Habersack, Sabine - Puşcaş, Vasile - Ciubotă, Viorel (szerk.): Democraţia in Europa centrală şi de Sud-Est - Aspiraţie şi realitate (Secolele XIX-XX) (Satu Mare, 2001)
Ivan Vovkanych: Democracy and Totalitarianism in East European Countries: Transition Periods int he History of the 20th century
Europe in 1944-1949 and the Cold War period.6 The second is made of the publications on “people’s democracies” of 1944-1948, and the research of “East European socialism” and totalitarianism on a larger scale.7 The present differentiation of Russian historians according to two principally different approaches to analyzing the social and political development of East European countries in 1945-1948 reflects the pluralism of methodology in historiography of Russian Federation. As Y.S. Novospashyn duly states, the disputes between the two trends will definitely continue as far as the problem of the transformation of East European democracies into communist dictatorships within the first postwar years has become one of research priorities in Russian historiography only recently.8 The standpoint of the representatives of the second group, the so-called ‘alternativists’ is closer to our concept of the peculiarities of East Europe’s transition processes in late 40s, which is reflected in a collective work on the issue published in Bratislava in 1998.9 We are convinced that in 1944-1949 communist totalitarian regimes became firmly established in East European countries not only due to the expansion and pressure of Stalinist USSR, but also through national political elites temporary selfdenial and rejection of main democratic principles of social life and state organization. After the end of World War II, in most East European countries Ivan Vovkanych 6 U istokov “sotzialestecescoho sodruiestva”. SSSR i vostocinoevropeische strane v 1944-1949. Otv. Red. Hibianschei L., Moscow, in Nauka, 1995; Sovetskaia vnesnia politeka v gode “holodnoi voine”(1944-1949'). Novoe procitenie, Moscow; in Nauka, 1995. 7Volokitina T. V., Murashko H. P., Noskova A. F., Narodnaia democratzia: mif ili realnosti? Obscestveno-politiceskie protzese v Vostochnoi Evrope: 1944-1948. Moscow, in Nauka, 1993; Vostochnoevropeiskei sotzializm: Stanovlenie reiema. pooetki eeo modificatzii. pricin kraha-.red: Marina V. V., Moscow, in Nauka, 1992.Totalitarizm: Istoriceskv opet Vostochnoi Evrope. Red. Marina V.V., Moscow, in Nauka, 1995. 8 Novopasen I. S., Academicheskoe obcestvovedenie pod perekrestnem ohnem.. in Slavianovedenie, 1997, nr. 3., p. 34-35. 9 Vovkanich I., Vidnianski S., Sjusko I., Vtornei a v kaine faktoré formovania altematevneh contzeptzi voia spoloinosti v crainah sredniei a iuhovoschodnei Evropi (1944-19481. Prvv povoinovv volbv v strednei a iuhovoschodnei Evropv. Bratislava, 1998, p. 9-21. 136
