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Observer profile: Mikhail Gorbachev – the forgotten hero of history

Source: The Guardian

Nov 08, 2009

Summary

While the impact of such contemporaries as Nelson Mandela on the events of the 20th century is firmly established in the public mind, the crucial role played the architect of glasnost is in danger of being overlooked

At the Brandenburg Gate tomorrow evening in Berlin, one of the defining figures of the last century's history will sit down to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall in which he played a key role. In the audience will be Lech Walesa and Hillary Clinton, invited to listen to Daniel Barenboim conduct the Staatskapelle Berlin.But the star guest will be Mikhail Gorbachev, the former Soviet premier under whose leadership the Cold War in eastern and central Europe was brought to an end.

If a sense of his importance to the events of 1989 is required, it was supplied last week by Timothy Garton Ash, the British historian, who described Gorbachev's "breathtaking renunciation of the use of force" while Soviet leader as "a luminous example of the importance of the individual in history".

Garton Ash's reminder feels long overdue. For ther

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