Velvet Revolutions

Velvet Revolutions

An Oral History of Czech Society

MIROSLAV VANĚK AND PAVEL MÜCKE

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ISBN 978–0–19–934272–3 (hbk.)

eISBN 978–0–19–934274–7

This book was written with the grant support given to Miroslav Vaněk by the Grant Agency of the Czech Republic within the project Czech Society during the Normalization and Transformation Period: Biographical Narratives (project number P410/11/1352).

This book is dedicated to Ivana and Ondřej and to Pavlína, Natálie, and Kristýna

Contents

Acknowledgments: The Privilege of Listening to the Voices of Memory

INTRODUCTION

1I WANT TO BE FREE! CIVIL AND POLITICAL RIGHTS

2TRANSFORMING THE FAMILY IN SOCIALISM

3FRIENDS AND OTHERS: How Czechs Evaluate Foreigners and Foreign Countries

4EDUCATION—GATEWAY TO SUCCESS

5FROM MANDATORY EMPLOYMENT TO UNEMPLOYMENT

6THE MEANING OF FREE TIME: Work, Family, and Leisure

7US AND THEM

CONCLUSION

Appendix 1: Photographs by Jindřich Štreit

Appendix 2: Our Narrators

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Acknowledgments: The Privilege of Listening to the Voices of Memory

In a hotel in Denver, Colorado, during the forty-fifth annual conference of the Oral History Association (OHA), a new era in the development of Czech oral history began. The nearly two decades of its existence so far had been a very busy and one might even say turbulent period. Starting literally from scratch, it has gone on to achieve some remarkable results both at home and internationally. Dozens of books that use the oral history method have been published in Czech, and the discipline has been established in academia, in particular at the Institute for Contemporary History of the Czech Academy of Sciences since 2000; the Czech Association for Oral History was founded in 2007, and oral history is now taught in the Czech Republic in many humanities-oriented universities. Czech oral historians also work internationally, especially in the International Oral History Association (IOHA). One day, when the history of this umbrella organization of oral historians from all over the world is written, someone will perhaps wonder how it was possible that from 2012 to 2014, a small Central European country such as the Czech Republic occupied two seats on the executive council of the IOHA.

We do not remember exactly what the hotel served at our working breakfast on that October morning in 2011. However, what we do remember quite well is the excitement aroused in us by the proposal from the editors at Oxford University Press that we write a book based on the results of our research for a number of Czech oral history projects. As we were flying back home across the Atlantic, before we changed planes in Europe to take different directions either to Prague or to Aarhus in Denmark, still in a state of euphoria, we mused about all the people who had helped us have the opportunity to publish with one of the most prestigious publishing houses in the world.

If in hindsight we look for those key moments that most helped not only us personally but more importantly Czech oral history as a whole community of people and researchers get where it is today, we must definitely consider inspiration from abroad as fundamental: meetings and residencies in Durham in 2000, Chapel Hill in 2000 and 2004, Paris in 2003, Sydney in 2006, Guadalajara in 2008, Prague in 2010. The two semesters at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill and learning about our colleagues’ working methods in the Southern Oral History Program were key experiences that made us confident that Czech oral history had taken the right course. The conference in Durham, attended by Miroslav Vaněk, represented our first contact with oral history within the OHA; Pavel Mücke’s research stay in Paris led to the realization that the connection between oral history and memory research has great potential; in Sydney, Miroslav Vaněk established the very first contacts with oral history within the IOHA, and the idea of establishing a national association was born along with the desire to organize an IOHA conference in the Czech Republic. The fifteenth international IOHA conference in Guadalajara finally agreed on organizing the next conference in Prague. In 2010, the Czech capital hosted the largest conference to date of oral historians from all over the world.

The list of achievements and historic moments would be incomplete and indeed contrary to the very idea of oral history if alongside conferences and foreign stays we did not mention what we consider most important of all: the colleagues and friends who have helped us proceed on our way and are indeed still doing so. We should like to extend our thanks to Beth Millwood, Joseph Mosnier and James Leloudis, Donald A. Ritchie and Anne Ritchie, Paul Thompson, Alistair Thomson, Rob Perks, Ronald Grele, Charles T. Morrissey, Alexander von Plato, Alessandro Portelli, David K. Dunaway, Rina Benmayor, Alexander Freund, Todd Moye, Kathy Nasstrom, and Nancy Toff.

Along with our foreign colleagues, we should like to thank to all those who have been instrumental in shaping Czech oral history for the last two decades. It is certain that we would not be where we are today were it not for the long-term sustained support of Oldřich Tůma, director of the Institute for Contemporary History of the Czech Academy of Sciences (AV ČR) and other colleagues from all corners of the Czech Republic, in particular, Pavel Urbášek, Jiří Petráš, Lukáš Valeš, and Jiří Voráč, but also those who through all these years have passed through the Center for Oral History Research AV ČR: Jana Melicharová, Hana Pelikánová, Jitka Sobotková, Hana Zimmerhaklová, Petra Schindler-Wisten, Hana V. Bortlová, Lenka Krátká, and Jiří Hlaváček. Without the assistance of Jan Sokol, first dean of the Faculty of Humanities, we should not have been able to establish oral history as an independent field of master’s degree studies in one of the faculties of Charles University in Prague.

The book itself owes a lot to all those with whom we were able to discuss our dilemmas, especially Michal Pullmann, Pavel Urbášek, Martin Franc, Radek Diestler, Rosamund Johnston, Veronika Pehe, Lenka Krátká, Jiří Hlaváček, and Petra Schindler-Wisten.

Our special thanks go to Tomáš Adámek and his colleagues James F. Cool and David R. Beveridge, who translated our Czech manuscript into academic English. Not only did they do an excellent job as translators, but we also accepted their advice regarding some parts of the individual chapters. We should also like to thank Lenka Krátká, who edited the complete manuscript with her usual care so that we could pass it on to the Oxford University Press. Then we must not forget to give thanks to Jindřich Štreit, the photographer whose photos emanating an unforgettable atmosphere accompany the text.

We thank the Grant Agency of the Czech Republic for awarding us the research grant Czech Society during the Normalization and Transformation Period: Biographical Narratives (GACZ Reg. No. P410/11/1352). Without its support it would have been impossible not only for this book to come out but even for our research to take place. We are equally grateful to the home Institute for Contemporary History and our colleagues and collaborators, as well as all the former and current master’s degree students in the field of oral history and contemporary history at the Faculty of Humanities of Prague’s Charles University who in various phases of the project have taken part in the research effort.

We thank the Oxford University Press and its Vice President and Executive Editor Nancy Toff for the opportunity to publish the results of our research. We are also grateful to our anonymous reviewers for their comments on the first draft of the manuscript. And again to Nancy Toff and to Karen S. Fein and Ela Kotkowska for their really magnificent job of editing our manuscript.

And last but not least, our thanks go to all those narrators who during the last more than eight years have been willing to share their life stories with us. These personal encounters made us increasingly aware of the privilege we have been given thanks to oral history: to listen to the voices of people from various professions, fields, and regions, who not only shared their life experience with us but also enriched us with a certain part of their life wisdom. As historians we consider this privilege of oral history very motivating, but also burdened with the responsibility it entails: to give ordinary people the opportunity to enter written history regardless of their political views or power, their ethnicity, religion, or possessions.

Introduction

I just say—every period brings along good things as well as bad. You can’t say it’s all black; some things are always white. … It was all wonderful back then in 1989, during the Velvet Revolution. People shouting “Havel for President,” you know, we all went crazy. … At that moment, we were all a bit nuts, like intoxicated because we suddenly saw life could be great. And we couldn’t imagine what would come after fifteen or twenty years of freedom—that it could be in some ways even worse than before and that some of us would be living on a shoestring. But I said to myself back then, I’ll become a great fireman. Everything will be fine. Yeah, and so five years later, I was looking for another job. So every period is difficult in its own way. That’s why I’m not saying life is grey—it’s got colors, including black and white. (X. J., born 1962, fireman)

Late 1989 brought the collapse of the authoritarian Communist regime in Czechoslovakia[1] and the beginning of the country’s journey towards democracy. The first revolutionary weeks and months were full of euphoria and high expectations, but people also started to have their doubts. The society that had developed during the forty years after World War II started to change gradually in the post–Cold War world. It was a time of reestablishing parliamentary democracy, introducing a market economy, and incorporating the country into Western European and international structures.

Many Czech histories of this era emphasize major political events. Their authors are mostly interested in the decision-making processes within the Communist parties or in the role of the opposition, and, after the fall of the Communist regimes, in the newly established movements and political parties, all in an exclusively Czech context.[2] These histories are immensely important for what they tell us about Czech, as well as Central European, history. However, they have only a limited potential for grasping the development of the society as a whole. Looking at great political moments and key players on both sides of the barricades, their authors miss the history of “ordinary people.”[3] Major groups, if mentioned at all, feature merely as onlookers to the moves of major figures on the chessboard of politics and economics. To people who are experiencing it, socialism means something quite different than it does from the regime’s perspective.[4] Without integrating the lives of ordinary people, any twentieth-century Czech history will be fragmentary and incomplete.

Historians, despite their efforts to objectively reconstruct the past “the way it was,” have their present-day biases. Since the first chronicles, history has fulfilled the functions of cementing certain groups (such as nations and societies) and providing arguments for or against the legitimacy of states and political groupings. Post-Communist countries share a relatively high degree of self-serving expediency in the interpretation of the past on the part of the new elites. “The struggle for a monopoly” on the interpretation of contemporary history after the fall of the dictatorship has in the past two decades been tantamount to a struggle for a new cultural hegemony and a new political direction. Historian Pavel Kolář aptly characterizes contemporary history as

the expression of a new self-awareness of post-dictatorship societies which have played an important role in legitimizing the new democratic order in Central Europe. Contemporary history has been given the role of distancing us from “totalitarianism” by emphasizing the fundamental differences between democracy and dictatorship. A method of interpretation has emerged that reinforces the notion of the historical inevitability of the fall of Communist dictatorships and the irreversibility of the newly established democracy, liberal values, and market economy.[5]

Another Czech historian, Michal Pullman, has described this “fight for the past” in a similar way; in his view, “the totalitarian-historical model of interpretation indirectly made it possible to reinforce the related ‘big story’ of the Czech road to liberal democratic and market transformation.”[6] Furthermore, throughout Central and Eastern Europe, institutes for national remembrance help in spreading such “totalitarian history narratives.” These institutions, in collaboration with other “memory-creating players,” (for example, politicians and some of the media) jointly create memory, rather than mapping it through objective research. They assign roles to historical figures mostly according to a fixed scenario, thereby leaving little room for ordinary individuals and social, ethical, gender, generational, regional, or interest groups.[7]

It has become increasingly evident that a purely schematic story of an evil, totalitarian regime versus a good, oppressed society is no longer defensible. During the 1990s, and especially in the first decade of the new millennium, Central and Eastern Europe suffered a series of crises and conflicts that called into question the supposed triumph of neo-liberal values and free market mechanisms. The sudden disintegration of the happy ending to the post-socialist fairy tale called for correctives to research on contemporary history. It is necessary to approach history in a more balanced way, not only because we are interested in other issues today than we were twenty years ago, but also because new questions related to the period of transformation[8] keep coming up.

Social and cultural history, including interdisciplinary perspectives,[9] has enriched the Czech approach to historiography and cultural heritage. An unquestionable benefit is derived from historical work that examines the society-wide discussion about the recent past, society’s desires, and the connection between past and current events. Before 1989, democratizing methodological approaches were systematically excluded from Czech historiography by the Communist “monopoly on historical truth”; if we want to restore its academic credentials and have it comply with international standards, we must withstand the pressure of the “grand narratives” and incorporate these approaches into our work.

In his New Year speech in 1990, President Václav Havel remarked: “We are all—though, naturally, each to a different degree—responsible for the operation of the totalitarian machinery: no one is merely its victim; we are all also its co-creators.”[10] Recent results of Czech and foreign research in the field of social history, as well as our interviews, show that Havel’s thesis about “totalitarianism” within each of us is correct.[11] “Participatory dictatorships” in the former Soviet bloc were not only totalitarian regimes but also multi-layered social orders. Within such networks, the state and its citizens renegotiated a social consensus daily. The notion of state socialism as a social order maintained by both the “oppressors” and the “oppressed” is supported by the fact that after the European Communist regimes had fallen, their political institutions withered even as earlier social connections and customary models of behavior were preserved and still played a role in the democratic transformation.[12] But what exactly are these ties between the regime and the society? Who are the people shaping them? And what “patterns” of behavior and values influence them? These questions are not easily answered.

Reconstructing the logic of people’s thinking and behavior during a crucial period, especially the behavior of a majority of the population and their strategies for addressing everyday problems as well as emergency situations, is key to understanding not only the recent past but also the present. The reconstruction in this book starts by asking, how did the citizens themselves perceive the period of oppression and the subsequent process of change? We also explore the professed and dominant values during so-called real socialism (1968–89) and the impact of the experiences of the quarter century of democratic transition on those values.

With the help of scientific methods in the form of (unpublished) polls, the Communist regime studied changes in values.[13] After the Velvet Revolution, this research continued in a standard, transparent manner. While, in 1989, the notions of national sovereignty, democracy, and market relations played a key role, people’s attitudes have since changed fundamentally.

The survey of the Center for Public Opinion Research from 2013 presents some surprising data: 63 percent of people who live in the Czech Republic were dissatisfied with the functioning of democracy after 1989 (compared to 53 percent of those dissatisfied in 2012, and 43 percent in 2011).[14] Some media and politicians have used the data to suggest that people’s dissatisfaction with the current political situation means that they want to restore the Communist system. However, another poll by the Center for Public Opinion Research finds that the largest group of citizens—63 percent (compared to 45 percent in 2009 and 32 percent in 2007) views today’s situation as better.[15] Only 8 percent were undecided (compared to one third of undecided respondents in 2009 and 2007), and 10 percent of citizens (compared to 14 percent in 2009 and 16 percent in 2007) said that the situation before the Velvet Revolution was definitely better.[16] Although the 2014 survey by the Center for Public Opinion Research shows a significant change compared to previous years, the other poll does not credit politicians with the success in building democracy. The Czechs had expected everything to be smoother, faster, and less painful.

How can their disappointment be explained? Is it a momentary effect of the global economic crisis, proposed austerity measures, corruption exposed at the highest levels, or just nostalgia? Or is it in keeping with a survey published in late 1989, in which 45 percent of the population were in favor of the continuation of a socialist regime along the lines of the Prague Spring[17] and 47 percent favored a Scandinavian model, and only 3 percent supported capitalism?[18],[19]

This popular disenchantment also calls into question just how heinous and intolerable a “prison” the Communist regime really was. Did the regime balance the lack of freedom by providing for the material needs and social security? Was real socialism able to give the people the feeling that their needs and desires were satisfied? Why, in the first years following the fall of communism, were such high hopes placed in transformation, and why is it that today’s evaluation of the present situation is so harsh by contrast? By ascertaining both Czech individual and popular perceptions of the turning points and major processes, and gaining insight into the rhythms of their everyday lives, we hope to shed some light on these questions.

Sources and Interpretations

As with the study of any historical topic, basic limitations are imposed by the available sources and by the possible ways of analyzing and interpreting them. The range of potentially useful sources for studying recent Czech history is quite broad, including, as is often the case, official archives, contemporary news articles, public opinion surveys, personal correspondence, diaries, memoirs, folk narratives, contemporary literature, films, radio and television programs, photographs, and artifacts. This book takes advantage of all of these sources, yet relies most heavily on public opinion surveys together with the most recent addition to the Czech historian’s toolbox: oral histories. Statistics cannot fully represent the profound changes in society in their individual and historical dimension. Furthermore, numerous factors limit their reliability, such as: the sponsorship of the poll, the interviewer’s potential to interfere with the results, the criteria for sampling the population, the wording of the questions, and the bias of their formulation.[20] Opinion polls processed before 1989 must be handled with special care. The surveys were carried out by the only agency in the country—the Institute for Public Opinion Research—which was subject to the direct control of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia and was actually created with the Central Committee’s blessing. The results were kept secret, with no possibility of any external critical examination. Therefore, our main stress is not on specific data but rather on developmental trends and tendencies in the areas under study. International agencies, such as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the World Bank, and the Pew Research Center in Washington[21] either have no data for the period prior to 1989 and or the data are unrepresentative. On the other hand, pre-1989 surveys yield much interesting information, whether in terms of individual research questions, their own selection, or their focus on specific research topics.

