Christian Democracy Across the Iron Curtain Europe Redefined 1st by Kosicki 3319640879 9783319640860

ISBN 10:  3319640879

ISBN 13: 9783319640860

Author: Kosicki

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.

1. Christian Democracy Reframed

1. Introduction: From Siege Mentality to Mainstreaming? Researching Twentieth-Century Christian Democracy

2. Catholic and Christian Democratic Views on Europe Before and After World War II: Continuities and Discontinuities

3. Alcide De Gasperi and Konrad Adenauer: A New Approach

4. Not Only De Gasperi: Italian Christian Democrats’ Commitment to Europe

5. Sainthood vs. Nationhood: The Beatification Causes of Schuman and De Gasperi

6. A Truly “European” Christian Democracy? The European People’s Party

2. Christian Democracy Across the Iron Curtain

7. The Elimination of Christian Democracy in Poland After World War II

8. Christian Democrats Across the Iron Curtain

9. Christian Democracy’s Global Cold War

10. The Polish Section of the Belgian Christian Trade Union ACV/CSC

11. The Social Virtues of Christian Democracy, European and Polish: The Case of Jan Kułakowski

12. Christian Democracy off the Bookshelf: The Case of Jerzy Kulczycki

13. Christian Democracy beyond Christian Democracy: The Case of Stanisław Grocholski

14. Explaining the Absence of Christian Democracy in Contemporary Poland

3. Christian Democracy Across the Cold War Caesura

15. The Christian Democratic Union of Central Europe

16. Christian Democracy in Slovakia

17. The Prospects of Christian Democracy in Contemporary Europe: Experiences from Germany