Vienna is the federal capital and the political, cultural and economic center of Austria. Around 1.9 million people live in the city alone, which is one-fifth of the country's population, and as many as one-third of all Austrians live in the metropolitan area. Historically, Vienna is particularly important as the capital and by far the most important residential city of the former Habsburg monarchy.
Yugoslavia was a southeastern European state that existed, with interruptions and in slightly changing borders, from 1918 to 1992 and 2003, respectively. The capital and largest city of the country was Belgrade. Historically, a distinction is made in particular between the period of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia from 1918 to 1941 (also called 'First Yugoslavia') and communist Yugoslavia from 1945 (the so-called 'Second Yugoslavia') under the dictatorial ruling head of state Josip Broz Tito (1892-1980). The disintegration of Yugoslavia from 1991 and the independence aspirations of several parts of the country eventually led to the Yugoslav Wars (also called the Balkan Wars or post-Yugoslav Wars). Today, the successor states of Yugoslavia are Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Kosovo and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The Soviet Union (SU or USSR) was a state in Eastern Europe, Central and Northern Asia that existed from 1922 to 1991. It emerged from the so-called Soviet Russia, the successor state of the Russian Empire. The Russian Soviet Republic formed the core of the union and at the same time its largest part, with further constituent republics added. Their number varied over time and was related to the occupation of other countries (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania), Soviet republics that existed only for a short time (Karelo-Finlandia) or the division or merger of Soviet republics. In addition, there were numerous autonomous republics or other territorial units with an autonomy status that was essentially limited to linguistic autonomy for minorities.
Before its formal dissolution, the USSR consisted of 15 Soviet republics with a population of approximately 290 million people. At around 22.4 million km², it was the largest territorial state in the world at the time. The Soviet Union was a socialist soviet republic with a one-party system and an absence of separation of powers.
The Romanian People's Republic (1947-1965) or Socialist Republic of Romania (1965-1989) was a socialist one-party state in south-eastern Europe which, as part of the Eastern Bloc and the Warsaw Pact, stood under the strong influence of the Soviet Union.
The most important figure in Romanian politics for a large part of the country's existence was Nicolae Ceaușescu (1918-1989), who ruled the country as a dictator from 1965 to 1989 and built up a cult of personality around himself and his family from the early 1970s on. The massive and ruthless persecution of political opponents by the Securitate secret police played a decisive role in Ceaușescu's hold on power. The intensification of collectivization of agriculture meant that many places had to make way for farmland.
Romania was the only country in the Eastern Bloc to maintain diplomatic relations with Israel after the Six-Day War, and the only Warsaw Pact country which not take part in the occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1968. Amid Romania's soaring foreign debt at the beginning of the 1980s, Ceaușescu implemented a strict plan for complete debt reduction, so that all foreign debts were repaid by 1989. However, this led to a decline in the modest level of prosperity in Romania, which was one of the poorest countries in Europe in the 1980s.
The Socialist Republic of Romania came to an end with the Romanian Revolution in December 1989 and after years of economic decline. In the course of the revolution, Ceaușescu and his wife Elena were executed on December 25, 1989.
The Socialist People's Republic of Albania was a south-eastern European state that existed from 1944 to 1991. Albania, which had only declared its independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1912, went through several forms of government before it was occupied by Italy in 1939. The Italian protectorate ended in September 1943 when Albania the German Reich started the occupation of this land. After the retreat of the German Wehrmacht at the end of 1944, the Communist Party of Albania, which had previously played a leading role in the resistance, founded the Democratic Government of Albania which proclaimed the People's Republic in 1946. Formally, it was a socialist one-party system; in practice, Albania was a Stalinist dictatorship that killed large numbers of actual or perceived opponents of the regime and also persecuted the families of potential opponents.
Until the 1960s, Albania was a member of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance and of the Warsaw Pact, but after a brief rapprochement with the People's Republic of China, it tried to become economically self-sufficient from the 1970s onwards. This policy was only abandoned at the end of the 1980s in view of the drastic economic decline, as a result of which the anti-communist movement also gained momentum and a gradual democratization process was initiated.
