09/25/2023
Political scientist Longo (The Politics of Borders ) delivers a stunning recap of the “greatest breach of the border in Cold War history.” The Pan-European Picnic took place on Aug. 19, 1989, in Sopron, Hungary, on the border with St. Margarethen, Austria. High-ups in the Hungary Communist Party—sensing the Soviet Union under the leadership of Mikhail Gorbachev was loosening its grip on its satellite countries in Eastern Europe—had given permission to the picnic organizers to open a “small, gated crossing” in a muddy field on the border, allowing Austrians and Hungarians to freely mingle and celebrate “European togetherness and freedom.” But the event quickly turned into “utter chaos” when some 600–1,000 East Germans saw the picnic as their chance to escape East Germany’s repressive regime. Longo traces the heart-wrenching stories of these freedom-seekers and interviews the Hungarian commanding officer who was under orders to shoot them but refused. His impressive research reveals “a shadow archive of secret decisions,” showing not only how closely the secret police were watching the picnic organizers, but also how reformists within the Party paved the way for it to happen, even as they received death threats from the hard-line opposition. This captivating narrative brings an underreported Cold War turning point into focus. (Nov.)
"Fascinating and revelatory.… The significance of the picnic has never before been documented, certainly not with this level of diligence and testimony, and Longo’s engrossing and dramatic book adds a new, captivating chapter to the history of the Cold War."
New Statesman - William Boyd
"One of the best books on Cold War history."
"Full of insight and empathy, The Picnic is beautifully written and ingeniously plotted. Like all the best books about the past, it brings the present compellingly to life."
"The true charm of Mr. Longo’s book, and its greatest historical value, lies in his accounts of ordinary citizens—mostly East German—who sought to throw off their Communist shackles by fleeing west at great personal peril. We also owe him a debt for resuscitating the Picnic, now ‘largely omitted from history books, pushed aside by the macroscopic politics of the end of the Cold War.’"
Wall Street Journal - Tunku Varadarajan
"This little gem of a book tells the story of…a key Cold War moment.… Longo’s vivid narrative captures the tension of the moment.… [A]n intensely moving story that explores the nature of freedom."
Sunday Times - Victor Sebestyen
"A brisk and engaging account, told in a lively blend of novelistic narration and reportage and featuring interviews with a number of people closely involved in these historic events.… It’s an uplifting tale, but Longo takes care not to oversentimentalise it."
Guardian - Houman Barekat
"A fascinating reconstruction of the extraordinary moment in 1989 when the spontaneous actions and inactions of a few individuals made history swing wide open on its hinges. With the gifts of a fine documentarian, Matthew Longo makes that great moment of collective hopes newly vivid, and the extent to which those hopes remain unfulfilled freshly urgent."
"The most brilliant history allows an experience either forgotten or missed to feel close and vivid—as if we were there. Matthew Longo’s writing reanimates the heady days of freedom of 1989 and reflects on what was missed in that extraordinary year, on how inarticulate solidarities have since eroded to the detriment of everyone, and on how confining walls could fall even as durable institutions of freedom were not built in their place."
"Longo covers the Picnic at ground level, evoking the dramatic events in vivid colour.… Anecdotes and impressions…are woven through the historical narrative, providing an insight into how deeply this history still matters today.… [T]he chain of events in 1989 and its historical context are outlined with clarity and verve. The narrative is spiked with Longo’s commentary and anecdotes from his trips, making The Picnic a deeply personal account of a fascinating milestone of Cold War history."
"A compelling, poignant, beautifully textured retelling of the collapse of communism in Central Europe through the personal ordeals, trepidations, longings, and disenchantments of its participants—culminating in a heartfelt rethinking of the meaning of 1989 for the world today."
"A pivotal—and exhilarating—moment in late 20th-century history.… Matthew Longo’s thoughtful and vividly realised book skillfully dramatises the extraordinary chain of events at a summer party in Hungary that led to the end of Soviet power.… [I]t recreates, through intimate personal histories and eye-witness recollection, the ways in which one idealistic, grass roots protest…became a catalyst for the dramatic peaceful revolutions that reunited the continent.… [G]ripping."
"[Matthew] Longo’s engaging account of the fall of the Soviet empire focuses on ordinary protesters like the organizers of a picnic attended by hundreds on the border between Austria and Hungary in 1989."
New York Times Book Review
"Exhilarating.… With vivid detail, Longo brings to life the defiance and courage of the Picnic’s activist organizers and the hundreds of East German refugees who fled Hungary that day. A gem of a book, filled with timely and compelling insights into the power of ordinary people and the limitations of authoritarianism."
"An elegantly crafted account of an extraordinary but largely forgotten August 1989 gathering.… [Longo] quickly proves himself an unusual sort of political scientist, evincing a philosophical bent, a gift for poetic turns of phrase, and a knack for gaining the trust of widely varying interview subjects.… [H]e provides food for thought relating to both timeless questions of struggle and agency, and topics in the headlines today. Like many good works of history, it can be mined for sources of hope—and lead to dark reflections about ironic shifts."
Boston Globe - Jeffrey Wasserstrom
"Full of insight and empathy. intimate and compelling, The Picnic is beautifully written and ingeniously plotted. Like all the best books about the past, it brings the present compellingly to life."
"Longo’s engaging account of the fall of the Soviet empire focuses on ordinary protesters like the organizers of a picnic attended by hundreds on the border between Austria and Hungary in 1989."
Editor's Choice New York Times
"Blending oral history and political theory (including cameos by Plato and Isaiah Berlin), Longo recounts the drama in a vivid, fast-paced narrative."
New York Times - Andrew Meier
"A terrific work of history that also becomes a meditation on what freedom means and how tyrannies fall."
★ 2023-08-17
In the late 1980s, the Soviet Union was weakening, reformers had risen to power in Hungary, and people were fleeing East Germany. Longo, a professor of political science at Leiden University (Netherlands) and author of The Politics of Borders: Sovereignty, Security, and the Citizen After 9/11 , draws on interviews with those involved—as well as insights from relevant political philosophers such as Hannah Arendt and Isaiah Berlin—to tell the story of the Pan-European Picnic held on Aug. 19, 1989. Orchestrated by a group of Hungarian activists, the goal was to create “a giant open-air party celebrating Europe togetherness and freedom,” and the event was to include the symbolic—and temporary—opening of a gate between Hungary and Austria. At the time, Hungary was filled with refugees from East Germany, and when they arrived at the picnic site that morning, the gate seemed to be the only barrier between them and liberty. They burst through and, with the Hungarian border guards hesitant to act, between 600 and 1,000 people fled. The picnic came to symbolize the possibility of evading the oppression of Soviet-style communism and achieving a better life. Citizens of Warsaw Pact countries under Soviet control had been denied personal autonomy and deprived of communal solidarity. They aspired to a sense of collective belonging, Longo argues, rather than the individualism and consumerism of the West. Deftly weaving together the geopolitical and the personal, Longo offers a counter-narrative to the current fixation on the global rise and spread of xenophobic and authoritarian regimes, including that of Viktor Orbán in Hungary. Extensively documented, well written, and thoughtful in its consideration of what freedom means, this book is an informative and engaging history of the event, its origins, and the aftermath.
A much-needed reminder of the inexhaustibility of the human quest for personal and collective freedom.
