The unification of Europe after the destruction of the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain enabled European people to learn more about each other’s past. This was important in order to understand each other better, considering that we are living together in the same community. For this purpose, it is of paramount significance to promote remembrance of the crimes of totalitarian regimes—not only of Nazism and Fascism, but also of Totalitarian Communism. The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, after a debate which lasted three years, adopted Resolution 1481/2006 on the Need for Condemnation of the Crimes of Totalitarian Communist Regimes on January 25, 2006, followed on December 18, 2006, by a Reply of the Committee of Ministers on Written Question No. 486, which stated that the Committee of Ministers firmly condemns crimes committed by totalitarian regimes in the name of communist ideology. It was followed by the Resolution of the European Parliament of April 2, 2009, and of the Parliamentary Assembly of OSCE on July 3, 2009, reaffirming the same position as that of PACE.

The paper discusses both the institutional origins of the Russian Federation (RF) war on Ukraine and its impact on probable standoffs between post-WWII liberal and authoritarian regimes. Its first section reviews the evolution of the opposition to “Soviet Rule” in Europe and the failure of political infrastructure to destroy this opposition, exemplified by the 1989 opening of the Iron Curtain. Appling economics’ metaphors of “stationary” and “roving” bandits to political affairs (national and international), the second part of the paper examines post-1989–1991 institutional changes in the RF and former “Eastern” Europe that is now an actual or would-be part of the EU. The analysis here helps explain differences between the RF and EU understandings of state as an instrument of social change. The third section summarizes the backgrounds of the RF/Kremlin’s justification to launch the war on Ukraine and the liberal democracies’ misapprehension of the Kremlin’s intentions and motives. The final part of the paper makes at attempt to deduce conjectures on the provisional survival chances of the liberal orders, depending on the scenarios on how this war is likely to end.

The talk will trace the development of the discourses of protest and tolerance in Bulgaria, which are an alternative way of speaking to the ubiquitous narratives of power and creating an ideological pluralism that breaks down walls and serves as a corrective to governance. Two transformations will be outlined: Firstly, that of the nationalist discourse, which in the 19th century was transformed from being a protest against the Ottoman government into serving as authority after the Liberation and became singular, suppressing the emergence of other discourses, which is a prerequisite for greater attachment to authoritarian models in Bulgaria, represented in a nostalgia for the totalitarian past. The second transformation is in the paradoxical presentation of nationalist discourse as a voice of protest against European policies of breaking down walls, integration, and pluralism, arguing for the re-building of walls and enclosure in one’s own community, which creates a particular sense of adventure and heroism in nationalist movements in both Bulgaria and Europe and makes them more attractive.

Once upon a time, in 1989–1991, European elites and citizens seemed to know that Europe existed, and they hoped that the continent would get reunited. Since then, several map-making efforts have taken place. Changing lists of (often normative) cleavages and linkages have been drawn to portray the political, economic, and societal evolutions affecting the region. Today, however, attempts at comparing and contrasting intra-European experiences offer only limited access to the radical changes that are taking place in Europe. Where do democracies/authoritarian regimes start and end? Are foreign policy alignments reminiscent of a (new) Cold War? At stake is not the identification of dominant divisions/ties, similitudes/differences, etc. Rather, a central issue lies in our ability to abandon the classification-based modes of knowledge production inherited from the 18th century and to invent new ways of thinking about an era that is both elastic and explosive.

The post-Communist era has also been the era of protest occupations. A relative rarity before 1989, they have become ubiquitous in recent years. The Color Revolutions, the Arab Spring, and indeed much of political protest since the global recession of 2008 have centered on the occupation of public space, in which activists create alternative social structures and seek to carve out zones of freedom. In this talk, I will consider why this tactic might have become so important and assess the power and weakness of protest occupations as political tools.

After 1989, liberalism became the dominant political ideology and an influential social imaginary in ECE, but eventually it started losing its hegemonic position. One explanation of this phenomenon, socio-economic, focuses on the dislocations and economic deprivation suffered by many people subjected to the new socio-economic system and their subsequent electoral revolt. For Krastev and Holmes, the rejection of liberalism should be understood primarily as an act of rebellion against an externally imposed, “alien” ideology. But why did this rejection come after a considerable “delay,” and why did it take the form of right-wing populist reaction? I argue that illiberalism is better at responding to the deep-seated human need for mythical “self-relativization,” although it is “to a certain extent inimical to freedom” (Kołakowski) and has long-standing roots in some sub-cultures of the region. The culture war became intense when the illiberal ethos was amplified by cultural entrepreneurs who turned it into an effective ideological force (neo-traditionalism) directed against liberalism. Once they won elections, they further enhanced their power by instituting neo-feudalism.