Subscribe to America`s largest dictionary and get thousands of other definitions and an advanced search – ad-free! She walked to another door, which was covered by a curtain she had raised. Churchill repeated the words in another telegram to Truman on June 4, 1945, protesting such an American withdrawal into what was once called the United States and eventually became the United States. The first metaphorical use of “iron curtain” in the sense of an end of an era should perhaps be attributed to the British writer Arthur Machen (1863-1947), who used the term in his 1895 novel The Three Impostors: “. The door rattled behind me with thunder, and I felt that an iron curtain had fallen on the short passage of my life. [9] The English translation of a Russian text shown immediately below repeats the use of “clang” in reference to an “iron curtain”, suggesting that the Russian writer who published 23 years after making it may have been familiar with the popular British author. The term “Iron Curtain” has since been used metaphorically in two very different meanings – first, to designate the end of an era and second, to designate a closed geopolitical border. The source of these metaphors may refer either to the security curtain used in theatres (the first was installed in 1794 by the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane[7]), or to the shutters used to secure commercial premises. [8] From Szczecin in the Baltic Sea to Trieste on the Adriatic, an iron curtain has fallen on the continent. Behind this line are all the capitals of the former states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia; All these famous cities and the population around them are in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all of them, in one form or another, are subject not only to Soviet influence, but also to a very high and, in some cases, increasing degree of control by Moscow. [34] The use of the term Iron Curtain as a metaphor for strict separation dates back to at least the early 19th century. It originally referred to fireproof curtains in theaters. [5] German Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels first used the metaphor in reference to the Soviet Union,[6] but its popularity as a Cold War symbol is attributed to its use in a speech delivered by Winston Churchill in Fulton, Missouri, on March 5, 1946.
[5] These sample phrases are automatically selected from various online information sources to reflect the current use of the word “Iron Curtain”. The views expressed in the examples do not represent the views of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us your feedback. (By the way, the same passage provides a definition of nihilism adopted by Raoul Vaneigem,[12] Guy Debord, and other situationists as the intent of situationist intervention.) Throughout the Cold War, the term “curtain” became a common euphemism for the boundaries – physical or ideological – between socialist and capitalist states. The limits and rigidity of the Iron Curtain were somewhat reduced in the years following Joseph Stalin`s death in 1953, although the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961 restored it. During the Cold War, the Iron Curtain stretched over the airwaves. Attempts by Radio Free Europe (RFE), funded by the Central Intelligence Agency, to provide listeners behind the curtain with uncensored information were met with efforts by communist governments to disrupt RFE`s signal. The Iron Curtain largely ceased to exist in 1989-90 when the communists abandoned one-party rule in Eastern Europe. In February 1989, the Hungarian Politburo recommended that the government of Miklós Németh dismantle the Iron Curtain. Nemeth first informed Austrian Chancellor Franz Vranitzky.
It then received informal permission from Gorbachev on March 3, 1989 (who said “there will be no new 1956”), on May 2 of the same year, and on May 2 of the same year, the Hungarian government in Rajka (in the city known as the “City of the Three Borders” on the border with Austria and Czechoslovakia) began the destruction of the Iron Curtain. For public relations, Hungary reconstructed 200m of the Iron Curtain so that it could be used in an official ceremony by Hungarian Foreign Minister Gyula Horn and Austrian Foreign Minister Alois Mock on September 27. In June 1989, whose function was to call for freedom all the peoples of Europe still under the yoke of the Nazi-communist regimes. [76] However, the dismantling of former Hungarian border fortifications did not open the borders, previous strict controls were not lifted, and the isolation provided by the Iron Curtain was still intact along its entire length. Despite the dismantling of the technically obsolete fence, the Hungarians wanted to prevent the formation of a green border by increasing border security or solving the security of their western border technically differently. After the demolition of the border fortifications, the patrols of the heavily armed Hungarian border guards were reinforced and there was still an order to fire. [77] [78] Britannica.com: Encyclopedia article on the Iron Curtain The term “Iron Curtain” may have existed as early as the 19th century. But British Prime Minister Winston Churchill was the first to use it in its modern sense. In a speech at Westminster College in Missouri in 1946, Churchill declared that if the German people laid down their arms, the Soviets, according to the agreement between Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin, would occupy all of Eastern and Southeastern Europe, as well as most of the Reich. An iron curtain would fall on this vast territory controlled by the Soviet Union, behind which nations would be massacred. The Jewish press in London and New York would probably still applaud.
The term was first used by Churchill in the House of Commons on August 16, 1945, when he declared: “It is not impossible that behind the Iron Curtain which now divides Europe, a tragedy of astonishing proportions is unfolding.” [24] Churchill repeated the words in another telegram to President Truman on the 4th. In June 1945, he protested against such an American government.