No revolution has changed the course of history more than the one that started on 14 July 1789 with the storming of the Bastille. Today historians continue to debate its causes and effects, philosophers theorize the universality of its values, while contemporary struggles for democracy across the world invoke them as universal inspiration.

On 23 September 2017, Ivan Vejvoda – a key figure in the opposition movement in Yugoslavia during the 1990s, former Senior Vice President for Programs at the German Marshall Fund and Permanent Fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences (IWM) – reflected on the enduring importance of the French Revolution for the Balkans, Europe, and the world. Moderator: Stephen Szabo, Visiting Fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences (IWM) and Executive Director of the Transatlantic Academy. Watch the full debate:

Cover picture: Jacques-Louis David: The Death of Marat (1793), Musée Old Masters, Brussels. Released under public domain

Vienna Humanities Festival

The Vienna Humanities Festival, organised by the IWM, Wien Museum and Time to Talk, is a series of around 40 Events (in German and English) which took place from 22 till 24 September 2017 for the second time at the Wien Museum, TU Wien, Evangelische Volksschule and Radiokulturhaus.

The topic of 2017 “Revolution!” ranged from Russia in 1917, the 1968 movement and the Fall in 1989, to the most recent upheavals in the Arab countries and in the Ukraine.