The Final Curtain: A Podcast Mini-Series about the Eastern Bloc's Collapse
The Final Curtain, the new podcast mini-series from Culture.pl's Stories From The Eastern West, presents personal accounts from people who watched the 1989 revolutions spread across Europe and change history.
Tytuł (nagłówek do zdjęcia)
Listen to the
full series now
The year 1989 saw a big change. All of Central and Eastern Europe took a U-turn within less than three years and transformed from the gray land behind the Iron Curtain into several independent, quickly developing, free market democracies.
The team behind Stories From The Eastern West is marking this occasion with The Final Curtain, a special mini-series featuring personal tales from the Eastern Bloc’s transformation.
Through these remarkable accounts told by people who lived through circumstances we would now hardly believe, The Final Curtain offers an important snapshot of a pivotal moment in Europe’s history.
Among those telling their story
Get to know Poland’s Zbigniew Bujak, a democratic opposition legend who ran one of the Solidarity cells from hiding, right under the nose of the enemy, for 5 years. Visit a Romanian city built around a coal mine, for which the great transformation wasn’t exactly a long-awaited opportunity. Meet a single mother from Kyiv who managed to hustle through the collapse of the Soviet Union and its economic system. Listen to the story of the East German cabaret members, who all of a sudden, didn’t have a comunist regime to mock. Feel the atmosphere of the Estonian song festival which gathers a third of the nation in one place.
You can find the first two episodes below:
The team
The Final Curtain is a special mini-series from the Stories From The Eastern West team, Culture.pl’s podcast revealing little-known histories that changed our world. They are one of the few examples of a carefully-produced narrative English-language podcast coming from the heart of Europe. They have been featured on the frontpage of Stitcher, RadioPublic and their entire stories have been broadcast on NPR.
Wojciech Oleksiak, Stories From The Eastern West's senior producer, explains the thinking behind The Final Curtain:
Text
We always believed that the personal aspect of this huge transformation was overlooked. My memories from the early 1990s always meant a lot to me. Through my 5-year-old eyes, I saw the world take a U-turn, stand on its head and more than often stroll down some blind alleys. I always wanted to share this vivid memory with others and I hope The Final Curtain will at least give our listeners a sense of how much of an absolutely extraordinary experience it was.
