Environmental Movements Linked Across the Iron Curtain in the 1980s: Hungary, Austria, and the Danube.

In the 1980s, the environmental movements that gained strength in the countries of the Western Bloc in the second half of the 20th century built connections with the environmentalists of the Eastern Bloc. Such a connection point was the protest against the construction of the planned hydroelectric power plants on the Danube in Hainburg in Austria, Gabcikovo in Czechoslovakia, and Nagymaros in Hungary. The paper examines mainly the Hungarian-Austrian relations: while the demonstrations on the eastern side of the Iron Curtain contributed to the regime changes in 1989, the Austrian side became financially interested in the construction of hydroelectric power plants in Hungary. The paper examines the environmental movements' pre-history, connection, and survival after the system changes, emphasizing both the development of cross-border relations and of the civil movements, with regard to the governments and the INGOs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]