Word: nikolais
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...real obstacle to German reunification lies with the Soviet Union, where a prolonged discussion of Germany is likely to stir up latent anti-German sentiment and a fear of neo-Nazism. Officially, the Soviets are civil, but determinedly dead-set against reunification. Nikolai Portugalov, a Soviet expert on Germany, explained the Soviet stance to the Boston Globe last week. "The present geopolitical conditions in Europe," he said with Kruschev-like bluntness, "cannot tolerate a German confederation...
Still, the issue of identity nags: Is the G.D.R. a nation, a state, part of a country yet to be unified? "For 40 years we were just letters," says Christian Fuhrer, pastor of Leipzig's Nikolai Church. "G-D-R. But not German. Not democratic. Just letters. We are Germans, certainly. But our German history is submerged: 1917 is when it begins for our students. The people must develop an identity. Only then can we discuss reunification...
Discontent boiled over last summer when local election returns gave an improbable 98.85% of the vote to the Communist Party. That anger found an outlet at the Nikolai Church, downtown, where a small band of peace activists had been meeting. Almost overnight their number grew into a mass movement for political freedom. "We didn't start this," says Pastor Christian Fuhrer, "but we protected it. We were the catalysts...
...Nikolai Dankerov was appointed to head the new Ecology Ministry, and Voyko Dimitrov was named Mladenov's successor as foreign minister...
...least one accusation -- that the accident released 1 billion or more curies of radiation, rather than the reported figure of 50 million to 80 million -- is denied by the authorities. Says Nikolai Steinberg, former chief engineer of the Chernobyl reactor and now deputy chairman of the State Committee on the Safety of Nuclear Industry: "We're not the only ones who came up with that figure. International scientists were involved as well." U.S. experts support the lower estimate. Nonetheless, Yablokov and other deputies have demanded that the Chernobyl installation, which is still operating, be closed down completely...