It’s interesting how the various post-communist states in Central/Eastern Europe have played out since the 90s. Having lived here for roughly the last ~8 years, it seems to me that the ones succeeding the most are those which have a nearly universal negative appraisal of the communist era. Poland, for example, is on a pretty great trajectory and will probably be in the top 2-3 EU economies in a decade. The Soviet system was forced upon Poland and very few people look upon that era favorably. The break between eras was also fairly clean and without too much internal conflict.
Compare that to some other states like Bulgaria or Ex-Yugoslavia, which have a more complicated memory of the communist era, and which also had a lot of conflict during the transition period. There is less of a pre-packaged “social imaginary” of what the country could be/used to be prior to the communist era - unlike Poland, which was occupied and spent a couple centuries building an oppositional identity during the Partitions/occupations.
Compare that to some other states like Bulgaria or Ex-Yugoslavia, which have a more complicated memory of the communist era, and which also had a lot of conflict during the transition period. There is less of a pre-packaged “social imaginary” of what the country could be/used to be prior to the communist era - unlike Poland, which was occupied and spent a couple centuries building an oppositional identity during the Partitions/occupations.