The Lost World of Communism
The Lost World of Communism is a three-part British documentary series which examines the legacy of Communism twenty years on from the fall of the Berlin Wall. Produced by Peter Molloy and Lucy Hetherington, the series takes a retrospective look at life behind the Iron Curtain between 1945 and 1989, focusing on three countries in the Eastern Bloc - East Germany, Czechoslovakia and Romania. Through film and television footage and the personal recollections of those who lived in these countries, the series offers a glimpse of what daily life was like during the years of Communist rule. The Lost World of Communism debuted on BBC Two on Saturday 14 March 2009 at 9:00pm. There is also a book which accompanies the series.
Episodes
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New series revealing what life was like for people in Eastern Bloc countries before the collapse of communist states, symbolised by the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. The documentary goes beyond the usual images of spies, secret police and repression to tell the stories of those who lived behind the Iron Curtain through testimonies and rarely seen archive material, beginning with East Germany
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Documentary looking at Czechoslovakia's attempts to reform communism, which were brutally crushed in an invasion by Warsaw Pact allies in 1968. What followed was the reimposition of hardline communist rule known as 'Normalisation' - under which the reformers were removed, the reforms reversed and history rewritten, leaving the country known as 'the Kingdom of Forgetting'.
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The final programme in the series looks at Romania, where Nicolae and Elena Ceausescu ran a personal dictatorship for nearly a quarter of a century. Abortion and contraception were banned as their rule reached far into the private lives of every Romanian. When communism collapsed and the regime was overthrown, the self-styled 'mother and father of the nation' were executed by a firing squad on December 25 1989.