The People's Republic of Poland was a socialist state existing from 1944 to 1989 within the borders of present-day Poland. The single socialist party of the one-party state was the communist Polish United Workers' Party (Polska Zjednoczona Partia Robotnicza, PZPR).
The People's Republic of Hungary was a socialist state in East Central Europe that existed from 1949 to 1989. The occupation of Hungary by the German Wehrmacht began in 1944, followed by the Red Army, which occupied the entire country in 1945. After the end of the war, attempts to establish a democracy failed and the political system was successively transformed into a one-party system under communist leadership.
The People's Republic of Hungary was a member of the Warsaw Pact and was under the strong political influence of the Soviet Union, which violently suppressed the Hungarian uprising in 1956 with the help of the Warsaw Pact states (except Romania). To appease the population after the wave of reprisals against the participants of the uprising, economic and political reforms were introduced in the 1960s that went beyond the usual restrictions in the Eastern Bloc. In connection with the economic crisis of the late 1980s, further economic reforms and extensive political liberalization as well as opening to the West were gradually introduced, which also heralded the end of the socialist People's Republic. In 1989, the present-day Republic of Hungary was finally proclaimed.
Czechoslovakia was a state existing between 1918 and 1992 with changing borders and under changing names and political systems, the former parts of which were absorbed into the present-day states of the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Ukraine (Carpathian Ukraine, already occupied by Hungary in 1939, from 1945 to the Soviet Union). After 1945, Czechoslovakia was under the political influence of the Soviet Union, was part of the so-called Eastern Bloc as a satellite state, and from 1955 was a member of the Warsaw Pact. Between 1960 and 1990, the communist country's official name was Czechoslovak Socialist Republic (abbreviated ČSSR). The democratic political change was initiated in 1989 with the Velvet Revolution and resulted in the establishment of the independent Czech and Slovak republics in 1992.
The People's Republic of Bulgaria was a socialist state in south-eastern Europe that existed from 1946 to 1990. At the beginning of the Second World War, Bulgaria tried to maintain political neutrality, but was occupied by German troops in 1941 and pressured by Nazi Germany to join the war on the side of the Axis powers. In 1944, the Soviet Union occupied Bulgaria. On October 9, 1944, the communist forces led by Kimon Georgiev staged a coup coordinated with the Soviet Union.
The People's Republic was finally proclaimed in 1946. The first years were marked by political purges and the nationalization of the economy. Progressive industrialization initially brought success, especially as Bulgaria was able to purchase raw materials at reduced prices and receive cheap loans and financial aid from the USSR, which was also by far its largest market. This close dependence on the USSR led to a profound crisis in the 1980s. One attempt to divert attention from this was the repressive measures introduced against the Muslim and Turkish minorities as part of the so-called national rebirth, which led to the emigration of around 300,000 people to Turkey shortly before the People's Republic dissolved. In 1990, free elections were held for the first time, as a result of which a democratic constitution was developed.
Located in the southeastern part of the Czech Republic, Brno (tsch. Brno) is the second largest city in the country after Prague, with a population of about 380,000. It replaced Olomouc as the capital of Moravia in 1641. Today Brno is the administrative seat of the South Moravian Region (Jihomoravský kraj) and an important industrial, commercial and cultural center. The university city is the seat of the Constitutional Court and the Supreme Administrative Court of the Czech Republic.
As the years went by, reports written by local activists featured more and more prominently in the annual reports, a result of the Information Office’s sustained networking efforts. These included voices that confidently positioned themselves as part of the international gay and lesbian movement, as well as criticism of the Information Office's approach. In this way, the divisive East-West mindset that initially characterized the annual reports became less important. In the course of the 1980s, the annual reports became a medium in which groups east and west of the Iron Curtain jointly documented the increasing queer activities and groups in Poland, Hungary, Slovenia, the GDR, and the ČSSR.
Budapest is the capital of Hungary and the largest city in the country with about 1.7 million inhabitants. It is located in central Hungary on the Danube River. Budapest was created in 1873 by the merger of the cities of Buda and Pest.
