Overview
The peaceful revolutions of 1989 in Central and Eastern Europe have been perceived, for good reason, as revolutions of human rights, which strengthened the legitimacy of Western-type liberal democracy and global neoliberal capitalism. Eastern European dissidents are often seen, or even mythologised, as central to this triumph of liberalism. This lecture challenges these assumptions. It argues that the liberal discourse of human rights was only marginal in East European dissent before 1989, and emphasises instead the fundamental plurality of political and cultural languages (socialist, liberal, republican, Christian, nationalist) of human rights among dissidents. This was a crucial factor shaping political developments in the region after 1989. Understanding the historical complexity of dissent in the late-communist dictatorships has become an urgent task in the era of the illiberal political challenge across Europe today.
Speaker
Dr Michal Kopeček, Leverhulme Visiting Professor at the University of Cambridge from 2021-22, is Head of the Department of Ideas and Concepts at the Institute of Contemporary History, Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague. From 2017 – 2022 he was Co-Director of the Imre Kertész Kolleg, Friedrich Schiller University, Jena. His research interests include the comparative intellectual history of modern East Central Europe, nationalism, and the history of communist dictatorship and post-socialism in Eastern Europe. Among his recent publications are the edited volume Czechoslovakism (Routledge, 2002), the co-authored Architects of the Long Transformation: Expert Roots of Post-Socialism in Czechoslovakia (in Czech, Prague 2019) and the multi-volume A History of Modern Political Thought in East Central Europe (Oxford University Press 2016; 2018). He is finishing a monograph on the Legacy of Dissidence in East Central Europe 1970s-2000s, focusing on dissident political and legal thought and practices.
Details
This event is open to all and there is no need to booked. Refreshments will be available at the end of the talk.
The event will be moderated by Dr. Celia Donert. For further information, please contact chd31@cam.ac.uk
Access
This event will take place in the Roger Needham Room on the second floor of the Chancellor's Centre. It has step-free access with a lift and there is an accessible toilet located each floor of the building.
For more details please view our AccessAble guide.
