Cover art for The Picnic
Published
Johnathon Cape, January 2024
ISBN
9781847927804
Format
Softcover, 320 pages
Dimensions
23.4cm × 15.3cm × 2.3cm

The Picnic An Escape to Freedom and the Collapse of the Iron Curtain

Not in stock
Fast $7.95 flat-rate shipping!
Only pay $7.95 per order within Australia, including end-to-end parcel tracking.
100% encrypted and secure
We adhere to industry best practice and never store credit card details.
Talk to real people
Contact us seven days a week – our staff are here to help.

An extraordinarily dramatic reconstruction of the greatest border breach in Cold War history

In August 1989, a group of Hungarian activists did the unthinkable- they entered the forbidden militarised zone of the Iron Curtain - and held a picnic.

Word had spread of what was going to happen. On wisps of rumour, thousands of East German 'holiday-makers' had made their way to the border between Hungary and Austria and packed the nearby camping sites, awaiting an opportunity, fearing prison, surveilled by lurking Stasi agents. The highest state authorities were choosing to turn a blind eye - but that could change at any moment. The stage was set for the greatest border breach in Cold War history- that day hundreds would cross from the Communist East to the longed-for freedom of the West. The fall of the Berlin Wall, the end of the Soviet Union - the so-called end of history - all would flow from those dramatic hours.

Drawing on dozens of original interviews with those involved - activists and border guards, escapees and secret police, as well as the last Communist prime minister of Hungary - Matthew Longo reconstructs not only this remarkable event but also its complex and bittersweet aftermath. Freedom had been won but parents had been abandoned and families divided. Love affairs faltered and new lives had to be built from scratch.

The Picnic is the story of a moment when the tide of history turned. It shows how freedom can be both dream and disillusionment, and how all we take for granted can vanish in an instant.

Related books