Ontelly

Twenty Minutes - Inside the Revolution

Logo for Twenty Minutes - Inside the Revolution

1989: Twentieth Anniversary Nick Thorpe, the BBC's Central Europe correspondent, reads from his book '89: The Unfinished Revolution, with excerpts from audio tapes he made in the final days of communism in Prague and East Germany. Having moved to Budapest as a peace activist three years earlier, Thorpe spent 1989 'revolution-hopping' - reporting on the dying days of communist regimes among the people of Budapest, Prague, East Germany and Romania. He recounts his experiences in the heart of the revolutions in the former Czechoslovakia and East Germany - from Prague's famous student protests to the Leipzig church where the East German revolution kick-started, providing a moving insight into the people and places behind the protests. And he gives a unique view of the environmental problems facing both countries, including the wood-carvers in the Ore Mountains for whom communist policies had had a disastrous effect on the local forest.