'In 1989, We Sparked the Revolution!': Legacies of 1989 and the Far-Right in Eastern Germany Today

• In Event: Reclaimed Rhetorics: Right-Wing Appropriations of Decolonial Discourses in Post-Socialist Context

Abstract

This paper examines the connections between memory discourses surrounding ‘roads not taken’ following the 1989 revolution in the GDR, and their instrumentalization by far-right politics in Eastern Germany today. Drawing on literary and (pop-)cultural sources, I explore Eastern Germany as a comparative yet frequently overlooked case for studying how far-right movements appropriate decolonial language in the post-socialist region.

Author

• Dorine Schellens, Leiden U (Netherlands)