“What once felt impossible became inevitable.” A BIG Europe Interview with Ivan Krastev

In their ‘Project 1989’ BIG Europe publishes witness interviews about this historic moment in time. Their project is a collaboration with the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA). ECF supports the project. Below you will find excerpts of the original interview published on the site of  BIG Europe.

Luuk van Middelaar (LvM): Take us back to the pivotal year, 1989

Ivan Krastev (IK): It’s interesting, because in Bulgaria, the fall of the Berlin Wall almost exactly coincided with the resignation of Todor Zhivkov, the leader of the Communist Party, who had been in power since 1956. So, strangely enough, I don’t actually remember the fall of the Berlin Wall. What I remember is the fall of Zhivkov. That moment, 3 November 1989, was when we had our first slightly larger protest, organized by civil society. Around 3,000 people gathered. Officially, we were protesting about environmental issues, but it was clearly much more political, heavily inspired by the reforms happening in the Soviet Union. Then came 10 November, when Zhivkov unexpectedly resigned from the Communist Party. It took everyone by surprise. That evening, a group of us went to the university restaurant, which was a popular spot. We ended up sitting at a table with Zhelyu Zhelev, who, one year later, would become the first democratically elected president of Bulgaria. Zhelev said something remarkable: ‘Guys, I want to tell you: in your lifetime, you’re going to see the end of communism’. This was 10 November 1989. Three months later, he was leading the opposition. A year later, he was president.

That story resonates with how I view transformative moments in history. People usually talk about such periods in terms of political direction, democracy or authoritarianism, but to me what stands out is the acceleration of change. It’s like jumping from a slow regional train onto a TGV. What you believed on Monday is unbelievable by Friday. And it’s not just personal, it affects almost everyone.

LvM: I think it’s interesting to look at how this period affected both the individual and the collective. After that moment of openness, both personal and societal, a new collective sense of direction seemed to emerge. You mentioned earlier that, especially after the Soviet Union was no longer a model, there was a shift. But did you and your generation think about ‘Europe’ at the time. Or was it more about ‘the West’?

IK: It was much more ‘the West.’ For us, Europe and America were pretty much the same. The idea of ‘the West’ wasn’t sharply differentiated.

LvM: The EU was, in a way, re-founded. That’s how I always tell the story. The 1990s marked a kind of second founding of Europe.

IK: Yes, unlike other institutions that remained largely the same and simply expanded, the EU was different. But for many joining countries, it felt like joining an existing club, on the club’s terms. This created a sense of second-class membership, which became politically potent. Across Eastern Europe, you could see political entrepreneurs using this sentiment. And people often forget that by the mid-1990s, nostalgia was already politically active. Many post-communist countries saw former communist parties winning elections again . . . People were already asking tough questions: ‘Why aren’t we getting the welfare state that the West has?’ ‘Why are we treated differently?’ ‘Why are they asking us to do things they themselves wouldn’t?’ Take deindustrialization. Eastern Europe was highly industrialized under communism, not always competitively, but heavily so. The 1990s brought a rapid collapse of those industries, often due to privatization and integration into the EU economy. A striking example was Bulgaria. One EU accession condition was closing two nuclear reactors. That was a huge issue; people never forgave the government. Nuclear energy had been a point of pride. So its closure fed conspiracy theories: ‘They’re doing this to weaken us so their companies can dominate.’ And even when people were doing better individually, there was still this sense: ‘My personal success does not translate into collective success.’ When you ask people in Eastern Europe, ‘Are you better off personally?’ many say yes. But ask, ‘Is your country better off?’ and the answer is often no.