ABSTRACT
Why has democracy declared war on liberalism most openly in eastern Europe? As this chapter contends, the answer lies in the peculiar nature of the revolutions of 1989, when the states of eastern Europe freed themselves from the Soviet empire. Unlike previous revolutions, the ones in 1989 were concerned not with utopia but with the idea of normality—that is, the revolutionaries expressed a desire to lead the type of normal life already available to people in western Europe. Once the Berlin Wall fell, the most educated and liberal eastern Europeans became the first to leave their countries, provoking major demographic and identity crises in the region. And as the domestic constituencies for liberal democracy immigrated to the West, international actors such as the EU and the United States became the face of liberalism in eastern Europe, just as their own influence was waning. This set the stage for the nationalist revolt against liberalism seizing the region today.
