The text is a partial result of the thematic analysis of Slovak television production from the early 1990s, which Slovak film studies have not yet fully examined. The author analyses the figure of an artist and/or humanistic intelligentsia in television fiction after November 1989, emphasising especially images of their exclusion in terms of “purity and danger” concepts as well within the context of sceptical narratives of the social change.
Comparative balance inventory of the post-Velvet Revolution development in both Slovak and Czech literature represents a record of the qualitative and quantitative differences connected with a reintegration of works belonging to samizdat and exile communicational circle in the national literary corpuses. Besides, it places on record different forms of such phenomena like spiritually oriented poetry, surrealism, postmodernism with their specific features in the both Slovak and Czech environments. It also points out the fact that while in the Slovak society after November 1989 the impulses from the exile and its literature influenced mostly political and religious life, in the Czech environment they were manifested mainly in a new value ordination of the national literature. The article concludes that two decades of democracy evidently confirmed autonomy of both the mentioned national literatures, although some of the phenomena seem to be common on the both sides during the mentioned period. The main common denominator was the fact that both of the literatures were quite remarkably enriched during the last two decades from quantitative as well as qualitative aspect.
The paper presents a comparative study of the political and social situation in Central Europe in 1989, which exerted great influence upon Poland and Czechoslovakia, two neighbours and leaders in that part of Europe. The article describes the positions of their political elites as being very different from each other in the first half of 1989. In Poland, the party and government leadership was inclined to intensify the started reforms, while Czechoslovakia was mostly affected by a conservative public opinion. It was the social crisis triggered by the Velvet Revolution of November 1989 that changed the state of affairs and forced Czechoslovakia to join the bloc of states that entered upon the transformation process of their existing systems. The article also broaches the subject of anticommunist oppositional circles whose contacts and planes of discussion expanded as the year 1989 progressed. The final part of the article is devoted to the oppositionist Václav Havel’s accession to presidency in Czechoslovakia as well as to the drastic changes introduced into the constitution of the People‘s Republic of Poland, which helped to put the end to this political formation.
The aim of this study is to prove that while Prague was an important centre of anti-regime activities, there was just as strong opposition also outside the capital city. Originally it was mostly apolitical. People “only” wanted to live freely and carry on their own activities – organize themselves, develop their own artistic activities, protect the environment or practice their religion. However, this already brought them into political conflict with the regime, which paradoxically prepared its own opposition. The role of the non-Prague dissidents and their activities was fundamental not only before November 1989 in the process of eroding communist rule, but also for the success of the November revolution as such. If there had been support for the regime outside Prague, the Velvet Revolution might have turned out entirely differently.
The article is focused on the issue of morality in the political process, reveals the fiction of the policy of nonviolence on the example of Velvet Revolution. Advocating morality, the author draws attention to the danger of its absolutisation. The author defines the idea of a good society, which should become a higher criterion of moral good. The sense of Velvet Revolution is discussed within this criterion.
Research of memory of events that were excluded by the totalitarian regime from the institutionalised history or had prescribed uniform interpretations, suggests considerable fragmentation and incoherence in their depiction even by direct witnesses. Our study of the letters written in the early 1990 to have shared personal experiences of the Velvet Revolution, however suggests that despite of their displacement from the official memory people tend to preserve vivid memories of bygone political events if these are important for their personal coherence or identity. Moreover, they manage to link them meaningfully with the current experiences. We suggest that vivacity of memories could have been fostered by moral emotions linked to that period and was paradoxically sustained by their forced holding back and public refutation. Memories of the 1968 do not have form of chronological description of events: they are rather recollection of atmosphere of the period and often expressed metaphorically as the age of light or influx of truth that was thwarted by the invasion of the Warsaw pact forces and then by the officially enforced interpretation of the 1968 in the normalization period. Narrating about private preservation of the 1968 message and private memory asylum does not however release letter writers from the suspicion of hypocrisy and double-dealing during the normalisation. Building moral coherence of the 1968 and November 1989 in their personal narrative could be the way how writers might cleanse themselves from this suspicion and increase their trustworthiness of the Velvet Revolution at their workplaces and communities.
Autobiographical narratives of childhood often constitute a part of the research in social sciences, yet there is a long-term lack of methodological debate on this subject. It is clear that autobiographical narratives themselves are not objective records of the individuals' memories. In relation to this, when focusing on adults reminiscing specifically on an era of their childhood, researchers have to keep in mind that their subjects do not merely construct an image of the past – simultaneously, they construct an image of their own childhood as well. The aim of this paper is to consider the basic characteristics of this specific type of data by means of analyzing the narratives of the 'youngest' witnesses of the period delineated by the revolution of 1989 in Czechoslovakia. Also, it reveals common traits in the way the witnesses construct their narratives in relation to the phenomenon of the 'Velvet' revolution. Thus, the collected material does not only constitute a means for the analysis of autobiographical narratives of childhood as a special type of data, but also of the aspects and features of the myth of revolution of 1989 and its place in the interpretation of the contemporary Slovak society.
