Summary Of Drakulic's Café Europ Iron Pact

Throughout the end of the Second World War to the end of the Cold War in the early 1990’s, there existed an iron curtain, which divided central, and Eastern Europe from Western Europe. This iron curtain arose from the Soviet Union blocking its satellite states and itself from the non-communist nations of Western Europe. This resulted in the Soviet-influenced states of central and Eastern Europe being socially, economically, and politically different from the west. Following the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the Soviet Union started to lose its communist influence, thus diminishing the iron curtain that existed among Eastern European nations. In her novel Café Europa, Slavenka Drakulic shows how the people in these Eastern European
Rather than accept what happened and learn from the former Soviet rule, people tried to cover up the past, and act like it never happened. “The letter concludes that the Croatian people have no reason to publicly honor Josip Broz Tito and his followers, who ‘for fifty years exercised a kind of terror that Croatia cannot remember throughout her history.’ Those who dare suggest that his name should be given to another square in Zagreb are enemies of the independence of the new Croatian state.” The new democratic government of Croatia wanted to erase all memories of the former communist leader Tito, although the people of the nation already had lived through his rule, and remembered his legacy. Tito was not honored throughout the city, since his name was forever linked to communist. Rather than recognize the past communist rule, which the people clearly remember, the new government wanted completely erase Josip Tito and everything associated with him. Croatia was not ready for Westernization, since it’s government failed to recognize the true past, move on, and take strides towards a democratic rule. In her novel, Drakulic states, “of course I am not suggesting that we should follow her example and continue to call streets after this or that partisan brigade or hero; what I mean is that while the existence of the new state should be respected, so too should
Once becoming free under the new democratic government, many people could not escape their past ways of poverty, or were always reminded of their past. “Living in Eastern Europe under communism, we were taught to compare ourselves with those who had less than we did, never with those who had more; to those who were worse off, never the better off.” If these people compared themselves to the western lifestyles, they would be exposed to the truth of how poor they really were. By the communist government comparing them to those who were worse off, the people thought that they were living well under the communist regime. If exposed to nations living better off, than they would start to ask questions about their lives, which would only hurt the communist control over these nations. After the fall of communism, people started to get a sense of the poverty that was in the Eastern European nations. This realization led to the push for western goods, to appear well off, which only hurt these people even more, since they lacked the basic necessities to live. “It seems like sort of a plot; from time to time the soil rises from beneath us, just to reminds us where we come from, to tell us that most of us are only the first generation of urban citizens.” Drakulic uses the rising of the mud to represent the peasant origins of the past. People were