The findings delivered by these quantitative sources must then be squared against other sources. Public opinion polls furnish the framework of this book, and are complemented with oral history to provide an in-depth historical knowledge of society. Interviews have a special ability to capture changes in what people value, both as individuals and as groups. Critics of oral history might argue that using such specific sources puts the researcher on thin ice, mainly because of the large number of variables that influence her “source materials.” However, unlike many other sources of a personal nature, such as diaries and correspondence, oral histories are tempered by the interaction of two parties: the narrator who remembers and the interviewer who asks questions. This shared authority brings with it ethical, legal, and interpretive obligations. Often the facts contained in interviews cannot be obtained by any other means or reconstructed from any other sources, but more important, they are a form by which we express and demarcate our current relationship with the past. Neither “content” nor “form” is permanent; they are continually changing and transforming, often very dramatically so.[22] The capture and preservation of “stages of memory” by means of oral history allows us to look into the broad range of processes of “memory transformation.” In an American oral history classic, Ronald J. Grele responded to critics of subjective memory:

My answer to that is we’re asking important questions. The problem is they’re asking unimportant questions. They have elaborated schemes for asking uninteresting questions. We unfortunately are working off the seat of our pants to ask all the important questions. The important questions are questions of subjectivity, questions of consciousness, questions of ideology, questions of identity. Those are the important questions. The important questions are not questions of fact; the important questions are not questions of data. The important question is how people live in history, how people create their pasts. I am fascinated by the ways in which people create stories. We’ve all moved to discussions of narrative these days. If I had to do the work that I used to do now, I would not be talking about language; I’d be talking about narrative. It’s a different kind of thing. We’re fascinated by how people formulate stories, and how people are creatures of story. My friend Jerome Bruner says that’s what makes us human.[23]

Another unique aspect of oral history as a primary source is that, although it focuses mainly on retrieving individual memories, because of the continuous contact among persons who experienced the historical moment, individual memories are affected, enhanced, and sometimes even shaped by collective memory.[24] At the same time, individual memory often becomes an important creative support, an imaginary compass pointing in the direction of collective memory. So the oral historian must ask himself, as he analyzes and interprets: just who is actually speaking?

The limits of memory are not weaknesses of oral history but rather its essential component. Without its incompleteness, its fragmentary nature, and most of all, without its changeable character, it would be very difficult to research changes in values over time. Italian oral historian Alessandro Portelli aptly defines this feature of oral history:

Here’s something I always say, a little formula I’ve given myself: we are doing three jobs: We’re doing the normal work of a historian, i.e., trying to find out what happened. We’re doing the normal work of an anthropologist, i.e., trying to find out what’s in people’s minds. And then we’re doing the work of an oral historian, i.e., bringing those two things together. And standing in that space there. This is what I believe in. And in the sense that we don’t reject the critiques but we take them as a point of departure to do a completely different kind of work.[25]

This book is based on the analysis and interpretation of about 300 interviews with members of different social and professional groups of Czech society (blue collar workers, farmers, intellectuals, service-sector employees, members of the armed forces, management, senior marketing personnel, etc.), born roughly between 1935 and 1955, who were active professionally during the last twenty years of the Communist regime and at least during a part of the post-revolutionary transformation.

The interviews were carried out as part of the research of the Center for Oral History—Institute for Contemporary History between 2006 and 2013.[26] Also helpful were interviews conducted in a project devoted to the younger generation and its role in the collapse of Communism[27] and interviews with people who maintained second homes, because these private owners represent a very typical subculture in Czech society.[28] We also used information from research projects on “ordinary people” realized within the Oral History and Contemporary History Department at Charles University in Prague. We have also made use of oral history research conducted in 2002–2004, aimed at mapping the life stories of both the Communist elite and dissidents and opposition activists.

In some respects, this book is a historical analysis of the generational narrative of people born and raised mainly in the Czech lands, in the shadow of the political and economic crises of the 1930s, World War II, and the Cold War. Most of these men and women reached adulthood in the 1960s and 1970s, and in the last decade of their working lives they witnessed yet another political upheaval. These “children of Hitler and Stalin” were able to compare the different political regimes:

I remember the time before 1989 very well, because I was young and healthy. That’s not the case today, is it? But, on the other hand, the conditions we lived in, I’d never want them back. Otherwise, I have no bad memories of those times, because no one actually did me any wrong. And I was young and healthy; I had my whole life ahead of me. Today, it’s the other way round: at my age you tend to look back. So I can’t say anything bad about those times. (Karel Raszka, born 1940, mining engineer)

As shown by this example, each interview contains an element of nostalgia through which the narrators give meaning to past events and use their experiences to express their relationship to the present. Opinions range from satisfaction with the current state of affairs to open criticism and demands for change.[29]

The person of the historian can hardly be separated from his or her writing, and this is doubly true for research in contemporary history. While trying to be as objective as possible, we struggle with our own roles as eyewitnesses and survivors. We are in certain ways influenced by our lives before 1989, and we are more or less satisfied with the developments after 1989. These facts, whether we like it or not, affect our interpretation.

Finally, we consider whether the concept of coming to terms with the past reflects a change in basic values. This question becomes more urgent as discussions of the legacy of authoritarian and totalitarian regimes and their subsequent transformation are on the rise, sometimes in a manner more ideological than scholarly. We assume that a particular era and region can affect values and their possible change, but that they also have universal features independent of geographical conditions.[30]

Before and After November 1989: A Glance Back in History

At the end of 1989, when the fall of the Communist regime and the beginning of the democratic transition was affirmed by the election of Václav Havel as President of the Czechoslovak Republic, it seemed that the past was clearly separate from the present.[31] The symbolic division between the time of “oppression,” “Communist totalitarianism,” “the centrally planned economy,” and “ignorance” and the time of “the return of freedom and democracy,” “the market economy,” and a rediscovered “cultural dimension” seemed in those days perfectly understandable.[32] Today, the dichotomy had become an illusion. Under scrutiny, many of the concepts associated with each period lose their clarity and focus. Whereas access to, and attitudes toward, material goods and institutions seem to be two sides of the same coin, the world of traditions, ideas, norms, and especially individuals as “witnesses to the times” who carry their “spiritual legacy” “through the ages” are facets of a complex structure. What sort of values, whether perceived or real, did people uphold? Within what frameworks were these values shaped, affirmed, and shared? A proper investigation of these questions had begun even before the Communist regime came into power.

When an independent Czechoslovak state emerged from the disintegration of Austria-Hungary in World War I, it was endowed by its “founding fathers” with the values of republican democracy, liberal civic society, widespread education and culture, and the “cultivation of general humanitarian ideals.”[33] These values were contrasted with “feudal monarchism,” “militarism,” “clericalism” (of the Catholic Church), “obscurantism,” as well as the alleged threat of “de-nationalization” of the Czech nation under the German influence in the monarchy. Although over the course of twenty years, the practice in the Czechoslovak state was often quite different from those ideals, people either identified themselves with them (as the majority of Czechs, Jews, Slovaks, Ruthenians did) or saw them as separate from their everyday lives (as Czech Germans, Hungarians, and Poles did).[34] Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, the first president of the Czechoslovak Republic, was well aware of this fact. Before World War I, as a university professor, he aptly observed that “[s]‌tates are preserved by the same ideals from which they were born.”[35]

A Czech historian has characterized his nation as “obsessed with history” and observed that it has used its past to position itself against a “bleak” present. In happier times, their past informs their present, and Czechs proudly ally themselves with their ancestors’ legacy and try to build on it. Witnesses to the twentieth century experienced unprecedented twists and turns, as one dissident in the 1970s and 1980s has attested:

We are a generation that was born after the World War I, and we lived in the period when the Republic was being formed. Unemployment came in the thirties, then we lived through Munich. We were of course just children. I was about thirteen, but it left such a thorn in us. Should our fathers have fought or not? Should they have given up? Then we got ‘45, and until ‘48 it looked as though we were going to create a new society. And then came the communist coup. That was another milestone. The fifties came and all the things associated with them. And then after ‘56, after the events in Hungary, when we were trying to break free from the rigid communist regime, screenings started up again. In the sixties there was some progress, but I got sacked from the radio in ‘63. Then ‘68 came and everything that followed it. (Jiří Ruml, born 1925, journalist)

The consequences of the Great Depression, the Munich Agreement of 1938, and World War II profoundly shook the existing order, including faith in an alliance with Western powers, liberal democracy, and free-market economy. During World War II, the goal of Czechoslovak resistance was the idea of “restoration” of an independent Czech state and “redeeming the unfortunate legacy” of the past. The socialist left, headed by the communists, prevailed in the elections of 1946, the only relatively free elections after World War II. They formed the National Front government (headed by communist Prime Minister Klement Gottwald), which created the impression of a self-determined Czechoslovak journey towards socialism.

With their votes, people declared their belief in “popular democracy,” socialism, planned economy, deportation of ethnic minorities, retribution for domestic “treason and collaboration,” and in the “brotherly,” “Slavic” Soviet Union. But this illusion of self-determination was brought to an abrupt end in the summer of 1947 by Joseph Stalin. By February 1948, the Communists (who had held a strong position during the interwar period) seized power. Their method of governance has been aptly described by a Czech historian and eyewitness: “The Communist monopoly on power, a dictatorship with all its consequences, appeared to be a complex mechanism. In fact, it worked like an orchestra, comprising various instruments and conducted from one place—from the center. The basic principle was that a close circle of managers decided about virtually all the problems of social life and the activities of subordinate instruments.”[36] And so, among other things, they launched a campaign against “reactionary” values and “bourgeois and petit-bourgeois relics,” with the goal of controlling as many “human souls” as possible and creating a “new human being” within a “progressive” society constructed (or rather re-arranged) according to the Soviet model.[37] Its architects took bloodshed for granted, including their own: “Their long-term goals transcended the immediate future and their collective aims transcended the interests of individuals.”[38] The recurring violence took an enormous toll, and normalization of the Communist regime could not come to terms with its dark periods without affecting its own stability. The general secretary of the Czech Communist Party, born in the 1920s, and by the 1950s a functionary of the Communist Party at a district level, recalls the influence of the Stalinist political trials of the early 1950s:

[E]‌verybody was shocked. No one had expected anything like this. But we had to go to the districts and let everybody know. People were surprised. They didn’t want to believe it. We had seen Rudolf Slánský as the General Secretary of the Party, one of the two main leaders of the Party, and not as a traitor who had conspired against the Party and the State. On the other hand, we had no reason not to believe the accusation. The trust in the leadership of the Party and in Klement Gottwald was such that we dispelled our doubts and tried to convince people that it was necessary … Today, I feel, of course, that the trials should not have happened. That was a big mistake. But, unfortunately, such were the times. That’s the way things were handled, not just in Czechoslovakia but in other countries. Those people should have been removed from their positions … and that would have been the end of it. It didn’t help the Party. Obviously, it did severe damage to the Party in the long run. … It can still be felt today. (Miloš Jakeš, born 1922, politician and former General Secretary of the Communist Party)

After February 1948, the discrepancy between the ideal and real practice of the “socialist experiment” was often not only substantial but even deliberately constructed. Although the Communist regime outwardly distanced itself from its predecessors, it actually imitated them in many ways. The modern Czech nation of the early nineteenth century was similarly rooted in egalitarianism, based on a mediocre, compliant, and malleable “little Czech man.”[39]

In 1960, Czechoslovakia declared itself a socialist state. The reality was, however, somewhat different. Power and resources were monopolized in favor of the Soviet Union. Except for food and basic supplies, the population’s needs and wants went unmet. While, at the beginning, the regime could partly justify and support ideologically the shortcomings by the demands of the post-war reconstruction, from the early 1960s, to hide the discrepancies required more and more effort on the part of those in power.

Some attempts to mitigate the conflict were made using campaigns and unsystematic support in the form of subsidies to certain sectors or enterprises, as well as by tolerating a black market, which to some extent resembled a market economy in its functioning but which could not exist without free-loading on a controlled economy.[40] A very successful foreign trade manager both before and after the revolution, recalled the situation in the supposedly leveled society:

Don’t forget: that was also a time when material differences between people’s standards of living were rather minimal, so basically no one had much of anything. As far as comparing property and the like, the gap didn’t open until sometime after 1990. Although, naturally, before 1990 there was a grey zone economy in which top surgeons could be poor as compared to a butcher or a greengrocer. But not compared to absolutely everybody. It would be pretty hard to compare everything in general. (Oldřich Vacek, born 1946, businessman in foreign trade)

During the 1960s, favorable international circumstances, the increasing problems of the Czechoslovak economy, and the entry of a new post-war generation into workforce and public life caused growing tensions between Party leaders and the society. So there emerged the idea of a reform of the system from within, with the help of regulated market principles,[41] to which most of the population was eventually won over. This idea was again (during the Prague Spring) integrated with the idea that Czechoslovakia could head towards socialism on its own, without breaking its international commitments towards its Eastern allies (as the Hungarians had done during their revolution in 1956). The Communist Party’s monopoly on power was challenged to such an extent that, in August 1968, the armies of the Warsaw Pact occupied the Czechoslovak Republic.

