LUSTRATION

'Lustration' has two meanings, historical and modern.
Historically it was the term for various ancient Greek and Roman purification rituals.
In the period after the fall of the various European Communist states in 1989–1991, the term came to refer to the policy of limiting the participation of former communists, and especially informants of the communist secret police, in the successor governments or even in civil service positions.

Contents

Historical use

Modern use

Czech Republic

Germany

Poland

See also

References

Historical use

Historically the term for various ancient Greeks and Roman purification rituals.

★ ★ class=wikiexternal target=_blank>/Lustratio.html ''"Lustratio"'', from "A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities", John Murray, London, 1875.

★ Lustration, "Encyclopedia Britannica" of 1911

Modern use

In the period after the fall of the various European Communist states in 1989–1991, the term came to refer to the policy of limiting participation of former communists, and especially informants of the communist secret police, in the successor governments or even in civil service positions. As of 1996 various lustration laws of varying scope were implemented in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Albania, Bulgaria, the Baltic States (Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia), Germany, Poland, Romania, Russia and Ukraine; it should be noted that regional differences were very significant (for example, in the Czech Republic and Germany the lustration was much stronger than in other countries). As of 1996 lustration laws did not exist in Belarus, nor in the former Soviet Central Asian Republics (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and
Uzbekistan) (Ellis, 1996).

★ Mark S. Ellis, ''Purging the past: The Current State of Lustration Laws in the Former Communist Bloc'' (pdf), Law and Contemporary Problems, Vol. 59, No. 4, Accountability for International Crimes and Serious Violations of Fundamental Human Rights (Autumn, 1996), pp. 181-196], covering a dozen former Communist countries in 1996

★ Brahm,Eric ''"Lustration"'' , Beyond Intractability. Ed. Guy Burgess and Heidi Burgess. 1 Jun. 2005. Conflict Research Consortium, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado, USA.

★ ''"Explaining Lustration in Eastern Europe: 'A Post-communist politics approach'"'', Szczerbiak, Aleks, Brigid Fowler and Kieran Williams. SEI Working Paper No 62.

Czech Republic

★ ''"A Scorecard for Czech Lustration"'', from "Central Europe Review"

★ Jiřina Šiklová, ''"Lustration or the Czech Way of Screening"'' in East European Constitutional Review, Vol.5, No.1, Winter l996 - Quarterly - Univ. of Chicago Law School and Central European University

Germany

★ Vergangenheitsbewältigung, Germany's "struggle to come to terms with the past" after the Nazi era is a forerunner of, and in some ways similar to, the later problem of coming to terms with the legacy of East German communist rule.

Poland

★ Lustration in Poland

See also

★ Proclamation of Timişoara

References

★ 1904 (Merriam) ''Webster's International Dictionary of the English Language'' says: ''""a sacrifice, or ceremony, by which cities, fields, armies, or people, defiled by crimes, pestilence, or other cause of uncleanness, were purified""''