Christian Democracy Across the Iron Curtain: Europe Redefined

Description

This book is the first scholarly exploration of how Christian Democracy kept Cold War Europe’s eastern and western halves connected after the creation of the Iron Curtain in the late 1940s. Christian Democrats led the transnational effort to rebuild the continent’s western half after World War II, but this is only one small part of the story of how the Christian Democratic political family transformed Europe and defied the nascent Cold War’s bipolar division of the world. The first section uses case studies from the origins of European integration to reimagine Christian Democracy’s long-term significance for a united Europe. The second shifts the focus to East-Central Europeans, some exiled to Western Europe, some to the USA, others remaining in the Soviet Bloc as dissidents. The transnational activism they pursued helped to ensure that, Iron Curtain or no, the boundary between Europe’s west and east remained permeable, that the Cold War would not last and that Soviet attempts to divide the continent permanently would fail. The book’s final section features the testimony of three key protagonists. This book appeals to a wide range of audiences: undergraduate and graduate students, established scholars, policymakers (in Europe and the Americas) and potentially also general readerships interested in the Cold War or in the future of Europe. Front Matter ....Pages i-xxxiii Front Matter ....Pages 1-1 Introduction: From Siege Mentality to Mainstreaming? Researching Twentieth-Century Christian Democracy (Wolfram Kaiser)....Pages 3-23 Catholic and Christian Democratic Views on Europe Before and After World War II: Continuities and Discontinuities (Patrick Pasture)....Pages 25-55 Alcide De Gasperi and Konrad Adenauer: A New Approach (Tiziana Di Maio)....Pages 57-89 Not Only De Gasperi: Italian Christian Democrats’ Commitment to Europe (Antonio Varsori)....Pages 91-104 Sainthood vs. Nationhood: The Beatification Causes of Schuman and De Gasperi (Wiesław Bar)....Pages 105-126 A Truly “European” Christian Democracy? The European People’s Party (Beata Kosowska-Gąstoł)....Pages 127-150 Front Matter ....Pages 151-151 The Elimination of Christian Democracy in Poland After World War II (Jarosław Rabiński)....Pages 153-175 Christian Democrats Across the Iron Curtain (Paweł Ziętara)....Pages 177-219 Christian Democracy’s Global Cold War (Piotr H. Kosicki)....Pages 221-255 The Polish Section of the Belgian Christian Trade Union ACV/CSC (Idesbald Goddeeris)....Pages 257-275 The Social Virtues of Christian Democracy, European and Polish: The Case of Jan Kułakowski (Leszek Jesień)....Pages 277-290 Christian Democracy off the Bookshelf: The Case of Jerzy Kulczycki (Małgorzata Choma-Jusińska)....Pages 291-320 Christian Democracy beyond Christian Democracy: The Case of Stanisław Grocholski (Sławomir Łukasiewicz)....Pages 321-341 Explaining the Absence of Christian Democracy in Contemporary Poland (Aleks Szczerbiak, Tim Bale)....Pages 343-407 Front Matter ....Pages 409-409 The Christian Democratic Union of Central Europe (Stanisław Gebhardt)....Pages 411-424 Christian Democracy in Slovakia (Ján Čarnogurský)....Pages 425-437 The Prospects of Christian Democracy in Contemporary Europe: Experiences from Germany (Georg Milbradt)....Pages 439-448 Back Matter ....Pages 449-468