I was already in hospital at the time. I think I could only walk with a crutch, the underarm kind. And then, in our hospital ward, people started dragging themselves from all corners and crying. They would all gather in the TV room. There was always one television per floor for them to learn what was happening. And the atmosphere was probably worse than in other places. … Of course, today we know there were casualties, but it was not a war. I think as many people die in car accidents every day. But nobody knew that the first day. We really didn’t know that. People were really worked up because they assumed it was the beginning of a war. The army was there and, for all we knew, we were being invaded by troops from five countries. And there, in the TV room, everybody was crying, and the expectation was that tanks would be there in no time. And where could we escape on crutches and in wheelchairs? Nowhere. (Daniela Fisherová, born 1948, editor and writer)

Almost everybody remembered what they were doing when they learned that their country had been occupied by foreign armies led by the Soviet Union. Most narrators feared war and an uncertain future. Sometimes, however, narrators from small towns, villages, and certain professions offered a different perspective. A man who was a twenty-year-old miner at the time recalled:

I was young, so it was nothing much. I didn’t see [the soldiers] until they arrived at [the] Sovinec [castle] where they were staying. Otherwise, it all went over my head. Maybe in Ostrava, maybe there was something there in the larger cities. Only on that day, the twenty-first of August, we didn’t go down. Only volunteers went down into the shaft. So did I. Mined for four hours and immediately came back up. We went down for three or four hours, otherwise nothing really happened worth mentioning. (Jan Beluš, born 1948, miner)

The Communist Party quickly stepped in to counter the spontaneous resistance of the Czechoslovakian population to the intervention of the armed forces. Once the resistance had been weakened and suppressed, the government instituted a regime of limitations on citizens’ freedoms, purges, corruption, and fear. This attempt to reinstate the status quo before the reforms and to restore the faltering power monopoly of the Communist Party was called normalization. Normalization was anything but normal. A then newlywed university student remembers how it started:

My husband and I got married in 1968. When August came, my husband was earning some extra money as a boiler man in a sauna in Brno. There were a bunch of guys there, and they agreed to get a truck and leave, because they couldn’t see any point in hanging around. They were going to go to Vienna. Zdeněk said we could come along, only I was pregnant. I was expecting my daughter to be born any moment, so there was just no way. … In 1970, I was expelled from the university, but actually I didn’t feel much like going there anymore. I was wondering what was the point of finishing my studies when I wouldn’t be allowed to teach anyway. … My husband was also expelled from school. He wasn’t allowed to take the exams. We took part in all the demonstrations, the Palach week, so we had pretty “good” references. Then I worked as a cleaning lady. I didn’t have any choice. My husband worked in property management. (Iva Kotrlá, born 1947, writer)

Another narrator, a newly enrolled student majoring in pedagogy and Czech at Charles University in Prague, describes normalization in a slightly different way:

There were screening us, checking our political views, but I didn’t see them up close because we were too young for that, and even my friends were not old enough to be threatened by the screenings, so the only thing I know is that many people lost their jobs, and it was a terrible predicament. But in those days I was happy just watching the boys, drinking my coffee at Café Slavia, and telling myself that that world was a lot more interesting than the life outside Prague I had known before, because from time to time you could meet someone who was remarkable in some way. (Ludmila Mesteková, born 1952, librarian and editor)

This period of normalization was characterized, according to many historians, by a shift of the society from the public to the private. This was partly due to the existence of a social contract based on the support of consumer aspects of human life in exchange for a (temporary and pretended) political loyalty. A key value was stability, sometimes bordering on immobility.[42] Some scholars have characterized this relationship between the Czechoslovak regime and its citizens by using the somewhat disputable term privatized citizenship, meaning that, instead of dealing with the “big” political and societal topics, the core of everyday politics was situated in the area of the private lives of the citizens of Czechoslovakia at the time.[43]

Normalization initiated the gradual alienation of the regime from its own citizens, which continued throughout the 1970s and intensified before the regime fell in November and December 1989.[44] The citizens’ alienation was fostered by Mikhail Gorbachev’s perestroika, the state’s new economic and ecological problems, and Czechoslovak dissenters and opposition, as well as by the emergence of a generation innocent of the traumatizing (and often paralyzing) past.[45] The regime’s denial of its own Marxist–Leninist values and its stubborn reluctance to admit this fact openly contributed significantly to the “end of the experiment.” The vast majority of people enthusiastically welcomed the return of freedom during the Velvet Revolution in 1989. A former soldier of the Czechoslovak Army recalled:

Well, I can tell you, we were also uneasy when we heard those sirens. Hoping they wouldn’t come with guns or anything like that. It was just wonderful but also kind of stressful when you realized that somebody was yelling “Havel for President.” And people on Wenceslas Square were all chanting “Havel for President!” And those crowds, you know? How easy it is to influence crowds with just some kind of a slogan. Some people take it up, and things start rolling… I’m happy as I can be today. (Vladimír Starý, born 1933, military research engineer)

Politicians distanced themselves from the previous regime and its values. They “invented” (or re-invented) new values, such as the neo-liberal free market, and reviewed old ones, such as civic engagement. During this process, the Czechoslovak state disintegrated, and the independent Czech Republic and Slovakia emerged in 1993. The Czech economy transformed into a market economy. Restitutions and privatization began to right past wrongs. A new statehood appeared in the form of partial resuscitation of the First Republic (1918–38) and also in a search for Czech national interests. The Czech Republic rejoined Western Europe.[46] A former soldier reflected:

Well, of course, it’s a question of whether we want that improved socialism or capitalism because that was what I didn’t like about both 1968 and 1989 … that everything had to be done now, that I want it right now. That was in 1968, and then the same thing in 1989, 1990. We want it all now, all now, now, now. And that rush led to the terrible mistakes that happened here. It was absolutely clear that there would be no more socialism. That became clear very soon because as soon as Gorbachev was finished and all that, that was the end of the Soviet Union too. So then communism has practically no right to exist. That was proved very clearly. And I think it’s a fact that communism is no longer a danger to this country. (Jaroslav Kalous, born 1932, military technical engineer)

In our “living laboratory” of narrators’ relationships to the past, present, and future, we needed to understand the processes of change and the preservation of some imagined scale of values in Czech society. Along this scale, individuals either cling to the social collective or distance themselves from it in a continual search for a balance of freedoms.

1

I Want to be Free! Civil and Political Rights

The times are better now because we have freedom. You can say what you want, and you won’t end up in prison. There’s no harassing people, no thought control, no spying. And the standard of living is higher, too. Just think about all the possibilities our kids have. People still grumble a lot, but they’ve never been so well off as they are now, never. Only there are bad things in politics: prices are rising, we’re having a hard time with unemployment, and everybody will tell you that there’s a lot of injustice. And it’ll get worse: there’ll be millionaires and paupers. Most people here don’t like it. (Konrád Niesner, born 1941, electrician)

So there’s freedom: people can travel, and I can say what I want, write what I want, you see? But in terms of, say, the economy … five textile companies have disappeared, and there’s not one left. You see? Do we really need four Kaufland hypermarkets? Oh, give me a break … And all that dirty business you can see today. Things like that didn’t happen even in the Communist times. No, never. And how are we supposed to come to terms with that? We are the generation that can compare. (Josef Cepek, born 1936, frontier guard and policeman)

When they compared freedom in the period before the Velvet Revolution and freedom under the capitalist, liberal democratic system, most narrators linked today’s civil and political freedoms to the social freedoms of the past, that is, social security. While they generally had a clear understanding of the issues involved in such areas as work, education, family, and leisure, the concept of freedom was broad and complex. Individuals understand very different things by the concept of “freedom,” and we all tend to emphasize our own favorite aspects of it. In this study, freedom means the ability to act according to one’s own free will, and to accept commensurate responsibility for that choice.[1]

People enjoy freedom through several types of rights: civil, political, economic, and social. Excessive emphasis on one of them over the others is the beginning of limitations on the exercise of free will. The truly free (liberal) society maintains a balance between the various types of rights. In addition, freedom is achieved when it is linked to responsibility. The attempt to separate freedom from responsibility (as under the Communist system and in present attempts by market fundamentalists) usually ends in failure.

There is probably no philosophical system or philosopher that has not reflected on the nature of freedom. Is the desire for freedom something intrinsic to human beings? Is it the same experience, regardless of the culture in which a person is living? Can freedom become a burden, too heavy for a person to bear? Why is it that freedom is to so many people a longed-for goal, and to others a threat? We could go on asking many similar questions. Some answers connect the first free act of human beings to the biblical myth of the expulsion from Paradise (from a religious point of view, man committed the first sin by tasting the fruit of the forbidden tree; from a humanist point of view, this act is the first manifestation of free will). Thinkers from antiquity to modern times—Plato, Socrates, Hobbes, Kant, Rousseau—have all come up with various concepts of freedom. More recently, Friedrich Nietzsche, much like the psychologist, sociologist, and philosopher Erich Fromm, distinguished between “freedom from something” (that is, some kind of limitation) and “freedom to something” (the courage to make decisions and take actions).[2] Karl Marx not only recognized freedom as a necessity; he also believed the freedom of humankind lay in their economic and political liberation. Similarly, Milton Friedman connects political and economic freedoms, the latter being a prerequisite to the former.

But there are also considerably simpler views of freedom. It has been said that in our culture the first act limiting the freedom of a child is when she or he is being potty trained. Amusing as it may be, this observation points to an important line of thinking by a number of scholars and natural scientists, namely to their definition of freedom as the absence of restrictions, barriers, pressure, and coercion on the part of another person, organization, or system. Such a definition narrows the view of freedom so that it is understood as a social and political freedom; at the same time, it serves as the starting point for our analysis of these interviews.

We initially hoped to rely on existing public opinion polls; however, only one poll concerned the topic of freedom before the Velvet Revolution, and that was taken in June of the pivotal year 1989. This survey (titled “Evaluation of the Results Achieved through the Building of Socialism in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic”) included one question that explicitly concerned the guarantee of human rights and freedoms. The results were alarming for the regime: only 9 percent of the respondents believed that freedom and human rights were fully guaranteed; 32 percent said they were guaranteed sufficiently; 34 percent said poorly; and 16 percent said that not at all. Nine percent of the respondents were unable to decide.[3] If people had been able to respond freely and without fear of consequences, the results would probably have been even more alarming. On the other hand, the survey offered proof that people were already less afraid to express their opinions publicly.

The Communist regime often used the concepts of freedom and peace interchangeably, or it played down freedom in favor of frequently organized public opinion polls on the topic of peace and peaceful coexistence. The media mentioned the “camp of peace and socialism” practically every day; the topic of peace permeated prose, poetry, films, theatre performances, popular shows, and of course ideological handbooks. There was no mention of a “camp of freedom.” The Communists had already “liberated the people” from all negative and binding legacies of the past (so-called bourgeois relicts) and so integrated freedom into a peace plan of “happy tomorrows,” which were to be ensured by the regime’s chosen few.

The idea of peace reverberated throughout society; peace had to be fought for during World War II and in a figurative sense even during the Cold War, whereas freedom, thanks to the help of the Soviet Union and its victory over Nazi Germany, had been “achieved.” The regime understood life in peacetime—an allegedly necessary condition for preserving socialism—as the precursor of an almost-achieved paradise, a happy future, the culmination of history, and the unarticulated “return to the golden age,” this of course without any religious connotations.[4] As the most important of all values, life in peace was prioritized in a 1980 survey not only by the older generation but also by the youngest.[5] However, these survey results must be interpreted in light of the ubiquitous propaganda. “Peace” had likely become an empty word. Young people responded as they had been taught in schools, without thinking very deeply about the nature of life without war.

After 1989, the issue of freedom found a constant place in public opinion polls (regularly after 1996 in biennial surveys). According to these surveys, around 60 percent of Czech citizens appreciated the opportunity to live in freedom.[6] People were most satisfied with the opportunity to travel, to have free access to information, and to express their opinions (in all these instances, about two-thirds of the population expressed satisfaction).[7] An emphasis was placed on those principles of liberty which the Communist regime had systematically suppressed or redirected.

Why Did People Say so Little about Freedom?

Slogans calling for freedom and free elections were most strongly articulated in Czech society in November 1989. The meaning of the chants “Freedom, freedom” was clear to everybody. They meant in particular freedom of speech, free elections, freedom of travel, free access to information, and freedom of religion. However, once these demands had been met, it became much more difficult for many people to define freedom and turn it into a reality. Narrators found the concept of freedom very hard to grasp. Moreover, it was not very often mentioned spontaneously; they tended to perceive it as an abstract category, something brought up by the interviewers. They usually just answered our questions, only sporadically adding their own comments when asked to compare the time before November 1989 to the present.

Why this attitude? Why would narrators not spontaneously mention their newly acquired freedom? It is possible that many became apprehensive about an impending intellectual discussion and doubted their ability to describe freedom from their own personal perspective without any clichés. It is possible that they doubted their ability to express their sense of a lack of freedom or, on the contrary, their satisfaction with having acquired it. People were fed up with the pompous words and empty slogans about freedom used during the Communist regime. A number of narrators also reiterated the received opinions presented over the years by the media. But if the narrators did express their personal opinions, they often perceived freedom very differently from one another. While some of them did not bring up or much emphasize the curtailment of civil liberties in Communist Czechoslovakia, others frankly admitted that living in those conditions fundamentally limited their personal freedom.

They most frequently described the civil and political freedoms as “pivotal.” At the same time, they felt less free on account of their lower standards of living and the decline in their social security. A generational dilemma also appeared:

To me the change has clearly been something positive—if not for my sake then for the sake of my children and grandchildren. We have freedom. Young people can travel, they can see the world. Now nobody is forcing them to get involved in politics. (Tomáš Potměšil, born 1949, employee in banking sector and financial advisory)

The older generation felt they were worse off, but still welcomed the new political conditions for the sake of their children and grandchildren.

We also came across narrators who cherished freedom and instilled the same values in their children, regardless of the ruling political system:

In our family we have always discussed politics. We discussed it at dinner and always listened to the news on the radio; to me, listening to the news is still a special time. This is the environment I was raised in, and we’ve always adhered to this tradition. We discussed everything—even during the German occupation we spoke out freely. And in the Bolshevik time it was no different. I’ve always tried to raise my children the same way, so they would always act responsibly, as free human beings. Take my younger son: as we were travelling somewhere by tram in 1969, he saw a picture of Lenin and said to my wife out loud, exactly in the spirit of our family discussions: “Hey, Mom, look! Lenin, that bastard!” (Václav Smetana, born 1934, orthopedist)

Freedom, Heroes, and the “Little Czechs”

According to the Polish sociologist Zygmunt Bauman, freedom is a divisive force: “Freedom was born as a privilege and has remained so ever since. … For one to be free there must be at least two. Freedom signifies a social relation, an asymmetry of social conditions; essentially it implies social difference—it presumes and implies the presence of social division.”[8] In what ways were Czechs divided by the Communist regime on the issue of freedom, and how did they attempt, if at all, to escape its power?

Before the Velvet Revolution, Marxist–Leninist ideology throughout the Eastern bloc strictly bound human rights to class. Freedom was viewed by the regime from the same perspective. As the pro-regime journalist Miloš Marko wrote: “We understand freedom as the acceptance of Marxist–Leninist ideology and the conscious submission to democratic centralism and to the interest of the working class as represented by the Communist Party.”[9] In line with this ideology, the government drastically restricted human rights, particularly freedom of speech, travel, religion, business, and thought. The same held true for the fundamental political rights of voting freely or running in elections. Ballots were reduced to a single joint list of candidates within the so-called National Front, their purpose being to elect Communist candidates and affirm the politics of the ruling Communist Party.

Many narrators felt that this society nominally led by the Communist Party forced them to behave in a certain way and monitored them too. One narrator remembered the uncomfortable psychological effects that stemmed from the lack of freedom:

I’d say I felt somewhat mentally distressed. I felt I was being watched all the time, sort of under pressure, constantly harassed by the regime’s attempts to organize people’s lives … The system was trying to organize and control you. It was annoying. (H. J., born 1947, programmer and analyst)

Other people remembered the dress code that restricted their personal freedom. Prohibitions included western fashions (jeans and t-shirts with print), long hair on men (labeled “an ideological diversion from the West”), and crucifixes and other religious symbols hung around the neck (which were unacceptable in an atheist society).

Our school principal, nicknamed “Red North,” was a very conservative Communist. The boys were ordered to walk in dress pants, the girls had to wear skirts. It was forbidden to wear jeans, shirts with Western lettering, or cross necklaces in school. If the boys had long hair, they forced them to get a haircut. (Robert Mikoláš, born 1966, university student)

These restrictions forced the average Czechoslovak citizen to react in one way or another and figure out some “strategies for survival.”

You had to learn avoidance. In fact, what would be the point in trying to stand up to the regime all by yourself? You would just hurt yourself and your family. So you just tried not to get involved in public life, keep away from activism of any kind, and if they forced you, you tried to wiggle out of it. And avoidance was possible. Sometimes with a bit of trouble like my husband: he was never promoted to an executive position because he had refused to join the Party. But then it was not so terrible that you couldn’t survive. So we just lived. Being inconspicuous was a big advantage. You could easily survive. (H. D., born 1946, doctor and rehabilitation specialist)

It is precisely for such avoidance and “unheroic survival” that some critics put blanket blame on the Czech people for the Communists’ power. Critics pejoratively labeled Czechs and Slovaks who did not resist the regime openly “little Czechs.” On the one hand, little Czechs are endowed with natural talent, skill, ingenuity, cleverness, and the ability to improvise; on the other hand, they are criticized for not having high goals and for living their lives in the little world of their homes, devoting all their efforts to ensuring comfortable lives for themselves and their families. Some perceive the stereotypical little Czechs as down-to-earth people who enabled the Czech nation to survive frequent and sometimes lengthy periods of oppression and foreign domination (including the Habsburg Empire, Nazi Germany, and Bolshevik Russia).[10]

To the Czech-British anthropologist Ladislav Holý, the stereotype embodies all the negative Czech characteristics: “The little Czech in not motivated by great ideals. His life world is delineated by his family, work, and close friends, and he approaches anything that lies outside it with caution and mistrust. His attitude is down-to-earth, and he is certainly no hero: hence the popularity of the good soldier Švejk.”[11] Created by the Czech writer Jaroslav Hašek, Josef Švejk is a legendary private in the imperial Austrian army who endures World War I through clever behavior in adverse circumstances. In keeping with the Czech national tradition, Švejk turns any rigid central power that does not tolerate open criticism into ridicule. However, Švejk himself is also ridiculous, incapable of being serious or accepting responsibility in critical moments. He mocks and undermines authority, but he is unable to defeat it. Like the “little Czech,” Švejk is both praised as a defender of fundamental values and vilified as an embodiment of base thinking. Švejk became a popular model of non-violent resistance against the crushing power, and through humor opened up an outlet for feelings of helplessness.

