustices has been not a way to break free of it, but the first step in its recurrence. This book is about breaking that link, which promises most of those who survived communism’s tragic past a tragic future as well” (xxiv). She seems to echo Winston Churchill’s sentiments from his speech Their Finest Hour in which he states “…if we open a quarrel between the past and the present, we shall find that we have lost the future” (Churchill). Written so close after the fall of communism in these countries Rosenberg seems to think these countries will be mired down in uncertainty dealing with their past thus impeding the transition to democracy. Rosenberg believes that “communism has left a poisonous reside” one being the lack of understanding by citizen to discover their own morals and values and simply acknowledging those offered by the sate and the “lack of institutions that can check the power of unscrupulous leaders” (402). She certainly had some good points as we can see over the last 25 years but the countries of Eastern Europe have navigated those pitfalls fairly well. Rosenberg also contrasts the differences between the fall of communism and the fall of totalitarian dictatorships of Central and South America as well in her conclusion.
Being written so son after the fall of communism gives us a good insight into the times looking back from today. South Africa had just tossed off apartheid and upon reflection it appears that their truth commissions worked effectively in the realm of moving forward. Plus they had a great leader in Nelson Mandela.
Rosenberg, Tina. The Haunted Land: Facing Europe’s Ghosts After Communism. New York: Random House. 1995.
Churchill, Winston. “Their Finest Hour.” The Churchill Centre. n.d. Web. 18 Feb. 2014.
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