Westward, look, the land is bright

摘要

Painful history is not hard to find in Central Europe. World wars, totalitarianism and genocide have been played out on its soil. Yet think also of Poland, which vanished from the map for more than a century. It re-emerged amid the ruins of the first world war only to be brutalised again during the second, then waited until 1989 for the freedom, once again, to make its own way. Stubbornly, this part of the world has a knack of rising again. Soon, thanks to Ireland's approval last weekend of the Nice treaty, its next reincarnation will appear. In December, the European Union is due to finish negotiations with ten hopeful members which, save Cyprus and Malta, were all former satellite states of the Soviet Union. Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia and the three Baltic states will―perhaps by 2004―at last take their places as full members of Europe's top club. History, you might say, is coming to a happy end.