In the nineteenth century, the Czech nation, lacking any social elite of its own (aristocracy, upper middle class, army, national church, or broader political representation), was solidly middle-class, a mentality probably passed on to twentieth-century citizens. Moreover, the Czech nation sometimes had problems identifying with the Austrian and later Austro-Hungarian state, which it did not consider completely its own. Although the conditions of national existence had changed radically during the first decades of the twentieth century (e.g., social elites gradually developed) and although Czechs achieved independence soon after the end of World War I, many of the mechanisms for shaping their identity persisted into the twentieth century.

The current domestic discussion on the “bright moments in our history” and an increased demand for a heroic concept of nation building through stories of “freedom fighters” is a new development in Czech identity.[12] The national hero argument did not escape the notice of our narrators. All too often typical Czechs are now depicted as “little,” evasive anti-heroes.

After 1968 civil society began to crumble. Once again it satisfied only the most elementary needs. Having banded together, a vegetable seller, a butcher, a doctor, or a plumber could ensure at least some basic security in the harsh world. A symbol of all that security was a well-stocked fridge. (Petr Pithart, born 1941, lawyer and political scientist, former Prime Minister of Czech Republic)

Oldřich Tůma, director of the Institute for Contemporary History, said in 2010, “I would not have expected ten years ago that there would be such pressure from the media and some of our political representatives for us to have heroes; for everything to be clear, black and white; and for an unequivocal interpretation of the past to be something binding, a point that we must reach.”[13] A heroic narrative, though understandable from an identity-building point of view, also has a dark side. What if Czechs fall short of fulfilling it? As the psychologist, sociologist, and philosopher Erich Fromm put it:

We admire these heroes because we deeply feel their way is the way we would want to be—if we could. But being afraid, we believe that we cannot be that way, that only the heroes can. The heroes become idols; we transfer to them our own capacity to move, and then stay where we are—“because we are not heroes.”

This discussion might seem to imply that while being a hero is desirable, it is foolish and against one’s self-interest. Not so, by any means. The cautious, the having persons enjoy security, yet by necessity they are very insecure. They depend on what they have: money, prestige, their ego—that is to say, on something outside themselves. … Because I can lose what I have, I am necessarily constantly worried that I shall lose what I have. I am afraid of thieves, of economic changes, of revolutions, of sickness, of death, and I am afraid of love, of freedom, of growth, of change, of the unknown.[14]

A more common view of the “little Czechs” sees them as the builders of a nation that has survived three centuries of foreign oppression thanks to their adaptability. The stories of these ordinary people elicit an empathy that arouses feelings of belonging to and equality within a national community. Yet nobody seems to notice the irony that the “grand” national history is based mainly on these ideal “little Czechs.” Furthermore, when asked in a field survey “Just who actually is this ‘little Czech’?,” the respondents replied that it was the majority of Czechs, perhaps as many as 99 percent.[15]

A useful, comparative perspective on freedom in socialist Czechoslovak society comes from Western Europeans who came to live in Czechoslovakia before 1989. They show us a much more diverse view of the Czech reality, before and after November 1989. They don’t describe or remember Czechoslovak citizens in black-and-white terms: either as scared collaborators or and valiant heroes. The critical insight of the foreigners was made possible primarily by the fact that they were free people themselves; they came from a different political environment, so they were able to compare and were used not only to expressing their opinions but also to defending them. And if worse came to worst, they were always free to leave.

Most Western Europeans agreed that they disliked the hypocrisy of those Czechs who said one thing in public and something else in private. They felt the lack of certain civil liberties, and the most depressing thing for them was the impossibility of travelling abroad or even leaving the country. On the other hand, in hindsight, they had reservations about some descriptions of the socialist reality, such as the widespread ownership of summer homes.

I can’t for my life endorse the exclamation of Milan Knížák [a prominent figure of the Czech underground, later Minister of Culture] that Czechoslovakia was like a concentration camp. No, I would have never saw it like that. I saw people who were able to live their private lives in idyllic wellbeing albeit limited by the circumstances. They didn’t want anything more. On the other hand, if you don’t have any “concentration camps,” neither do you have all those people who would take a stand in favor of high ideals; they just look after their own little happiness … Now, as regards the often ridiculed phenomenon of summer homes, well, I don’t know. I was quite surprised because people in Western Europe couldn’t afford anything like that. Real estate and construction lots were so expensive that ordinary workers, artisans, petty officials, or teachers could never afford a second home. (Jürgen Ostmeyer, born 1945, German citizen living in Prague, translator)

The reflections of Hilkka Lindroos, a Finnish woman who came to live in Czechoslovakia as a student in 1965 and who later became a professor in Prague, takes us a bit deeper:

If you did what you were expected to and played by the rules, you could be content, and no one pestered you. People here lived in peace—especially those who didn’t need personal freedom, who didn’t need to express themselves on some issue, and who were happy enough to have their TV series and their recreation centers. They didn’t need anything more and never complained, but then there was another substantial group of people who were not satisfied so easily. I think that what was missing here was some sort of fundamental freedom. (Hilkka Lindroos, born 1940, university lecturer)

There Is a Beautiful Wide World Out There, Or a Ban on Travel

I have a memory of sitting on a hill in Mikulov, me and my children. We were looking across the border to Austria, and there was a Way of the Cross, some white rocks or stones, and it made me so sad because I knew I’d never get there. My kids were looking in that direction, but they were too little to ask, “What’s over there? Why can’t we go there?” (Jan Havrda, born 1946, fireman)

It was our first visit to the West, my wife’s and mine. That was at Christmastime in 1989, and at last I had just been given a passport. I went to Gmünd—it’s just across the border. When I got to the border I was about to show off my passport to the customs officer, but he just smiled and waved his hand, like go ahead. I felt in rapture and completely moved because I suddenly felt I was free. It was such a wonderful feeling. (Karel Benetka, born 1938, visual artist)

Streams of buses and cars crossing the borders became a symbol of the return of Czechoslovakia to the free world after the Velvet Revolution. Several generations of people who had been forced to sacrifice their personal desires to the “interests of the state” could at last travel freely not only to Western Europe but around the globe. But travel was not necessarily easy. Travel (especially to the West) entailed obtaining a travel permit and a foreign currency voucher. A travel permit was a document without which it was impossible to leave Czechoslovakia (except to other Eastern-Bloc countries). Obtaining a travel permit was a complex bureaucratic process. The application had to be approved by a number of institutions, such as the committee of the Communist Party at the person’s workplace, the director of their school, or the street committee of the Communist Party. In large enterprises, the approval of the travel permit was handled by the department for special affairs. The regime frequently denied travel permits to prevent citizens from travelling abroad despite possession of a valid passport. A foreign currency voucher was a written authorization issued by the Czechoslovak State Bank to exchange a limited amount of Czechoslovak crowns for foreign currency. But even these documents did not guarantee permission to leave. The same regime that granted the foreign currency voucher could cancel the trip under any pretext at the very last moment. Citizens who were labeled politically unreliable could only dream of travelling abroad, and after trying repeatedly, most of them finally gave up.

Those who had the opportunity to travel still remember the hurdles:

Well, of course, we needed travel permits, you know. But the foreign currency voucher, that was something else. You could get one only if you weren’t totally politically undesirable and already had some foreign currency, so your trip was covered. But I didn’t have any foreign currency, so I could never get a foreign currency voucher. I asked for it maybe three times, but they weren’t favorably inclined toward me… But there was another way, and that was travelling with a travel agency, with Čedok. That was an organization that actually obtained some amount of foreign currency for people and then organized the trip, and it was all settled. That way it worked. So I didn’t need to ask for a foreign currency voucher for myself because everything was arranged by Čedok. At that time, it was the only travel agency in Czechoslovakia that could organize any worthwhile trips. (Herbert Kisza, born 1943, academic painter)

For many people, travel agencies became the only way to see the world. However, as the painter and sculptor Herbert Kisza added later in the interview, most Czechs could not afford a foreign holiday outside the socialist bloc. He himself added that he had to save a whole year for a trip that was to last perhaps a month, but also that as a painter he earned more than was customary in Czechoslovakia at that time. To him, the only obstacle to travel was the many hours he had to stand in queues to buy the trip.

In 1968 and 1969, and then again in the late 1980s, there was a unique opportunity to travel without a foreign currency voucher.

And I had the opportunity to travel abroad in 1969. In 1968 and 1969 there was an exception: a person didn’t need a foreign currency voucher. All you needed was a notarized invitation from someone who lived abroad, stating that they were inviting you and would take care of you. In that case, you were given just five dollars—which really wasn’t very much—as pocket change, and you could leave. No matter how long you actually stayed and what you did there. Of course, then a lot more people were able to travel than when they were required to have all those dollars to cover the whole time of their stay abroad. (Ludmila Mesteková, born 1952, librarian and editor)

Just as many others who were able to travel abroad in 1968 and 1969, this narrator also considered the possibility of staying abroad.

I was in France then, and I was really having a wonderful time because it was still the case then that people felt really sorry for us because we were under Russian occupation, and so Czechs and Slovaks were really welcomed with open arms … In their letters, my parents said quite openly that if I wanted to stay there, then I should; I shouldn’t worry about them. But then I told myself: “Why should I stay? I haven’t even finished high school yet. I’ll come back in a year, and then I’ll stay here. It doesn’t make any sense to do so now.” So I returned to Czechoslovakia, and on 1 October 1969 the borders were closed, and nobody could go anywhere. (Ludmila Mesteková, born 1952, librarian and editor)

Many people who eventually decided to remain in Czechoslovakia cited homesickness and longing for their families, strong ties to their homeland, and fear of the unknown.

My husband and I were not the type of people who would be able to emigrate. We were both very firmly rooted in Czechoslovakia; we had our families, our home, our friends over here. We didn’t leave, although we did have some chances, and we did consider doing it. Like when we were coming home through Austria. You cross the border to Mikulov, and really the kind of welcome you get are machine guns, right? (Blanka Štráchalová, born 1944, kindergarten teacher)

Other motivations people gave for staying in Czechoslovakia came from a disabled doctor:

Of course, I was thinking about emigration, most of all when the armies came in 1968. My wife wanted to. But how could I just leave everything? What about the Prague Castle: wouldn’t I miss that? And I also had some personal misgivings, because I had no experience of foreign countries. And, I confess, that what also weighed maybe about 50 percent on my decision was that I was afraid to go to live abroad because I was handicapped. I was afraid because I kept wondering, what if I don’t get any job? The propaganda image of capitalism as an inhuman regime just keeps gnawing at you… I remember how they told us on the radio that when you’re driving along the motorway in Germany, it’s impossible to get off it because it’s all private property; all forests are fenced in, so nobody’s allowed to go into the woods. It took me a long time to understand that this is actually to protect wildlife and in fact also the motorway itself. … And you heard such nonsense all the time. They’d tell you there weren’t any people in the shops because they couldn’t afford to go shopping. What they didn’t tell you was that there were no queues because there were so many shops and everything was so easy to get. (Václav Smetana, born 1934, orthopedist)

The Communist regime’s negative picture of the West succeeded in frightening people, who, regardless of age or education, were susceptible to the propaganda.[16]

Fear of the consequences for family members left behind also discouraged emigration. Family members who stayed behind in Czechoslovakia would be subjected to closer scrutiny and persecution, and any property they held belonging to the émigré could be confiscated. It was common for the secret police to read letters sent from abroad. Former Czechoslovak citizens were not permitted to attend the funerals of their parents or siblings, even though they held a valid passport from one of the Western countries. Yet despite these drawbacks, several hundred thousand people decided to emigrate, and the overwhelming majority of them rejected the Communist regime’s invitation to return.[17]

There was also, of course, a large group of Czechoslovakians who virtually never travelled, who were not attracted by foreign countries—not even other socialist countries, most of which were easy to visit. Members of this group never considered emigration at all.

We weren’t part of the social circles of those who knew how people lived abroad. We just accepted that things had to be the way they were, and that was it. Maybe people in the upper classes had access to information from other sources about life in other countries. We had never been anywhere, had never seen anything, and so we just thought that’s the way it was and had to be. (Ž. M., born 1947, rehabilitation nurse)

I would say that in those times I was used to living that way. I had never known any other life. I’ve never travelled abroad, so I don’t know. (U. M., born 1946, miner)

These people had no idea what life in a free society might be like, nor did they realize that their personal freedoms were limited. As with freedom of speech and free access to information, most people got used to the real-socialist standard, and did not want to be bothered with something they (in their own words) were not able to influence. These people were the most susceptible to state propaganda and ideological manipulation.

Employees of foreign-trade enterprises were better equipped to compare standards abroad with those at home. They recognized that they were privileged then and remain so today. And they knew all too well what they would be missing.

It’s clear that travelling enriches people a great deal. Just seeing other countries, experiencing a different mentality, meeting different people. I think one gained an awful lot by traveling—a unique experience. (Pavel Šimek, born 1948, foreign trade worker)

Another of our privileged narrators experienced a paradoxical sense of freedom within non-freedom.

I remember sitting on a plane from Tunis to Zurich, telling myself I’m a totally free man. I’m flying Lufthansa alongside other free people, and I don’t have to worry about the Czech person next to me being a secret police informer. I’m just sitting in a comfortable plane. How elegant, you know? … But then I suddenly realized that even with all those privileges, I was not actually free; that it always took an enormous effort and strain to find a good pretext to be allowed to go on a business trip. … And I was outraged that the people sitting beside me on the subway didn’t have this kind of privilege; they just couldn’t imagine how tidy, happy, clean, prosperous, and free the West was. (Václav Baloun, born 1946, foreign trade worker)

These kinds of memories are typical for Czechoslovak people who were lucky enough to travel to the West. They relished the journey and took it all in.

Sparks of Freedom: Aromas, Colors, Tidiness, and Consumer Goods

Narrators who travelled outside Czechoslovakia were fascinated by the aromas, colors, and lights in Western Europe, which some described in great detail. They also remembered being amazed by the cleanliness of towns and villages.

My wife would always say as we were crossing the border from Austria back here, “It’s like returning to the moon.” In Austria, everything was tidy, and lights were on everywhere. The first thing to welcome us back to Czechoslovakia was that filthy mess in toilets that you could barely bring yourself to use. Everything was dirty, roads were bad, snack bars and restaurants were all closed. All the lights were off, so the difference was really striking. (Michael Bloch, born 1945, foreign trade worker)

At the strike of six in the evening, Czechoslovak shops would close, and virtually the whole country would sink into darkness, except for bars and restaurants that remained open until ten. Unsurprisingly, Czech and Slovak tourists associated the West with functional and abundant light at every turn, streetlamps along roads and park paths, shop window displays, spot-lit monuments, brightly lit gas stations, and so on. When Czechs and Slovaks, accustomed to the bleakness of their own hometowns, travelled to the West, or even, as one of our narrators pointed out, observed the West from a distance, they encountered a new reality, experienced something like a “light shock.”

