The Picnic: A Dream of Freedom and the Collapse of the Iron Curtain

Longo (political science, Leiden Univ., Netherlands) follows up The Politics of Borders, where he examined the walls separating nations after 9/11, with an account of the 1989 Pan-European Picnic that brought such borders down. With the measured tones of a calm investigative reporter, narrator Tom Parks authoritatively describes this momentous event, which was organized by Hungarian activists and took place on the border between Hungary and Austria. The picnic, conceived as an initial test of the Soviet Union’s reaction to the opening of the border, was touted as an opportunity for comingling and fellowship but soon became a chaotic chance for many to escape from Soviet-controlled lands. The book traces the origins of the event, from Otto von Habsburg and Ferenc Mészáros’s first meeting to architect Mária Filep’s planning of the event to the ultimate fall of the Iron Curtain. Parks makes tangible the emotions felt by the players Longo interviewed during the picnic’s 30th anniversary: former West Germans scornful of former GDR citizens, former East Germans proud of their past, and those who made lives for themselves across the border, many of whom were overwhelmed and disillusioned with their experience with freedom.