November 9, 1989 represents a symbolic culmination, a year chockfull of portentous events occurring in Central and Eastern Europe and reverberating worldwide. It signifies endings and beginnings with all their complexities and complications. 30 years later, on November 11, 2019 scholars from Queen’s University and the Royal Military College will commemorate the events, but also analyze them. Eschewing the usual triumphalism, they will interrogate the losses, gains, costs, and benefits to regional and global security, European belonging, and will tackle the lives of groups and individuals involved. They will concentrate on Germany, Poland, and Russia. The event will involve two panels, a poster exhibition called “From Peaceful Revolution to German Unity” open to the public at the Atrium of the Joseph S. Stauffer Library, and a showing/discussion of the movie “Wings of Desire” (1987) at the Screening Room Theatre in downtown Kingston.
The event is organized by Russian and Eastern European Studies Network (REES), and sponsored by the Departments of Political Studies, and Philosophy, as well as the History Department’s Nugent Fund, the Centre for the Study of Democracy and Diversity, and the School of Policy Studies. The event’s exhibit is prepared by the Federal Foundation for the Study of Communist Dictatorship in East Germany (GDR) in Cooperation with the Hertie Foundation and supported by the Federal Foreign Office as well as the German Embassy in Ottawa.
November 11, 2019 – Symposium
Atrium at Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Queen’s University
Welcome
Ana Siljak, Department of History at Queen’s University
11:30-1:30 The Fall of the Wall, the “End of History” or its Resumption? European Security After 1989
David Haglund, Department of Political Studies and formerly the Centre for International Relations at Queen’s University
Joel J. Sokolsky, Department of Political Science and Economics, the Royal Military College of Canada and Queen’s Centre for International and Defence Policy
Charles Pentland, Department of Political Science and formerly the Centre for International Relations at Queen’s University
Moderation: N.N.
1:30-2:30 Lunch and introduction to the exhibition “From Peaceful Revolution to German Unity”
2:30-4:30 From my Point of View: Germany, Poland and Russia before, during and after the Transformation
Swen Steinberg, Department of History at Queen’s University
Kate Korycki, Department of Political Studies at Queen’s University
Vasilli Schedrin, Department of History at Queen’s University Moderation: Ana Siljak, Department of History at Queen’s University
November 11, 2019 – Movie Night: “Wings of Desire”
6:00 at The Screening Room Theatre, 120 Princess Street, Kingston, free admission
GER/FR 1987, 127 minutes, Director: Wim Wenders
Introduction / Q&A: Vasilli Schedrin, Department of History at Queen’s University
November 12-19, 2019 – Exhibition “From Peaceful Revolution to German Unity”
Atrium of the Joseph S. Stauffer Library, Queen’s University Open to the public 8:00am to 2:00am
The exhibition, which includes 20 posters, highlights the events that occurred at that time and include, for example, the protests at the falsification of the East German elections, the movement of refugees and the mass protests that forced the government to open the borders on November 9, 1989. The exhibition explains, among other things, the German-German relations and the foreign policy choices involved in restoring German unity.