In the crisis years [1968–1969], for a short time we could go all the way up to the border, right up to the foot of Čerchov Hill, and I know we got up to the border once one evening. And I suddenly saw that there was an awful lot of light on the other side. I could see that over there it wasn’t at all some no man’s land with a couple of pitiful little dim lights like we had here in Folmava, and a few abandoned houses. And I said to myself, never in my whole life will I be able to talk to those people over there. It was kind of a bad feeling. (Jaroslava Wollerová, born 1947, secondary school teacher)

We got to the first town in Bavaria. What a shock: everything in Czechoslovakia was grey and colorless, without any bright colors. And now suddenly those colors and lights in Germany. I was just thrilled. My mother even said she couldn’t go shopping in their malls because her eyes hurt from the lights. Everything was so full of color, and here we just weren’t used to it. (Gertruda Schneiderová, born 1935, textile worker)

Another shock to tourists from Czechoslovakia was the cleanliness they found in towns and villages, which stood in stark contrast to the conditions at home. The revelation of this cleanliness, and especially the discovery that this was the everyday state of affairs and not some Potemkin village, aroused surprise and wonder.

We were in Switzerland. Beautiful. A beautiful country, clean, and so very … you never saw anybody toss a paper or a cigarette butt on the street or any weeds growing anywhere. Our bus was driving along the road, and you just couldn’t see any weeds anywhere. The lawns were perfectly mown, and the country was so tidy. I’d never seen anything like that. (Viluše Mückeová, born 1928, butcher)

It is no surprise that many travellers found it difficult to return, or that many of those who did return suffered from depression. In that respect, they were probably worse off than those who had never seen the West and knew it only through official Communist propaganda. World travellers experienced a second wave of dejection when they realized that the main difference lay in the people: that wherever there was an owner, there was also responsibility and tidiness. The Communist state made travelling abroad as difficult as possible in an attempt to keep the Czech and Slovak people in ignorance of this forbidden fruit. To ensure that people were “protected,” the regime fenced the borders with barbed wire.

Along with cleanliness, color, and light, what also attracted our tourists to the West was the consumer goods—a material dimension of prosperity totally unknown in Czechoslovakia. Many recalled the distinctive aromas of Western shops and the packaging of their products. Many said that that “Western smell” was etched so deeply into their brains that it did not disappear until the late 1990s, when they could experience the same aromas in Czech shops and supermarkets.

As soon as travellers had crossed the border, usually in the first little town, they issued their own report cards on the “camp of peace and socialism”:

It was terrible. In the very first village somewhere near Schirdingen, we looked out of the train window, and there were stalls with vegetables, and what vegetables! Cauliflower and everything so clean, as though they’d just washed it; clean potatoes, several varieties; bananas hanging in heavy bunches. And that was my first shock because in Czechoslovakia there were no fruit or vegetables. You could buy onions, potatoes, in summer perhaps apples or pears … Why even talk about it? It made me so upset because I like vegetables. That was the first shock, and then those fabrics. … I used to be a dressmaker, and my husband worked as an electrician. I always had to distract him [from Western lighting and electronics], or else he’d have a stroke. (Gertruda Schneiderová, born 1935, textile worker)

Despite their fascination with the Western standard of living, the dark side of advanced capitalism was not lost on these travellers:

In Munich, we also slept in cars, not far from the Olympic stadium where the rich guys would bring their girls. This kind of scared us, just as the lack of safety in the Spanish quarter of the city. That looked kind of weird to us too. The poverty, you know, a bit different from home. The dark side of capitalism. We had not heard much about that, you see. We had painted a flawless picture in our minds. Well, we bought various video and audio equipment, and when we came back, they made us take everything out at the border. They priced everything up, and we paid so much duty that it was hardly worth it. So it was a pretty rough return to the good old peaceful real socialism. (Bohumil Hruška, born 1952, fireman)

I was lucky enough to travel outside Czechoslovakia once. That was in 1982, and I went to France, England, and Holland. And on those trips I noticed somehow that not all those people had jobs, and some of them didn’t have much social security, if that was something you were conscious of back then. Things never got that bad in Czechoslovakia, and you were glad of it even though we didn’t have many other things there. (Albín Novák, born 1951, fireman)

The narrators undoubtedly viewed these shortcomings in light of present-day Czech unemployment, homelessness, poverty, and ghettoization, though it is possible that some had been troubled even back then by what they had seen.

In the eyes of the public (including our narrators), the opportunity to travel is one of the main differences between life before and after the Velvet Revolution. Yet many disappointed narrators told us that, even though they were free to travel wherever they wanted, they do not have the necessary financial means. Before 1989, it was mainly supporters and protégés of the regime who could travel; now it’s only those who can afford it.

Today, if you want to travel, you can, provided you have the money. But the average person has to be very careful with money. Most retirees have very little opportunity as compared to retirees in Austria, Germany, or the US. (K. A., born 1940, worker in electro-technical industry)

Each system has its frustrations: limited opportunities to travel in a society bound by political regulations, ideology, and propaganda; or unlimited choices that are beyond the budgets of most people in a society bound by economic uncertainty. As our narrators reveal, it all depends on the individual and his or her needs and preferences.

Information and Freedom of Speech

The second most frequently mentioned restriction on freedom in our interviews was the limitation on speech and the right to unbiased information.[18] As freedom of speech and accessible information diminished in Czechoslovakia, there was a corresponding increase in propaganda.

Well, it’s terrible what we’re finding out now from books and TV … Those were terrible times. The way they lied to us, and we believed them. But why should I get all worked up about it? It just makes my blood pressure go up. (Ž. M., born 1947, rehabilitation nurse)

The state propaganda deliberately spread false information, bowing first and foremost to Marxist–Leninist ideology.

Of course, the most vociferous among [the media] was Rudé právo [a daily newspaper appearing under the patronage of the Communist Party Central Committee], but all the other newspapers too, like the Socialist Party’s Svobodné slovo or the People’s Party’s Lidová demokracie—they all parroted the same stuff. So if one didn’t have any information from the other side, they didn’t know anything. Because when they started talking about Havel for the first time—I can remember that very clearly—… they first talked about his curriculum vitae and his background, including things like that he worked at a brewery and drove to work in a Mercedes. That’s some information! That may or may not have been true, and you may interpret it as you like. This was what they said, though… Just take the fact that people like me, but others too, never had the chance to read any of those opposition pamphlets that were being condemned in the official press. Who actually read “Několik vět?” [“A Few Sentences,” an anti-regime petition issued in the summer of 1989].[19] Well, yes, “Dva tisíce slov” [“Two Thousand Words” manifesto, a civic petition issued in spring 1968, written by Czech reformer Ludvík Vaculík][20] I did read. It was published in 1968. At that time it was still possible to publish it. But “Několik vět” never appeared in print. Who read the Charter 77 declaration [a document of January 1977 in support of the arrested members of the Czech underground group Plastic People of the Universe]? It was impossible to put your hands on. (Vladimír Vaněk, born 1951, worker in the Technical Division of the Ministry of Interior)

In addition to the sophisticated propaganda machine, the Central Management of Press Supervision[21] (from 1953) saw to it that only the “correct” kind of information was being published. The media were expected to provide information exhibiting “class consciousness and [written] in the historical interest of the working class in view of the development of socialist society.”[22] In practice, this meant not only labeling any information that went against the ruling ideology, but also, “just to be on the safe side,” not publishing it at all. The life stories of our narrators reflect such practices. Some of them considered the official, publicly available information to be biased or at least inaccurate, while others labeled it as downright useless.[23]

I’ll never forget how I wanted to learn something from a newspaper, and in spite of the maximum concentration and determination, I was unable to read more than half a page. Nothing but rubbish, no news at all. (H. D., born 1946, doctor-rehabilitation specialist)

News coverage was miserable, and the level of language, alas, wasn’t any better. It was indeed the language of the 1950s, and I must say that even today you can see it again sometimes in certain speeches or news articles. It makes me kind of sad. But at times, it was funny in a way. The press was devoid of information, but at least you could have a good laugh. What always amused me most were articles like “The Usurpers and the Losers,” as the Communist press nicknamed Charter 77 [signatories]. (Jiří Štěrba, born 1944, technical college teacher)

The general scarcity of information and the lack of any way to compare information from various sources, gradually led most people to believe what they read in the official sources. Others shunned officially distributed information to the extent that they became immune to propaganda. And still others were not interested in politics at all and acknowledged this in the interviews as a handicap.

Well, we only learned what they wanted us to know. We had no chance of finding out how people lived in other countries, so we thought that life here as it was presented to us was all right. (Ž. M., born 1947, female rehabilitation nurse)

Almost every other narrator said that during normalization they came into contact with foreign media and could thus compare. People listened both to political commentaries and to popular music from the West.[24] That people listened to foreign radio stations before 1989 did not escape the attention of the Central Committee of the Communist Party. Its Institute for Public Opinion Research monitored the Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, the BBC, Deutschlandfunk, and Vatican Radio, and their “ideological subversion” of socialist Czechoslovakia, and polled citizens about their listening habits. It is of course difficult to evaluate the polls of a politically motivated entity, but even the government found that the number of people who listened to foreign media proved to be higher than expected: in an average week, about a third of the entire population listened to the news of those “seditious radio stations” as they were labeled by the Communist propaganda.[25] Even some of the leading figures and officials of the Communist regime now confess that they listened to Western radio stations. All listeners could compare the views spread through the official channels with those of the independent foreign media.

Of course, I’ve always formed my own opinion on everything. Sometimes, too, I would listen to Radio Free Europe, because we’d always listen to it in my family. So I had my own opinion, and that way I never let myself be influenced one way or another by politics. (Jan Hrdina, born 1943, construction engineer)

Yes, I could get foreign TV channels: ARD [from Germany], but not very often, although I had a good signal. And, of course, because I’m into rock music, which was then called the “big beat,” we searched out the latest hits. Where else but on Radio Free Europe? When I was buying my first transistor radio, I judged its quality by whether I’d be able to get a good signal from Radio Free Europe or not. Even so, there were problems because radio stations of that sort were jammed. I was happy I was able to listen to that music, and another important thing was that I could tune in to, I’d say, ideologically unbiased news programs. So it helped us to be better informed as we were discovering that what the official media said was not true. (Václav Janoščík, born 1950, lawyer)

Researchers at the Institute for Public Opinion Research also asked respondents to compare Czechoslovak and foreign news media, and found that only a fifth or at most a fourth of the respondents saw domestic media in a clearly positive light.[26] The memories of our narrators confirm the ratio observed by the Institute.

I didn’t believe our media, so I listened to Radio Free Europe every day. And that was … I’m not sure what year I started listening to it, but it was when Václav Havel, whose name I had never heard of before, wrote a letter to President Husák [1975]. There was a terrible uproar in the state. How dare some Havel write a letter to Husák himself? But nobody told us what was in it. The same thing happened with Charter 77: [it] was simply condemned, denounced by congress delegates. [They said] that it was all nonsense. And the names [the signatories] were being called: traitors, renegades, rabble. They would always put some old cooperative farmer in front of the camera and ask him, now, what do you think about that Charter? Well, we call them rabble. But nobody knew what was in it. I did, because I was already listening to Radio Free Europe, and I started listening to it because of that Havel guy. I wanted to know what was in that letter. So I listened to Radio Free Europe every day, even in bed. They repeated their programs several times a day. The most important one was called “Events and Opinions.” They repeated it perhaps four times in a day. So I didn’t believe our domestic radio stations when it came to politics. (Jaromír Šebek, born 1950, electrician)

I always climbed into the tub, set the radio on one edge, an ashtray on the other, and I listened along with my oldest son. We roared with laughter and joy as we listened to the sarcastic comments, and we threw in comments of our own. We’d say, just wait and see what they’ll say on our news in an hour. And on the official news they always said what we had expected. Naturally, it was always something different than on Radio Free Europe or Voice of America. But I also told myself to distrust everything. Maybe they’re not telling you everything, either, so the truth might be somewhere in between. But one thing we can say for sure is that the Communists were in the wrong. (Jiří Štěrba, born 1944, technical college teacher)

In these testimonies, we can observe not simply acceptance of opinions “from the other side,” but also the willingness to evaluate critically and compare all available information, regardless of its source.

In the next part of the same interview, Jiří Štěrba criticizes fellow citizens who, in hindsight, connected their own desire to be heroes with listening to foreign radio stations (a narrative typical of our interviews).

Today, some people say that their resistance was listening to foreign radio stations, but of course that was no resistance. It’s again the same thing as if somebody said during the war, “I butchered a pig illegally to sabotage the German Reich.” (Jiří Štěrba, born 1944, technical college teacher)

Thanks to foreign radio programs, people were able to access all kinds of information not covered by the official Communist media, including the activity of Czechoslovak dissidents, people who risked persecution, and sometimes even imprisonment, in the name of human rights. News about the dissidents reached Czechs and Slovaks mainly through foreign news media and only later by the Communist regime through propaganda that turned out to be counterproductive. Dissidents themselves came in third in disseminating their ideas.

Independent media and the dissidents they covered not only drew attention to civil rights violations but also delivered vital information, such as news of the disaster in the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in 1986.

Everything was distorted—the same story on the TV, on the radio, in the newspapers. There was censorship everywhere. The regime tried to cover up everything; so about things like Chernobyl we learned absolutely nothing. (K. A., born 1940, worker in electro-technical industry)

The Chernobyl accident and domestic media’s woefully inadequate provision of information naturally inspired people to listen to foreign radio stations in even greater numbers (in April and May 1986, as many as 40 percent of Czechs and Slovaks tuned in to foreign radio stations).[27] The information that Czechoslovak citizens received from Western media not only aroused concerns about Chernobyl but also destroyed any last remnants of trust that average citizens might have still had in their government. The knowledge that “they”—the Communist Party and the power establishment—were lying to “us”—the citizens—about the nuclear power plant accident led people to conclude that they were being kept in the dark by the official authorities about all sorts of things. Many narrators remembered the Chernobyl accident as a turning point in destroying their trust in the media and its then-fashionable proclamations about perestroika. People tried harder to obtain information for themselves, even from illegal sources. As people discovered information about the disastrous state of the environment in Czechoslovakia in the 1980s and uncovered other issues that endangered their health and lives, they perceived the official policy of concealing information as much more blatantly irresponsible than ever before.

People looked forward to the collapse of Communism with hopes of regaining freedom of speech and access to unbiased information. Indeed, after the Velvet Revolution, much has changed for the better. Czechs are not afraid to express their opinions and have easy access to information—sometimes so much that we cannot cope with it.

We do have freedom, but nobody listens to us. (Jaroslava Krudencová, born 1952, worker in a data center)

We have the same kind of freedom as we’ve always had: you can always complain, but it doesn’t do any good if you don’t have enough money or the right connections. And it’s very hard to get any justice. (Jaroslav Hille, born 1937, glass worker)

People were also partly disappointed with the media, in which they had placed their hopes for a better future. After 1989, Czech society witnessed a general boom in publishing; new radio and TV stations were being launched; and electronic media started to be developed. On the surface, the world of the media had changed, but fundamentally the political dictatorship was largely replaced by an economic dictatorship, especially in the case of the print media. Information has become a commodity, such that only the public service media remain independent, although they too have problems in reporting some news and are criticized for being slanted and unprofessional.

Our narrators expressed bitterness over the fact that the media did not become fully independent and unbiased, but instead just went from serving special political interests to serving special economic interests, which can in some cases again become covertly political ones. Publishers support only those views that conform to the profile of their specific print or electronic publication. Narrators frequently mentioned the lack of professionalism and the absence of writers and publicists committed to serious journalism.

