Daedalus Winter 1990 [antikvár]

Preface to the Issue 'Eastern Europe Central Europe Europe" In over three decades of publication, there has been no issue of Dcedalus more difficult to produce than this one. Or, to put the matter more accurately, none has been more difficult to bring to a satisfactory conclusion. The reasons are self-evident. They have to do largely with the fact that 1989 has been a year of extraordinary events, momentous and largely unanticipated; one would have to return to 1945, the year of the final defeat of Germany and Japan in World War II, to discover a time when there was so much movement in Europe, particularly in Eastern Europe, when it seemed more difficult to discern the future, and indeed to interpret the present. In 1945, many eyes were averted from Europe east of the Elbe. In 1989, all eyes have been riveted on the region. \)C^en one reflects that the original planning for this issue began with a small closed conference at the House of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in Cambridge in April 1987, following on months of more informal conversations in Europe, both east and west of what could then still be called the Iron Curtain, one is amazed to discover how much a world that had seemed so static for so long has managed in something less than three years to change so significantly. Which of the changes will prove to be permanent— what their long-range significance will be—it is of course impossible to tell. To read the Editor's invitation to those who participated in the original planning session is to be grateful that the process began in