(Title in Slovak - 'Idealy neznej revolucie a ich premietnutie vo vyvoji sukromneho prava v prvych rokoch slovenskej transformacie spolocnosti (Historickopravna a filozoficka studia)'). The article deals with the development of private law since 1989, until the so-called Major Amendment of the Civil Code No. 509/1991 had been adopted. The author also tries to point out general socio-economic, cultural and moral development, which refers to the transformation of private law and the creation of law itself, very closely. Finally, the author reflects which ideals of the Velvet Revolution, in what extent and form, had been enforced in the 1991 amendment of the Civil Code. The excessive emphasis was placed on endless individualism after November 1989, very similar as collectivism has been subjectively upheld after February 1948 in Czechoslovakia. Subjective economic and political interests of a part of society were influencing creation of law. Concepts such as democracy, freedom, capitalism, market economy, privatization, or law have been perceived primarily from economic point of view, while not given adequate attention to their moral dimensions. Encyclical Centesimus Annus, adopted in the same year as the major re-codification of the Civil Code, offering number of inspiring initiatives unfortunately didn't become the right impulse to change this vision.
This article focuses on the situation in the public space of Czechoslovakia after the Velvet Revolution in 1989. It analyses the status and interventions on monuments and memorials built during state socialism in Czechoslovakia. Attention is given to the statues of communist leaders and their emblems (Lenin, Gottwald, Zápotocký, Militiaman, and others). The text is divided into eight interconnected parts. The first and second sections of the article explore in detail the public space in Czechoslovakia during November and December 1989 and its visual side. The other parts focus on the treatment of pro-regime monuments – their removal, destruction, and replacement. The sixth and seventh sections are dedicated to the museumization of these unwanted objects in squares and museums. The last part examines the new potential uses of statues from the period of state socialism in terms of their transformation into new representative symbols or their sale. The main aim of this article is to respond to questions related to statues and monuments used as political representations from the period of state realism and their cultural and historical role after 1989 in former Czechoslovakia. The research seeks to take a critical look at the accepted hypothesis that statues of the former regime were destroyed and more closely discusses their status after the Velvet Revolution.
The term postcolonialism is mainly related to the third world, in literature it refers to topics concerning works which reflect the conditions in the society after the years of oppression, humiliation, underestimation and society remanded at a lower level of development. However, Central Europe that had to suffer under the Russian rule and found itself in (semi) colonial conditions, is usually left out. Slovak and Czech society were exposed to such ideological pressure, that they were deprived of independence and individual freedom of citizens. There was a certain relief in 1968, in the period after so called Prague Spring, but after invasion of the troops of the Warsaw Treaty in August, Czechoslovak society gets into the state of complete dependence on Moscow again. Literature (art) is gradually waking up from lethargy and in a concealed form gives evidence about a colonial condition of spiritual life. Alternative appeal of art was a motive power for changes which happened by means of so called Velvet Revolution in 1989. A new era, that literature gets into after the changes thanks to the Velvet Revolution could justly be called the period of post-colonialism, which means Post-Colonial Period. The paper offers an outline of the specific conditions of the culture in various periods, but mainly of the period of Prague Spring. The changes in literature and art after 1989 are perceived even more expressively (abolition of the censorship, comeback of taboo-authors into literature, publishing of forbidden works, rise of new publishing houses and magazines).
The paper deals with the foreign policy of Czechoslovakia following the restoration of democracy in the country after the end of the Cold War from the end of 1989 to the division of Czechoslovakia late in 1992. With direct internal political and economic radical transformations, the need emerged for a fundamental departure from the past also in terms of the international status of Czechoslovakia and its foreign policy. The first tangible results of Czechoslovak diplomacy were the withdrawal of Soviet occupation troops from Czechoslovakia and the termination of Soviet hegemony in the satellite countries of Central Europe by the dissolution of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance and the Warsaw Pact. On the other hand, equally significant was the renewal of friendly relations with Western countries, particularly with Italy, France and the Federal Republic of Germany. However, the Czechoslovak effort to stop the bipolar bloc arrangement in Europe by establishing a new security structure - the European Security Commission - was unsuccessful. Due to the increasingly difficult situation in Europe as a result of the war in Yugoslavia and the collapse of the Soviet Union, Czechoslovak foreign policy was faced with two new challenges in order to ensure the prosperity and security of the state - accession to the European integration and security structures in the form of the European Community and NATO. These tasks, in a fundamental contrast to the international position of Czechoslovakia in the past, have already been fulfilled by both the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic as independent states. In 1999 and 2002, the two countries joined NATO and in 2004, jointly also the EU.
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