These journalists don’t believe they need any qualifications to do their job. There are people there who clearly don’t understand their craft at all and don’t reckon they need to be educated in it. (Milan Bažant, born 1944, manager in optical industry)

Unfortunately, the Czech media have become a kind of mouthpiece for the interests of their owners and have given up on any kind of journalistic ethics and independence. Some people in the media unfortunately have the feeling their role is not to describe society and protect it from excesses but to change it. (Jaroslav Sedláček, born 1937, executive in a spa)

In today’s society, the prevailing economic worldview has taken over. Admittedly, the critics of this mainstream are no longer considered dissidents, but the space to promote their alternative views is constricted. The basic freedom of speech and right to information are unquestionable steps forward. However, independent critical evaluation and assessment of new information are missing from the public debate.

Freedom of Religion

On an international scale, Czechs are considered one of the most secular nations. Compared with citizens in the neighboring states, far fewer Czechs regard themselves as adherents to a traditional religion or church. In a survey conducted in 2007 by the Center for Empirical Research,[28] 28 percent of the respondents said they believed in God, whereas 48 percent considered themselves atheists. Only 18 percent of Czechs younger than 29 said they believed in God.[29] These results also correspond to the survey conducted by the Center for Public Opinion Research in May 2007, in which 55 percent of Czechs expressed their mistrust of churches, while only 28 percent claimed they trusted them.[30] In the Czech Republic, the mistrust of traditional religious institutions prevails, much more so than in Slovakia. This mistrust may stem from the Czech national character, but more likely it has been induced by historical experience.

The Catholic priest Tomáš Halík does not consider Czechs to be atheists but rather “something-ists”—people who believe in something, but who do not need to articulate that “something” in any way. They want to form their own ways of worship, choosing a forest perhaps rather than a church. “That means Czechs are skeptical about churches, rather than God, and that’s something different. It has deep historical roots.”[31] Catholicism imposed by the much hated Austro-Hungarian Empire, the disastrous (and nominally Catholic) Second Republic, the horrors of World War II, and the anti-religious propaganda and absolute exclusion of churches from social life during the normalization period (1968 to 1989) are only a few of the crises that religious Czechs have endured. The philosopher Erazim Kohák explains their impact:

Whenever you change someone’s faith violently, whether it is religious faith, such as after the Battle of White Mountain [the first conflict in the Thirty Years War between the Catholic League and Protestant Union] or political faith in modern times, you always succeed in uprooting the old faith. Of course, afterwards, it is very difficult to instill a new faith. If the new faith is not to be a superstition, if it is to be a living faith, you can’t dictate it; it has to grow spontaneously in people. And constant uprooting doesn’t promote that.[32]

Our interviews seem to support this idea:

When it comes to one’s relationship with God, I can compare. For fifteen years, I worked as a church minister in Switzerland, and now I’m back here. In this country, there are more “seekers of God,” people who educate themselves in religion, who read and think about these matters but have no definite affiliation. The environment is, however, much less traditional than in Switzerland, and it is precisely these God-seekers who add a special charm to the whole thing. You might have some two hundred members of the Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren at a service, and then another set of two hundred people, perhaps students, to top it off. They will come, meditate, and look for their own spiritual way without getting formally involved … (TV interview with ex-dissident and evangelic pastor, Svatopluk Karásek)[33]

Practicing believers recalled the discomfort or downright persecution in the Communist era:

My problem was that I went to church, and somebody reported it at the hospital where I worked. Usually, I’d sit in the sacristy where there was a little stool prepared for me; I didn’t want to run into other people who would know I was going to church. So I wouldn’t ruffle any feathers. But still somebody reported it at the hospital. My boss called me into his office and inquired why it was necessary for me to go to church. And I told him, other people go to pubs and drink, and nobody harasses them about that. I’m not doing any harm by going to church. This was how I explained it, and after that he left me alone. (Ž. M., born 1947, rehabilitation nurse)

Other narrators described similar situations, but not all of them ended up in agreement between the boss and the believer. Teachers were among those who had to renounce their faith (or at least not confess it openly) if they wanted to be left in peace.

At that time, it was impossible to be both a teacher and a church member, and this was exactly my case. This meant that I was in for it, and so were my colleagues. The principal was quite kind, and he spoke to us decently: “Come on now, comrade, let’s talk. What do you say? You yourself know you teach natural science, and there isn’t any God.” What can I say? “You graduated from a university. Why are you in that church? And why don’t you leave it?” And my answer always was: “Please, not right now. I’m used to it, and it’s for the sake of my family, too, that I still want to belong to the Roman Catholic Church. And I’d rather not change.”[34]

The principal called her in week after week, until a year later our narrator could not bear it anymore and went to her priest to ask him what to do.

Well, the priest told me to do what they asked me to do. He said, it’s not like I was really leaving the church, because inside I was convinced of something completely different from what was written on paper. So I announced to the principal that, on such and such day, I was renouncing the “obscurantist and unacceptable theory and scientifically erroneous opinion.”[35]

Another narrator kept his faith to himself after watching a classmate endure the ridicule of his teacher and classmates.

I had a traumatic experience when I was in the fourth grade. I think it was in a book that we were reading that somebody was praying or something like that. I remember my teacher asked us with her voice full of contempt if any of us prayed, too. … [O]‌ne of my classmates announced that she prayed with her grandmother, and the teacher taunted her in front of the whole class. And I remember, at first, I had intended to raise my hand too, but the moment the teacher started to ridicule the whole thing and humiliated the girl so badly, I changed my mind. Afterwards, I felt such remorse for renouncing my faith. (Oldřich Kvasnička, born 1967, high school and university student)

Children attending classes in religion had trouble gaining admission to secondary schools.

There started to be pressure on children not to attend religion classes and on their parents not to instruct them in religion. The threat was always hanging over their heads: they won’t get into schools. And as we, who lived in the country, saw it, not getting into a school meant they wouldn’t have access to a better life. (Libor Fučík, born 1960, livestock specialist)

As a young girl, one narrator wished to become a nurse. But her church attendance collided with the official stance of the regime.

I wanted badly to become a nurse, but seeing that back then, I mean before 1968, you needed written references from school, anyone going to school whose parents weren’t in the Party, [or] anyone who went to church, which was my case, [would not get references]. … I didn’t have any chance of going to college; I could only get vocational training. No matter how great your grades were, it didn’t help. (Ludmila Čížová, born 1947, lathe operator)

She never did make it into the nursing school and instead pursued an apprenticeship to become a lathe operator that separated her from her family for years.

So I apprenticed in engineering, and I commuted from a boarding house. These were hard times, because my parents didn’t have enough money to pay for my room and board, but they knew it would be a shame if I didn’t finish that school. And for the rest of [their lives], I tried to let them know how thankful I was and how much I appreciated their sacrifice, because at that time I cost them 330 crowns a month, which was a lot in those years. (Ludmila Čížová, born 1947, lathe operator)

These injustices were not as harsh as those experienced in the 1950s, when priests were imprisoned and citizens forbidden from practicing their faith at all. But even during normalization, especially in the 1970s, believers were bullied (for wearing crosses around their necks, for instance) or denounced for attending church services.

Although nonbelievers were not affected by restrictions on religious life, they were nevertheless aware of them.

Well, it was a problem. There were all sorts of favoritism, and on the other hand, people said that churchgoers had no chance of getting into college. Luckily for us, we weren’t affected. (K. A., born 1940, worker in electro-technical industry)

Well, there were all sorts of restrictions, regarding religion and religious belief, for example. Religion was banned, and that was not right, but such were the times. Perhaps times will change again, and something else will be banned. (K. A., born 1940, worker in electro-technical industry)

Even defenders of the Communist regime usually agreed that restrictions on religious freedom were a “defect of the Communist regime.”

After November 1989, freedom of religion, guaranteed by the Constitution,[36] represented a significant turning point in people’s lives and a move towards a democratic society. In the first years of Czechoslovak democracy, the numbers of registered believers, clergy, churches, and chapels had increased, as documented by the census data of 1991 and 2001. But registration declined sharply after that,[37] as our narrators also attest.

After the revolution, that was some change, that freedom … you could go to church without any problems! Wasn’t that something! Churches were full! But today, there’s a decline. Only a few people go to church regularly. The others come at Christmas and Easter, if they do so at all. (Ž. J., born 1945, worker in metallurgical industry)

Another narrator who attended church during normalization indicated some resentment against the “new believers”:

After 1989, we suddenly had freedom, and an influx of new people in church! But there were some among us who weren’t so enthusiastic and said: “These new ones have practiced and believed something different all their lives, and now when it’s so easy, will they change their ways?” And our priests would tell us that we who had been taking the risk should welcome these newcomers because they too are free people. But some of us still had the feeling that these people had just turned their coats. Well, they’ve probably left by now, anyway. (Ž. M., born 1947, rehabilitation nurse)

Other European churches are also seeing a decline in membership, but the Czech situation may have its own unique reasons, including traditional religious indifference, an unpopular legal fight for the restitution of church property and real estate, and the legacy of de-Christianization established in the 1950s.

To some narrators, the purpose of church is not clear. Some Czechs wonder how much churches differ from gardeners’ associations at this point. But sometimes even sworn atheists admit that faith can have a liberating power.

There are moments in which I’d love to believe, and I keep saying to myself that those people who have faith of any kind are much better off because, when they get into trouble, they know where to go and ask for help. But I don’t have this. I’m simply not a believer, so when some hard times came my way, I had to cope with that all by myself, and I didn’t have anybody to turn to. So I’ve often told myself, maybe I would have had an easier life if I had been a believer. But that’s how things are with me and my belief. (Milan Honzík, born 1938, lower-level executive in a chemical plant)

As before, every Czech perceives religion in a different way. But the newly acquired freedom of religion means that no one way is “correct” anymore.

Is Freedom Just for the Rich? Are Czechs Happier?

After the [regime] change in 1989, everything has definitely become more interesting, more colorful. People have many more opportunities and freedoms, including the possibility of living abroad, especially in the European Union. They don’t have to ask anybody; they’re not beholden to an army of bureaucrats. In general, I see it as a great victory that the old regime has collapsed. In spite of all the problems, it is still a tremendous triumph, especially for young people who of course have no way of comparing, so they can’t fully appreciate it. They have many more options; they can live much fuller and better lives than we could. (Miroslav Jiránek, born 1951, painter)

It is precisely this freedom for the young, the opportunity they have to study abroad, to travel, and to do business that some of our narrators mentioned as an unquestionable asset of their reacquired freedom. Freedom of enterprise, the opportunity to start up a business and work on their own, to fulfill their desires and dreams, was highly appreciated, especially by those who have businesses of their own. Many successful people have found economic freedom through running their own business.

Unfortunately, there were also people who did not play by the rules and accumulated property with no regard for legal regulations. It must be admitted, however, that, in the first years of transformation, the regulations lagged behind the newly adopted business practice.[38] A society, that had up until then functioned on egalitarian principles, suddenly had not just millionaires but even billionaires who had accrued their wealth under obscure circumstances.

At the same time, the middle class had shrunk and had become somewhat poorer: today, between 8 and 10 percent of the population are looking for work. Such turbulence and the widening gap between the poor and the rich have a painful effect on the spirits of average citizens, the so-called “little Czechs.” It is not difficult to empathize with these new “losers,” and understand why they again view the past with nostalgia and call for a government with a strong hand, when they “can’t stand seeing those crooks any longer” and claim that “freedom to steal is no freedom.” (Jaroslav Sedláček, born 1937, executive in a spa). In the eyes of our narrators, a strong government would not set any limitations on their newly acquired human freedoms; their desire for a strong government arises from a longing to achieve those freedoms and reflects their sense of insignificance and the inability to influence the present course of development in any way.

Those who got rich so quickly have frustrated the hopes of the 1989 generation. They’re guilty of a second normalization, and they’ve degraded work to begging; they must be punished. Human rights without social freedoms are worthless. If you don’t have a job, if you don’t have anything to eat or anywhere to live, you couldn’t care less that you can fly to the Canary Islands, vote for one bastard after another in the elections, or feel free to cuss out the government in the bar over your overpriced beer. (Jaroslav Sedláček, born 1937, executive in a spa).

A certain feeling of disenchantment by part of Czech society, described as a “bad mood” by Václav Havel, was explained from a different point of view by foreigners from the West who came to live in Czechoslovakia before 1989.

I think there are a lot of people here with a very positive assessment of the past. They feel they had enough of everything; they also had time for one another. Today, there are a lot of people who are labeled as poor, but at that time it was not as obvious: everything was swept under the carpet, so people have good memories. That kind of equality—people miss those days; they disapprove of the widening social gap between the poor and the rich. They don’t like the reckless rush and trampling one over the other to get rich. (Hilkka Lindroos, born 1940, Finnish citizen living in Prague, university lecturer)

And suddenly it was like in the West—the same rush to consumerism. I knew people would go crazy. Before 1989, nobody talked so much about money, even if some people did have two jobs. Money was never the main topic. Maybe it was in England, but now we’ve got the same thing here, the same consumerism, and I don’t like it. (Victoria Špičková, born 1947, British citizen residing in Prague, journalist and English lecturer)

People do need things—food, shelter, the means of production, transportation, etc., as well also as musical instruments and books. Many of these things were for long periods of time for most people difficult or impossible to obtain, and their distribution was very uneven. In the course of history, because of greed, on one hand, and poverty, on the other, people’s dependence on things has become almost an obsession: the desire to possess material things has prevailed over the desire for friendship and justice, for a healthy natural and social environment.

The economic system and the capital operating within it are merely a means to help humanity develop. People are not aware that the economic system is here to facilitate free, decent, and meaningful life through its products: consumer goods and productivity. Economy is a means, not the end; it must not become our master, and it must not devastate human dignity. However, the pursuit of mammon, to which some people have succumbed after November 1989, can be a deceptive thing, especially to those who equate material wealth with happiness and freedom.

A wealthy person admittedly does not have to worry about the daily practical problems of rent, groceries, paying for medicine, and many other necessities, and may thus feel more free. This does not, however, mean that a greater amount of wealth makes for more happiness. Two prominent spiritual thinkers have recently warned against the cult of money: the Dalai Lama in Prague, and Pope Francis in Buenos Aires. The latter concluded his prayer with the following words: “We reject the present global economic system which brings us so much suffering. At the center [of the economic system] there must be men and women, as well as the will of God, rather than money.”[39]

In our opinion, although today’s development, along with its undoubtedly positive aspects, entails many problems and negative phenomena, this still does not mean that people were better off in the past. Let us not be deceived by the media, the politicians, and false prophets. Instead, let us try to answer honestly for ourselves the following question: Are we generally happier? For those who, in spite of the many “buts,” can answer yes, the freedom we have today is a significant value. That we must continue to cultivate it, there can be no doubt.

2

Transforming the Family in Socialism

I had a wonderfully good husband. We really did live our own private lives. We didn’t pay much attention to what was going on in high politics. We just had our own interests: we had our kids, we had our extended families. Personally, I don’t feel the times affected me much. It’s true I called them the dark times, but we all just lived through them. And today…? Each period has its own problems. (Marie Kovaříková, born 1953, metalworker-miller)

“The family is the basis of the state.” “The state looks after the family in every possible way.” “There is no healthy society without healthy families.” Adult Czechs have heard such slogans since their school days, and are reminded of them when starting or even leaving their families. On the question of family, even politicians of vastly diverse parties are unanimous. All the governments of the modern Czech state have treated the family as the basis of the state. Their words have been more than just propaganda; the principles are enshrined in constitutions from both before and after the Velvet Revolution.[1] Why is it then that the institution of the family is falling apart?

When it provided the basic functions of survival, a cohesive family was a necessity. The state came to replace the church as the authority in family matters and then, ironically, to deprive the family of many essential functions by handing them over to specialized organizations, such as the military, social services, and economic authorities. As these changes streamlined the state’s authority and strengthened its power, they deprived the family of everything that had held it together. It was the state that, perhaps unintentionally, launched the “countdown” to the destruction of the family.

