Secrets destruct democracy in Hungary
The dismantling of the communist system was probably nowhere as fast as in Hungary at the end of the 1980s. Between 1988 and 1989 the state party had already produced the cardinal laws of the...
View ArticleThe 1945 Prague Uprising squeezed in between reality, ideology and fiction
The Prague Uprising errupted spontaneously on May 5th 1945 when anti-Nazi demonstrations turned into military actions against German forces. The newly established Czech National Council proclaimed...
View ArticleGreek Civil War: Thousands of refugees found shelter in Czechoslovakia
After a long period of hesitation, the Czech Republic agreed to accept at least 15 families of Syrian refugee families in January. During the Cold War, however, such an attitude was not customary. As a...
View ArticleHow did we build a victim narrative?
The government soon claimed that this was a memorial to all WW2 victims and said there was no better place for that than opposite the heroic Soviet monument. Thus, Freedom Square, where they now both...
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The beloved musical of the Czechs – Jan Hus superstar – gets fresh staging
On July 6th, six hundred years will have passed since Jan Hus, an officially sentenced heretic, died in flames. As with many outstanding historical personalities, popular perceptions of Hus vary...
View ArticleWere women really absent from pre-89 Czechoslovak dissent?
Václav Havel’s seminal essay, The Power of the Powerless, led many to romanticize Havel and his fellow dissidents’ valiant acts of defiance. Their courage and conviction in choosing to “live in truth”...
View ArticleSmells like the days before Czechoslovakia’s split
It will not be any wonder if western European politicians begin asking their voters if they want to maintain their union with central Europe. The mood within the European Union is beginning to remind...
View ArticlePoland a colony? The new face of an old dispute
Throughout Poland’s history, colonialism’s brutal reality and legacy has often been present. But in the linguistic area, the term has not been accepted without controversy. American literary historian,...
View ArticleWas Charles IV the Greatest Czech?
Czechs have always been captivated by King Charles IV, and over the last few weeks, it seems every billboard in Prague is advertising an event, concert, performance, lecture or exhibition in honor of...
View ArticleCharter 77: the most successful social bubble in modern history
I remember that thin piece of paper densely covered with text. But because it contained what I already knew, it did not draw my attention. It arrived to our home in Bratislava just before the end of...
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