When the Brücke/Most Stiftung (‘Bridge Foundation’) presented the project idea of ‘Vastly equal— Europe’s 1989’ at the Goethe Institute in Prague in August 2008, we were pleased to contribute to the project’s success. Bringing together young people from Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Germany, so they would enter into an exchange on the events of 1989 and their antecedents with the aim of preparing an exhibition on the subject in four cities, this was an ambitious project with a view to the short period of time, and the initiators have every right to be proud of its success.

While the young people were meeting in Prague for the first time to exchange their own stories of the changes in Eastern Europe, the Goethe Institute was preparing a conference in Berlin titled ‘Freiheit im Blick: Europa 1989/2009. Geschichte einer Hoffnung – Ende einer Illusion?’ (‘Freedom in View: Europe 1989/2009. A (Hi)Story of Hope—the End of an Illusion?' Intellectuals, scientists and artists from Central Eastern Europe exchanged their views on the events of 1989 and the state-of-affairs regarding the development of the societies in transition. By means of the conference the Goethe Institute, in cooperation with the German Society for East European Research and the Polish Institute in Berlin focussed on the liberation movements and peaceful revolutions in countries such as Poland, Hungary, or then Czechoslovakia, without which German unification, a redefinition of Europe, or overcoming the conflict between the East and the West would hardly have been possible.

What has remained in memory, 20 years after the wall came down? The Goethe Institutes in Central Eastern Europe asked nine writers in their host countries to reflect on their memories of the fall of the Berlin Wall. This question is answered by nine works of prose in rather different ways. They can be accessed at www.goethe.de/prag ‘Mein 1989’ (in Czech and German).

Film and literary events, as well as competitions for school students and teachers who had covered the subject of the turning point in 1989 in class, completed the series of events provided by the Prague Goethe Institute.

An essay-writing competition for young people born in 1989 from Belgium, Bulgaria, Germany, the UK, Austria, Poland, Romania, the Czech Republic, and Hungary was kicked off almost at the same time the exhibitions were inaugurated, marking an apparent end to ‘Vastly equal’. In those essays the young writers illustrated their views on the future of Europe. The winners met in Brussels, Bucharest, Prague and Warsaw in April 2010 to adopt a declaration of the Generation 89.

This declaration is not meant to be an end but rather a starting point for discussions and exciting stories— and the same is true for the present documentation of ‘Vastly equal—Europe's 1989’.

Dr. Heike Uhlig is Deputy Director at the Goethe-Institut Prague, Head of Language Department