The disintegration of the traditional patriarchal family is a clearly perceptible trend starting in the late nineteenth century. The twentieth century, with its economic crises and violent conflicts with the death toll in the millions—mostly of men, who left behind them an army of widows who were often forced to move out of their original homes—only accelerated the general trend. The imposition of state socialism in Czechoslovakia led to an even more rapid and more radical collapse of the traditional society that had been built over the centuries. The 1948 Communist revolution destroyed not only the existing political system and entire social groups, such as small business owners, craftsmen, and tradesmen but also affected the family.

While the majority of Czech and Slovak families were adjusting to the new reality of the socialist state (without necessarily identifying with it), the family in much of the rest of Europe was also changing a great deal. Destructive forces outside the traditional family led to its gradual decline. Urbanization, improved housing, rising standards of living along with an even faster growth in desires and consumption, as well as increased leisure time, have fostered the urge to satisfy individual interests. The emergence of individualism is a clear trend.

Despite claims that the Czech (and generally European) family is in crisis, people interviewed in sociological surveys assign their families (their partner and their children) the highest value of all.[2] Family, friends, and children were the most often mentioned priorities during normalization, which was evidently the case even earlier and still is today. It would seem that the revolutionary political changes of 1948 and 1989 did not undermine these strictly personal values in any significant way.[3]

The family is not undergoing a crisis so much as it is experiencing changes in function and in the Czech expectation of what a family should be. The old family model has become obsolete or is becoming so, and Czechs are in want of another model to replace it.

What Can I Tell You? It Would Take a Month …

Questions regarding the family provoked several kinds of reactions in our narrators. Some were surprised to learn that their family memories before and after 1989 were important to us in and of themselves and not just in terms of society, politics, work, and the general value of work. Others hesitated or seemed embarrassed to share the private part of their lives. When the narrators did decide to talk about their family life, many sighed, puzzled over how to describe it without spending a month with the recorder running.

Most narrators ultimately chose the chronological approach and also returned to their families throughout the interview. Family memories were like beads on a string that ran through each narrator’s whole story. Women repeatedly confirmed that family was the most important topic for them. Men emphasized their work. During the first, more relaxed phase of the interview, they readily answered specific questions but, generally, did not initiate broader discussion about family. This reticence, however, does not mean that for men the family was not the highest priority, which their interviews and public opinion polls confirmed. The men’s greater reluctance to talk spontaneously about their families may have stemmed from the traditional gender roles: in their eyes, it was their job to look after the material well-being of the family (the world of work) while women were expected to take care of the household (the world of the family). In this respect, one important factor is undoubtedly the narrators’ dates of birth (1930–1955); men born in the 1960s would more likely provide a more balanced view of their lives, including the roles they took on in the family.[4]

The segments concerning the family were probably the most difficult for us, the interviewers, too, especially when narrators described wrecked marriages, deaths, and other tragedies. Emotional distress sometimes resulted in abandoning the topic under discussion.

And another curtain through which I view my life is the curtain of a mother who has lost her child … I was unable to save my son’s life. But I’d like to beg you to stop things right here and not talk about it anymore. And please don’t ask me any more questions about this because I always need to keep some kind of a balance. So … my balance, please, about this subject … I just wanted to say that it’s the hardest thing that can happen to a mother, and that I view my whole life through the curtain of this terrible experience. (Jarmila Erbanová, born 1944, nurse)

Still, happy stories prevailed, stories lightened up with love, and after the passing of years recounted with equanimity. People relived their youths in telling their stories; many were proud of their parents and grandparents, of their marriages, and of their ability to bring up their children despite hardships. Some of them later appreciated the opportunity to pass their family stories on to future generations.

I’m very grateful for this because otherwise I would never have had a chance to tell … not just my life story, not that at all, but the amazing life stories of my parents, of my father-in-law, of my grandparents … I mean, if it was not for you and your recording of the stories. I’m so grateful because I’ve always felt some kind of duty to tell about my older relatives and not let them be forgotten. (Jarmila Erbanová, born 1944, nurse)

The Family—Foundation of the State and Enemy of State Ideologies

A number of social scientists argue that all ideologies are inherently hostile to the family. Ideologies interpret the family on their own terms and try to use it for their own purposes, an attempt that the family has successfully eluded for centuries.[5] The attack on families is the most conspicuous after a change in ideologies. Every revolution is hostile to the family, because the family represents a rival loyalty, draining the strength needed for the revolutionary struggle. Most ideologies try to re-mold human beings in their own image, to “liberate” them from their dependence on other people (especially their families), and to help them in their newly acquired freedom to find support and models in a different type of social environment, such as some political movement. The family is obviously hostile to revolutions in principle, being conservative by nature; it serves the purpose of maintaining and passing on existing values and norms. In the family, children acquire their basic orientation to life and the moral principles that are to guide them as adults; the family also helps them to maintain these values. A stable family creates an emotional and social space needed by both children and parents.

The Communist regime tried to remove this obstacle that was preventing the reconstruction of society according to its ideals by weakening the family. On the other hand, the political leadership supported high birth rates, either to increase the prospective workforce (1950s) or to claim superiority over Western Europe where births had declined. Furthermore, during normalization in the 1970s it was politically expedient for people to retreat from public life into their families. Throughout the period of the Communist rule from 1948 to 1989, the regime vacillated between the view of the family as a “rival and enemy” and as a means of winning the support of part of the population.

Since the political system changed in 1989, people are no longer officially ruled by one ideology, but it cannot be denied that a single doctrine prevails. As an unsaturated market, Eastern Europe craved the material things that had been beyond their reach. So the mantra of the market became the main principle of Czech capitalism; the main goal was to transform all values into things that could be bought. Before Czech society could recover such pre-Communist values as solidarity, trust, reciprocity, and consensus, they started being sold off.

The moment these values are connected to the market, they become deformed. Solidarity can now be bought in the form of nannies, nurses, or life insurance. People can find the meaning of life by hiring life coaches and psychologists. But now we have learned that the market is not all-powerful. Those store-bought values are too expensive for us in our current economic situation. Parenthood is being often deferred because it is financially demanding, and society views the high proportion of retired people as a crucial problem. There is no time for family. And yet the family is the foundation of the state. Or perhaps it is not? Can the narrators help us answer this question?

What God (or the License Bureau) Hath Joined Together, Let Not Man Put Asunder

In traditional societies, the life of a couple usually begins with marriage. While international European statistics[6] show that the first permanent decline in the marriage rate occurred at the turn of the 1960s and the 1970s, in Czechoslovakia the number of new marriages[7] was still on the rise throughout the 1970s. In 1973, a record number of 99,518 new marriages were registered; the average age to enter the first marriage was 20 for women and under 24 for men. After 1989, there began a sharp decline in the marriage rate. In 2011, only 45,137 marriages were registered, which is less than half the number in 1973.[8] Many narrators viewed the decline in the birth rate as a critical and dangerous phenomenon for the Czech nation. In their replies, we often heard the concern that “[t]‌he Czechs will die out, and the Chinese, Vietnamese, and Ukrainians will take their place” (after Slovaks, these are the largest ethnic minorities living in the Czech Republic).

Many Czechs still regard marriage as an important milestone in their personal lives. Modern society may often waive traditional wedding rituals, but the older among our narrators still cherished the memories of their wedding day, and most of them remembered exactly how it took place. However, as they related their life stories, they never spontaneously raised the topic of marriage as a milestone. They mentioned the year of their wedding but did not comment further on their entry into marriage without prompting from the interviewer. When they spoke in more detail, it was usually to share the reasons that led them to marry.

Because, as an amateur musician, I led quite such a dissolute life, so one day I decided that enough is enough and it would be good to get married. Nobody forced, pushed or pressed to me about this marriage. And then I said to myself if I caught the first pretty good girl, she would be the right one. And oops!—it really happened! (Jiří Štěrba, born 1944, technical college teacher)

The most common reason for getting married was an already existing partnership and the desire to have children. These two factors are usually intertwined: reproductive function is one of the basic roles of the family. In the second half of the last century, more than fifty percent of all brides were pregnant. By abolishing private property the socialist regime eliminated economic independence as a reason to postpone one’s wedding.[9] There was also a relatively strong popular notion that if an unmarried woman got pregnant, marriage legitimized the birth of the child.[10] Many times our narrators got married because they “had to.”

I married my husband because I was pregnant. It’s the whole story of my life. Always like this. I’d like to be wrong sometimes, but unfortunately it’s like I said. I didn’t believe this could happen to me, and of course I got pregnant just like that. So we got married. Neither of us had anything, no experience, no money. (Julie Quastová, born 1945, leather worker)

Despite the invention of the contraceptive pill in the 1950s, in the Czechoslovakia of the 1970s, contraception was not very reliable and not as easily accessible as it is today, which was an important factor in the high number of pre-marital pregnancies. Access to effective birth control changed dramatically in the late 1980s and especially after 1989. Much more advanced and readily available contraception helped young couples plan their weddings without being forced by the circumstances. One positive development today in this respect is the much more reasonable approach to parenting than was the case in the generation of our narrators, something they mentioned repeatedly.

Today there are totally different opportunities for self-realization for younger women—other than being a “mother hen,” clucking around the “chickens” and every week going off to the summer house. (M. T., born 1960, clerk)

Young people are finding themselves and their individual careers and they are more patient about family planning … (M. N., born 1952, accountant)

Marriage during pregnancy became so frequent that it influenced public opinion about the institution and created new stereotypes. If a young couple decided to get married, they were automatically suspected of having a baby “on the way.”

My husband was working here, so we got married in a hurry. Everybody was thinking we had to, but it wasn’t true. Our child wasn’t born until five years later. (Ludmila Zajícová, born 1923, elementary school teacher)

Another frequently stated opinion was that if a woman did not marry early in life, she would “remain on the shelf” and never find a partner. Many women identified with this deep-rooted concept and also admitted that the prospect of becoming “an old maid” sometimes inspired gloomy thoughts.

Well, actually, I got married just the way people used to: when a girl turned twenty, that was her last chance to get married. And later, when she got older, everybody thought she’d have a hard time finding a man, a man to marry her, or at best only some divorced man. (Anneliese Beníšková, born 1940, worker in agriculture).

And what about Czech men? Were they ready for marriage? Far from it. They entered marriage just after completing their military service (usually at the age of twenty-one) and some even during service.[11] Young men were mentally immature, certainly much more so than their spouses. In many interviews they acknowledged that they decided too hastily; if they were to decide today, they would have rather waited, instead of rushing into marriage, and first try to get financial security and create a stable foundation for their future family. Somewhat apologetically, they added that that’s the way things were then.

When I was eighteen, I plunged into practical life and married, right. … At the age of twenty I’d been married for two years and had a child of six months, so I had to worry about my family and feed them somehow. Thanks to my trade, it was not a big problem; I felt a certain responsibility though, and I’d never thought before then how serious it would be, but now I had to rise up to it … and all the time I still had this feeling … how can I put it? … that my freedom ended when I was eighteen. … I can’t say I was an adult at that age because I really wasn’t mature mentally, but it all ended when the family came. (Š. A., born 1955, employee and entrepreneur in the restaurant business)

After 1989, men’s attitudes to the family, partnership, and bringing up children started to change. We did not conduct any interviews with the younger generation, but we did ask their elders how their families see them today. The prevailing feeling of our narrators was that the young people’s situation got better: they could travel, study abroad, do business, stand on their own feet and only then start their own families. It is interesting that the generation of our narrators saw their children as heirs to the traditions of the First Republic (1918–1938).

During the First Republic, the son was always expected to have some financial base—at least that was always the case in our family. Only then could he ask for the hand of a girl; otherwise, there would be no wedding. In the 1970s, when I was still little and my dad told it to me, I thought it was strange and stiff, but now young people are going back to it. They’re aware of this need themselves. (Marcela Králová, born 1949, university scholar and writer)

But there are two sides to every coin. Many narrators, especially those from a conservative background, did not like “shacking up,” promiscuity, or even just what is called “looking for a suitable partner.” We often heard an almost prophetic warning addressed to young people that they might easily miscalculate.

You know how it is: you calculate and calculate and pick and choose, and in the end you miscalculate or still make the wrong choice. It’s not that simple. (Marcela Králová, born 1949, university scholar and writer)

Starting a family was not the only motive for entering marriage. Many people who lived in the cramped conditions of multi-generational family homes wanted to become independent and start a new life in a family of their own.

I got married when I was still in the military service. Both my girlfriend and I were teachers, and we were offered a flat as part of our teachers’ benefits. The only condition was we had to be married. So I got married in the military, or actually I had to because of the apartment. Still, we did it because the prospect of living with our parents really didn’t seem very appealing. (Ivo Samec, born 1950, teacher and Communist Party official before the Velvet Revolution)

Compared to 1960, the number of apartments being built almost doubled in the 1970s. The new post-1968 Communist regime was in this respect at least more favorable than the policies of the two previous decades. When it came to living together, not everybody was lucky enough to acquire an apartment by the time of the wedding. Most young couples were squeezed in with one set of their parents, but it also sometimes happened that newlyweds had to live apart for a while even after the wedding because they just could not all fit into their parents’ small apartments.

We couldn’t live with either of our parents because there just wasn’t enough room. We didn’t get an apartment of our own and had to wait. So I still lived with my parents, and my husband with his. And when our daughter was one year old, and then in September a year and three months, I lived for some time with my husband’s parents. But they themselves just had a room with a kitchen. (Julie Quastová, born 1945, leather worker)

According to this narrator at least, these cramped conditions led to the gradual breakdown of her marriage.

Needless to say, our narrators, both men and women, talked about their divorces much less than about marriages, usually in a rather dry and descriptive way. It was mostly the women who expressed emotion (sometimes many years later) whereas the men tended to be embarrassed, especially if they had been unable or unwilling to take part in child rearing after the divorce.

Of course I missed a lot of wonderful moments with my kids, and I tried to make up for it only when they were practically grownups, because I realized that I’d really screwed things up and that those people didn’t deserve it, that I had just been selfish to leave them, so I tried to really make it up to them, and not just with some crummy little presents. (Š. A., born 1955, employee and entrepreneur in the restaurant business)

In 1950, according to a new family law, only marriage contracts filed at the local National Committee (municipal office) became legally binding; by analogy, divorce was made legal only by the stamp of the competent authority.[12] This law rendered the church ceremony superfluous. The stability of the family was shaken by the notion of marriage as a civil contract between two parties that could be terminated at any time, as contrasted with the religious concept of marriage as a lifelong sacred union. This new way of looking at marriage might have been one of the reasons why, during the second half of the twentieth century, people no longer considered divorce unusual. The probability that a Czech marriage will end in divorce is on the rise, and the increase is due to several factors: age at the time of marriage, socio-economic status (which is closely related to the increase in female employment), the duration of the marriage. The ever-rising number of divorces allows more people to re-marry, but these second marriages end up in divorce even more often than the first ones.[13]

A narrator who considered himself to be an immature, fun-loving womanizer at the time of his wedding at the age of twenty-two described his divorce very openly (despite various ups and downs, he divorced only fifteen years later).

Although the marriage was not going very well, I tried to have us functioning as a family, but it just wouldn’t work. I was not ready for a mature and stable relationship. I needed to sow my wild oats first, yeah, lots of wild oats… (Š. A., born 1955, employee and entrepreneur in the restaurant business)

An interesting and unique point in this testimony was that the narrator openly admitted to his errors and used the opportunity to thank his ex-wife for bringing up their children.

I think I cannot take the credit for our children turning out so well; it was thanks to Jitka and also her mother that the kids were brought up to be good people. When Filip was getting married, I thanked Jitka for how she had brought them all up, and I said something self-critical, like that I couldn’t take credit that the children had become such wonderful young people as they are today. So Jitka, thank you again. (Š. A., born 1955, employee and entrepreneur in the restaurant business)

Most narrators who described their divorces in greater detail had in some way reconciled to that episode in their lives.

