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The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 represents a symbolic moment of the end of the Cold War and of a political and economic order that politically and ideologically divided Europe and the whole world for almost half a century. This course is designed to provide a broad background to an understanding of the political, social-economic, and cultural development in Eastern Europe.
The end of the Cold War and of Eastern European communism in 1989-1991 did not mean the loss of Eastern Europe’s global importance. On the contrary, the recent history of Eastern European countries, the period of their post-communist transition to political democracy and a market economy, has been marked with new instabilities, crises and wars, which have had serious implications for global trends as well.In addition to the primary focus on the internal evolution of the countries of former communist Eastern Europe from the end of the Second World War to the early 1990s, significant attention will be paid to the most important events and themes of the pre-war history of this part of the world.
This course will enable students to become familiar with the major issues of the history of communism in East-Central and Eastern Europe as well as the reasons for both the Soviet conquest of the related countries and for the collapse of Soviet domination and communist rule in these countries. In particular, through their work in this course, students are expected to be able to:understand and describe the geopolitical conditions in which the countries of East-Central and Eastern Europe fell under Soviet domination and communist rule after the Second World War,understand, describe and analyse the nature and main characteristics of communist rule in the countries of East-Central and Eastern Europe during the period 1945-1989/91develop an awareness of theoretical debates relating to the themes and topics examined,define and analyse the main socio-economic and political causes of the collapse of communist rule in East-Central and Eastern Europe during the period 1989-1991
Either 15 points in HIST at B grade or better or 30 points in HIST or Ancient History (CLAS111 and CLAS112 with a passing grade. Alternatively, a B average in 60 points of coursework.
EURO226, EURO222, HIST264 (prior to 2006), INCO225, HIST386, EURA226, EURA326, EURO326
EURA226, EURO226, HIST269
Milenko Petrovic
Bideleux, Robert. , Jeffries, Ian; A history of Eastern Europe : crisis and change ; 2nd ed; Routledge, 2007.
Crampton, R. J; Eastern Europe in the twentieth century ; Routledge, 1994.
Additional and optional readings are listed in the Course Outline (available for enrolled students on LEARN).
Library portalLEARN The full Course Outline is available on LEARN (only for students enrolled in this course).
Domestic fee $697.00
International fee $2,913.00
* All fees are inclusive of NZ GST or any equivalent overseas tax, and do not include any programme level discount or additional course-related expenses.
For further information see Humanities .