Roundtable with Philipp Ther (University of Vienna), Angela Romano (Università di Bologna) and Rosamund Johnston (University of Vienna). With comments from Benno Gammerl (EUI) and Lois Kalb (EUI)
The period following the revolutions in Eastern Europe around 1989 has often been associated with the term 'transformation.' But what was actually transformed? And how active were Eastern Europeans in each of these processes?
On this roundtable, authors of the newly published Routledge Handbook of 1989 and the Great Transformation consider the economic, urban, and gendered aspects of the 'great transformation' that they chart. They reflect upon how crucial — or insignificant — the year 1989 was for each of these histories. To grasp the scale of what happened around that time and in the new millennium, the panellists argue it is important to bring Eastern Europe into conversation with other global regions. However, they reflect on how transformation was shaped and played out on other, smaller scales —through national economies, cityscapes, and gendered relations in the home.
Philipp Ther is Professor of Central European History at the University of Vienna, where he
also founded the Research Centre for the History of Transformations (RECET). Among his monographs: Europe since 1989: A history (Princeton UP); The Dark Side of Nation States: Ethnic Cleansing in Modern Europe (Berghahn Press).
Rosamund Johnston is a postdoctoral researcher at the Research Centre for the History of Transformations (RECET), University of Vienna. She is the main editor of The Routledge Handbook of 1989 and the Great Transformation (2025), and the author of Red Tape: Radio and Politics in Czechoslovakia, 1945-1969 (Stanford, 2024).
Angela Romano is Associate Professor of International History at the University of Bologna. Her expertise spans the Cold War, European integration and cooperation processes, regional organisations, and New Diplomatic History. Her latest publication is 'A Pan-European Economic Space with the European Community at Its Core: The EC’s Goals, Actions and Achievements in Pan-European Fora in the 1970s.’ – Contemporary European History, 2026.
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