ABSTRACT
The revolutions of 1989 precipitated not only the collapse of governments all over Eastern Europe but also the collapse and merger of states, in particular of Germany, the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia. Three of these countries were to some extent artifacts of either the Cold War or of communism itself. With the collapse of communism and the end of the Cold War, the forces that kept Germany divided, and Yugoslavia and the USSR together, were gone. While the unification of Germany proved to be relatively peaceful, the breakup of the USSR and Yugoslavia generated the most violence and conflict that Europe had experienced since World War II and posed threats of long-term instability throughout the region. This chapter discusses how the revolutions led to the collapse of old states in the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia and the formation of new states out of those as well as of the formerly divided Germany.
