COURAGE

connecting collections

The German Historical Museum in Berlin acquired a series of photos capturing the demonstrations of Autumn 1989 in Berlin. Among these Nagel documented the protests against the election of Egon Krenz as a follower to Erich Honecker, the massive demonstrations at Alexanderplatz on November 4th 1989, as well as the protests against discrimination of foreigners organised by the 'Neues Forum' among others.

Nagel often depicted his images within a neutral context showing fewer people. Only in his photos documenting protests during the autumn of 1989 people became his main focus. During the November demonstrations in Berlin, Jürgen Nagel was actively present documenting also the protests of various actors involved in the creative scenes asking for democratic elections in the GDR and no violence. Himself was actively contributing to the demonstrations organised by the 'Neues Forum' and brought his contribution to drafting the protest resolution of the Union of Artists.
This image was taken during the demonstration of the people involved in creative industries in the GDR on November 11th of 1989.

The famous black and white poster was designed by Krzysztof Raczyński in 1989. It presented the face of the general Wojciech Jaruzelski with the comment below: 'dead or alive. 1.000.000 $'. The adaptation of the American 'wanted' poster convention was something new and shocking in the last years of Polish People's Republic. The graffiti template with serif signs and Jaruzelski's picture was created and painted on the streets by Raczyński between 1987-1988. After the success of the template the artist created the poster, printed and sold by the Gallery of Maniacal Activities in Poland and in Germany. The poster quickly became very popular among the youth and today is still one of the icons of the youth movements against the Wojciech Jaruzelski's government. In 1989, when the Gallery of Maniacal Activities popularized that poster, the socialist state was in decline and the police did not manage to control small groups of young radicals and their provocative anti-government activities.

Sources:

Krzysztof Skiba, ‘Komisariat naszym domem. Pomarańczowa historia’, Warsaw: Narodowe Centrum Kultury, 2015.
Tomasz Sikorski, Marcin Rutkiewicz, 'Graffiti w Polsce 1940-2010', Warsaw: carta blanca, 2011.

The photograph features the window of a 1980s bookshop in the centre of Braşov, Romania. What is striking is the presence of only two titles, specifically two classics of Romanian literature, by the poet Mihai Eminescu and the prose writer Ion Creangă. No book written by a foreign author can be seen on display. The author of the photograph intended to capture ironically the scarcity of the reading offer which the Romanian book consumer had to face during communism. The picture also suggests the isolation caused by the cultural policy of the Romanian communist regime after 1971. This cultural policy was intended to eliminate any Western influence upon Romanian art and literature, while promoting only local authors and artists. Also, this cultural policy led to the emergence of the so-called protochronism, a cultural movement developed in Romania during the 1970s and 1980s that exaggerated the achievements of Romanian culture and presented them as “anticipating” Western ones (Verdery 1991, 174–175). The photograph is a document which also reminds us of book market practices in Romania at the time. In the 1980s, when someone wanted a certain book, they were forced also to buy other books that were not on demand, such as those which can be seen in abundance in this photograph. In fact, bookstores forced their clients to buy whole cardboard boxes of books, even though they were interested in only one book in the package.

The prayers for peace in the Leipzig Nicholas Church parish in September 1989 ultimately started the so-called Monday Demonstrations for a democratic renewal in the GDR, which swiftly spread across the entire Republic and after a short period, led the regime to implode.

The events of 9 October marked a turning point. Following demonstrations on 7 October during celebrations of the 40th anniversary of the founding of the GDR, many rightfully feared that security forces would resort to violence. The trauma associated with the military subjugation of the Chinese Democracy movement on Tiananmen Square at the beginning of June that year remained fresh for many.

Members of three basis groups in Leipzig (the Working Groups on Environmental Protection, Human Rights, and Justice) formulated, printed and distributed 25-30,000 appeals for non-violence during the day. They addressed their appeal to both sides and declared a peaceful and creative form of protest to be desirous. Finally, on 9 October 1989 nearly 70,000 individuals appeared at the Monday Demonstration, which remained peaceful. Two weeks later, the number of participants had grown to nearly 300,000.

Title-page of the nineteenth issue of a samizdat called "Information about Charta 77" containing various articles about dissent in Czechoslovakia. This samizdat was published by the "independent editorial board of signataries of Charta 77". Charter 77 was an informal civic initiative in communist Czechoslovakia from 1976 to 1992, named after the document Charter 77 from January 1977. Founding members and architects were Jiří Němec, Václav Benda, Ladislav Hejdánek, Václav Havel, and Pavel Kohout. Spreading the text of the document was considered a political crime by the communist regime. After the 1989 Velvet Revolution, many of its members played important roles in Czech and Slovak politics.