List of Papers and Speaches

as of 23 May 2005

Special Guests

Timothy Garton Ash: Plenary Address at the Opening Session – “The Helsinki Proces: A Catalyst for Freedom?”

Václav Havel: Introductory Speech at the Opening Session

William J. Cabaniss: Address at the Opening Session

Petr Pithart: The Helsinki Process, Discontinuity Czech Style: A Comment on Czech Politics Today (Start of the Closing Session)

Jacques Rupnik (Closing Panel)

Confirmed Papers

Panel 1: The Communist East and Principle VII: East-European Governments implementing the Helsinki provisions

  • Svetlana Savranskaya (National Security Archive, Washington): The KGB Efforts to Monitor and Suppress Dissent.
  • Paweł Machcewicz (Institute of National Remembrance, Warsaw): Détente and the Communist Struggle Against “the Foreign Political-Ideological Diversion”
  • Csaba Békes (Centre of the Cold War History, Budapest): The official Hungarian policy concerning the process leading up to the signing of the Helsinki Final Act and its aftermath
  • Jan Rychlík (Charles University, Prague): The Helsinki Process and the Freedom to Travel Abroad for Czechoslovaks
  • Stefan Wolle (University, Frankfurt on the Oder): The Helsinki Conference and the GDR
  • Wanda Jarząbek (Insitute of Political Studies, Warsaw): Helsinki – The Approach of the Polish Government
  • Kimmo Elo (University of Turku): The Impact of the Helsinki Process on the Room for Manoeuvre in GDR Foreign Policy, Especially Its Intra-German Dimension.
  • Jan Pešek (Institute of History, Bratislava): Churches in Slovakia Under the Pressure of the Communist Regime

Panel 2: Principle VII : Western approaches

Western governments during the Follow-up Meetings
RFE/RL in the Helsinki Process
The CSCE Helsinki Commission of the US Congress
The National Endowment for Democracy

  • Tom Blanton (National Security Archive, Washington): The US Expectations, Initial Reluctance and the Post-factum Assessment of the Conference and Its Results.
  • Heikki Larmola (University of Helsinki): Kekkonen, The Helsinki Process, and Eastern Europe
  • Keith Hamilton (Foreign and Commonwealth Office, London): Czechoslovakia Remembered: British Diplomacy, the CSCE and East/Central Europe, 1972-75
  • Michael Libal (German Ambassador, Prague): The CSCE Process in the Context of “Ostpolitik” in the 1970s and 1980s. Recollections of a Diplomat
  • Jana Starek (Institute of East European History, University Vienna): Solidarity With Czechoslovak Dissidents and Émigrés in Austria
  • Rodger Potocki (National Endowment for Democracy, Washington): The NED and the East European Dissidents

Panel 3: Helsinki from below: Dynamic processes and social mobilization in East-bloc states

  • Rainer Eckert (Zeitgeschichtliches Forum, Leipzig): The Helsinki Final Act and the Civil Rights Movement in the GDR
  • Tomáš Vilímek (Charles University, Prague): The Impact of Helsinki on the Opposition in the ČSSR and the GDR
  • Michal Kopeček (Institute for Contemporary History, Prague): The Impact of the Helsinki Process on the Thinking of Dissidents in Czechoslovakia
  • Manfred Wilke (Freie Universität, Berlin): Why Was There No Charter 77 in the GDR? Comments on a Paper Given in Florence, 25 Years Ago
  • Petr Blažek (Institute for Contemporary History, Prague): A Parallel Mini-congress on Peace at the Hvězda Hunting Lodge (June 1983)
  • Oldřich Tůma (Institute for Contemporary History, Prague): Helsinki and the Emergence of Charter 77
  • Katharina Kunter (Aarhus University, Aarhus): The Churches in the Helsinki Process
  • Christian Domnitz, (Zentrum für Zeithistorische Forschung, Potsdam): Human-rights Activists and “The Dream of Europe” in East Germany and Czechoslovakia
  • Juraj Marušiak (Institute of Political Sciences, Bratislava): The Hungarian Minority in the Slovak Struggle for Human Rights

Panel 4: Cooperation across the Iron Curtain

International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights
US Helsinki Watch
George Soros Foundation
Western peace movements and the dissidents in the East
Émigré movements and the Helsinki Process
Amnesty International

  • Gerald Nagler (Sweden): The International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights in the 1980s
  • Mojmír Povolný (USA): Czechoslovak Exile Movement in the Helsinki Process
  • Barbara Day (Prague Society for International Cooperation): Supporting the Independent Culture in Czechoslovakia (Jan Hus Educational Foundation, London)
  • Júlia Kalinová-Sherwood (London): Amnesty International Taking Care For the Prisoners of Conscience in Czechoslovakia
  • Joanna Weschler (Human Rights Watch, USA): US Helsinki Watch and Dissidents in Eastern Europe
  • András Mink (Open Society Archives, Budapest): The Soros Foundation Hungary

Panel 5: Closing session: Results of the conference debates presented to a larger audience / Panel discussion led by Jacques Rupnik (Paris)