My husband and I broke up ten years ago. He found someone younger and better. It doesn’t matter. Anyway, that’s life. (Alena Růžičková, born 1936, manual laborer)

Reasons for divorce are similar everywhere in the world. None of the interviews indicated that the divorce could have been the result of divergent political views, membership of one spouse in the Communist Party, or conversely, their engagement in some dissident movement. It was always for personal motives. Our narrators’ generation has an interesting insight into divorce in our times. Obviously, most parents and grandparents are concerned about the well-being of their children and grandchildren, and it is clear that they are troubled by the increasing divorce rate.[14] To them, the main reason for this phenomenon seems to be the general decline of morals and the facility of getting a divorce. Some psychologists, however, blame the Communist Party for discouraging people from taking personal responsibility.[15] Sociologist Dana Hamplová draws attention to the “hereditary predisposition” to divorce. According to her, “children of divorced parents are themselves more likely to resolve marital conflicts in divorce.”[16]

There are no theories explaining the rise in the divorce rate both in the Czech Republic and the rest of Europe. To be sure, the Industrial Revolution accelerated changes in the concept of the family.

It seems that one of the factors behind the more frequent dissolution of marriages is that people have higher expectations of their spouse than they did in the past. This hypothesis is based on only a small group of our narrators, but it also takes into account several surveys conducted among the younger generation.[17] It corresponds to the mentality of consumerism (in our time, in contrast to socialist-era “consumerism”), consumerism without limits.[18] We want better and better goods, we want to improve, innovate, upgrade, whether it comes to fashion accessories, smarter smart phones, our own bodies—and even our partners.

The high divorce rate is likely to be a permanent phenomenon in modern, secular societies. Since all aspects of modernity—such as secularization, the building of personal careers, and the freedom to travel—tend to loosen family ties, rather than tighten them, divorce is only to be expected. Historically, the main bond of the family was the material needs, which have in our times ceased to play a dominant role. The state’s provision for the material needs, and women’s greater financial independence have reversed the traditional relationship between material welfare and marriage. The axis of family life today is emotional needs; relationships are based primarily on voluntary consent, and voluntary things are fragile. Furthermore, many people long to have “adventuresome” marriages while maintaining a high degree of individualism. Therefore, we should not be surprised that modern societies see increasing divorce[19] and declining birth rates.

Husák’s Children

In the first half of the 1970s, Czechoslovakia experienced a population wave that peaked between 1974 and 1976, mainly in the Czech lands.[20]

Two factors influenced the spike in the birth rate: postwar baby boomers had reached childbearing age and the normalization government of Gustáv Husák had implemented pro-natal measures (for which reason these are often called Husák’s children). In 1973, a new law on state support for the newlyweds was passed, which allowed young couples to take out almost interest-free loans for the purchase of flats and household appliances.[21] Almost a million new apartments were built in the 1970s,[22] albeit mostly of lower quality in prefab multi-story housing.

All these measures, together with the construction of nurseries, kindergartens, and schools, helped to stabilize families in the 1970s. In 1974, the number of births within families reached its historical peak: 187,000 children were born (and only 8,500 outside marriage). In the following years the birth rate began to fall, and the proportion of children born outside marriage gradually increased; in 1989, the number of children born within marriage was 118,000 and outside marriage 10,000. With the onset of capitalism, public opinion about unmarried cohabitation began to change, and the need to legitimize the conception of a child weakened. According to 2005 data, fewer than 70,000 children were born within marriage, and as many as 32,000 outside marriage.[23] Narrators (mostly women) who discussed the 1970s’ baby boom and the subsequent decline in birth rates, which became dramatic after 1989, blamed the relaxed pro-natal measures,[24] as well as poor access to housing and the slow development of services. Other important factors included the high employment rate of women and an increase in their education, expertise, and training.

A Liberated or an Overworked Woman?

Under socialism women gradually became more independent, more autonomous, and self-assured.[25] They gained more control over their own bodies as the state relieved them of their “reproductive responsibility” through easier access to abortion[26] and contraception. The Communist ideology often spoke about the liberation of women in the context of their emancipation through work because nothing any longer stood in the way of their equaling men in every respect. Women portrayed as doctors, teachers, crane operators, and agricultural workers appeared in promotional posters, and some scholars point to them as symbols of the regime at certain periods. The reality was a bit different. The majority opinion that the world of work belonged to men while women should stay at home with the family did not change overnight.[27] In popular perception, if a woman did have a job, it was only a supplemental source of income for her family. The consequence was that some women saw their jobs only as temporary, before they got married and their husbands started to provide for them; despite legal provisions, women were discriminated against in their earnings and rarely appeared in leadership roles. Exceptionally, a few of the wives we interviewed earned more than their husbands.

Well, when I left my job I had been earning 6,200 on average… Yeah, I earned that all the time. My husband could tell you. I had more money than him, right … we were paid per task performed, so I was paid as much as I worked, right? (Alena Ekslerová, born 1952, factory worker).

Moving up through the executive ranks was much more difficult for women than for men. As we can see from the interviews, women were often not even interested in executive positions.

I accepted my function after some hesitation. Leadership of a cooperative has always been the domain of men, but suddenly I had over 500 people, including many men, under me—men who didn’t, of course, like to be under the command of a woman. At first, they tried to get the better of me, only to end up calling me the “iron lady.” (S. V., born 1955, senior manager in the textile industry)

Many women considered parenting their proper job. After all, by incorporating maternity leave into labor law, the state also endorsed this idea. But proclamations were one thing and fulfilling them another. Some of the women interviewed questioned the term “maternity leave,” which in Czech implies a “holiday.” Many female narrators joked that it must have been coined by men, because no mother, knowing what such a leave entailed, would ever consider it a holiday.

Even if facilities such as nurseries and maternity leave were meant for the family as a whole, the more frequent beneficiaries were the wives and mothers who assumed a greater responsibility for family life. Especially when their children were little, women worked two shifts: their professional occupations and then at home looking after their families. This workday was partly due to the stereotypes lingering from the First Republic (1918–1938) or, more generally, from the first half of the last century, according to which woman’s role was to look after the household.

Other reasons for the changes in women’s role were practical: women were now contributing to the family budget just as men did.[28] When asked why they chose to go to work, eight out of ten women cited financial reasons.

Well, I stayed at home with my daughters, with the first one no more than four months, and ten months with the second. I could have stayed longer, but I needed to work; otherwise, we couldn’t pay for it, you know—the house and all … (D. M., born 1937, worker in engineering industry)

Only rarely did mothers mention that they had missed their work or that they felt isolated at home, deprived of the opportunity to make use of their training and education.

Men may have helped out at home (according to the available statistics, they did so less than they do today), but they often spent their free time moonlighting at various jobs, trying to boost the family budget. Some fathers constructed homes for their families. Some relaxed engaging in various leisure activities for which women did not have much time.

I would always rush home from work, now, quick, cook something so that they have something warm to eat. It always upset me so much. My husband worked in construction, so it was all up to me. Later, when the kids were in kindergarten, it was a bit better. But the rhythm of work and then another shift at home—that was terrible. And I even took my work home with me and did the retouching on the photos overnight. That was really awful. (Irena Blážová, born 1948, photographer)

So we have three kids, but … we handled it. … They commuted to school, caught the bus every morning by themselves, took the youngest off to the kindergarten—actually the two older children kind of took care of the youngest, and they also had to pick her up; there was no way we could have managed that because we were at work all day. And I don’t understand why people nowadays are making such a fuss about it, you know—that they can’t handle both work and family. We came, I came home … and we left early in the morning, because I had to be at work at seven. Well, and I came home around four, as did my husband. And we still had to see to the cattle and go into the field, and we handled it all. (Anneliese Beníšková, born 1940, worker in agriculture)

We have heard dozens of similar stories about the after-hour activities of working mothers and the way they handled the strain. It is obvious that a working mother could not devote as much time to her children as a housewife. On the other hand, working women can provide more stimuli to their children thanks to their specialized training and education.[29] The discrepancy between a woman’s career and her role as a mother is a problem to this day.

Maternity Leave

Maternity leave payments (shared by the government and the woman’s employer), the length of maternity leave, and state contributions to young families increased gradually throughout the second half of the twentieth century.[30] In 1968, the length of maternity leave increased from twenty-two to twenty-six weeks, and in 1988 further to twenty-eight weeks. Child benefits grew as well, and parental leave was also subsidized.[31] In 1973, during normalization, child benefits were increased and differentiated according to the number of children in families. For the first child, the benefit remained 90 crowns; for the second, it was increased to 300 crowns; for the third, to 880 crowns; and for the fourth, to 1,230 crowns.[32] The normalization government used such measures to “appease” the citizens and ensure their loyalty.

Mothers appreciated the additional weeks of leave but still found the time insufficient. Most of them recall being on maternity leave for only six months. But they were ambivalent about it: they wanted to stay home with their children, but they respected state social policy and went back to work.

Well, I can tell you, I spent my whole life in that cannery, except for the maternity leave, and that was too short, only a couple of weeks actually … And my old man and me each worked different shifts, me in the morning and him in the afternoon … (Zdeňka Knytlová, born 1938, cannery worker)

Some women stayed home with their children longer but without state support. If the father was able to support his family, a mother could stay home with their children as long as needed. Mothers who stayed home without the fathers having an adequate income were regarded as parasites. Only two men in our sample (both of them artists) took advantage of the opportunity to look after the children because they needed a break from their own work.

Mothers usually returned to work about the time their child was a year old, mainly for financial reasons.

So, my maternity leave ended after six months, I didn’t get any more money, and my husband just had that ridiculous pittance that was usual in the school system back then. So I actually had to go back to work. We had to find a babysitter, and I had to go back to work because really we didn’t have anything to live on. It was impossible to live on just one salary, so it was like, the remuneration was a disaster for the intelligentsia, and that’s a fact. (Eva Tóthová, born 1946, dentist)

It was not easy for most mothers to leave their babies for full-time work. Decades later, some female narrators still got upset when they recalled how they had to leave their children in a nursery and go to work.

I was twenty-eight when I had [my son]. And I can honestly tell you I thought the world was my oyster, because I had had no children before. So he was born when I was twenty-eight, and before he was a year old, I had to put him in a nursery. You can imagine how I felt. (Eva Dvořáková, born 1932, historian)

The law guaranteed a mother’s place in the workforce, and a vast majority of mothers returned to the same job that they had held before the maternity leave. Our female narrators differed in their views on how the state helped working women look after their children. Some were satisfied with the services; they thought the nursery (for children from one to three years old) and kindergarten (from three to six years old) facilities were sufficient, and they did not remember having any problems placing their children in them.

Other narrators were not willing to put their children into nurseries and had the grandmothers look after them, instead. Some of the women who rejected nurseries were influenced by fears of the “collectivization of children,” reminiscent of the ominous political agendas of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. A number of Western scholarly publications claimed that behind the Iron Curtain all the women worked and all the children were in nurseries from the time they were born. Although nurseries were regularly shown to foreign officials at the time, only later was the matter publicly clarified.

Despite the enormous difficulties, until the age of two or three, most children were cared for by their grandmothers.[33] We were surprised by how many families followed this practice, which appeared frequently in our interviews. Grandmothers not only shared in the upbringing of children but frequently looked after our narrators’ households.

My mom took care of those kids more or less from the early morning. That was, if I remember correctly, when they were still in primary school. She helped them with homework and everything. And she cooked, she fixed dinner. She even liked being the housekeeper herself, so she asked me to give her some money to cover the household expenses. It was very convenient for me, and she enjoyed doing it too. (Eva Dvořáková, born 1932, historian)

If children were already attending preschool or school, their grandparents often picked them up and looked after them until the parents got home from work.

Then in 1976 I had another baby girl, and we all had to [contribute] because grandma had just died, and my mom and dad were still working. So my husband worked afternoons, and I just in the morning, and we took turns with the girls. (Alena Ekslerová, born 1952, factory worker)

Many families who did not want to put their children in a nursery but did not have grandparents who were willing or able to help, hired babysitters, usually retired women. However, for a young family, this could be quite expensive, and they used it only as a temporary solution before they could put the child in a kindergarten at the age of three. In some cases, a babysitter proved so effective that the parents scrimped and saved to keep her. The hired nannies would become a part of the family with the right to share in the upbringing of the children entrusted to them.

The Home Is Their Castle

The family was a stronghold in the socialist period. As in the past, a strong family was necessary for the survival of the individual, but it was also isolated. Each family determined on its own how stimulating the home life was to be. The notion that families closed off in response to the political system probably stems more from conviction than substantive argument. The closing off of the family was caused not so much by the socialist system, which more or less helped willingly to promote it; rather, for rational reasons, it had been closed off for centuries. The “opening up” and “liberation” of the family is a historically new phenomenon. Distrust towards all things foreign (in extreme cases bordering on xenophobia) has existed since ancient times.

However, by virtue of being closed off, the family could and often actually did become a refuge from high politics, where it was possible to find fulfillment in life regardless of adverse circumstances. At least this is how our narrators remember it.

My husband Pavel and I were raised very modestly, and we didn’t need more than we actually had. As for me, I learned to sew, so I sewed everything for the kids … and I enjoyed doing that. I enjoyed watching the children grow … and we had a great time. I just created kind of a microcosm for my children, for my family. The children looked on every evening as I was making something; maybe this was good for them too … [T]‌hen Pavel and I sat down in the evening and read something, and talked about this and that. (Marie Vachková, born 1954, German language lecturer)

Concealed within this testimony lies a fundamental social problem—the disconnect between private education within the family and official education by the state. Education within the family conflicted with education at school and with the various institutions that celebrated the Marxist–Leninist ideology. This “dual” education was harmful to society.

After 1989, there were many public discussions about the moral devastation of the nation caused by the previous regime and by the behavior of Czechs, Moravians, and Slovaks. In 1984, this opposition between the public and the private was described quite accurately, along with all the attendant consequences, by the Czechoslovak philosopher Milan Šimečka:

Pervasive state lies have a detrimental effect on public morale. They establish the standard that a lie is not punishable, but, on the contrary, rewarded. Those accustomed to this principle will also have a complacent attitude to lying outside their private lives. After all, they were already taught how to lie at school; they were taught to hide their opinions in their workplace because they learned it paid off … The same persons are filled with horror and unspoken sadness when their child lies to them for the first time; they turn away with disgust from a friend who has lied to them or has hidden something from them. These are two different things. Life outside the strictly defined private area has different moral rules; no one would ever confuse the moral criteria of these inner and outer circles. In the outer circle, lies and hypocrisy are the norm; within the private area, people must adhere to moral principles.[34]

But Don’t Repeat That at School!

Adult family members accepted this “schism of the times,” hiding their true opinions outside their families, and all of them tried to cope with some degree of embarrassment.[35] Some people felt a moral dilemma about lying in public or even keeping silent in delicate situations, while others did not think about it; still others addressed these matters in a pub over a pint of beer.[36] However, a problem emerged in terms of the children’s upbringing. How should we face the thorny questions of an inquisitive child? What should we say to our teenager interested in politics or in a period of Czech history not included in the curriculum, or if so, interpreted in the official Communist way? How could we explain to our children that what could be said at home but could not be said in public? Our narrators had varying attitudes towards this dilemma, so difficult in the context of those times. In general, most of them perceived it negatively.

And those things, that you weren’t allowed to do this or that, I said something to the children and warned them, don’t you dare talk about that at school, or they’ll send me to prison, and you’ll be orphans. You’ll have to go to some orphanage. It wasn’t right to treat children like that, to let them know that at school or in front of strangers they mustn’t repeat what they hear at home. This was not a good feature of their upbringing, but we had no choice. And I didn’t want to leave all their education to the school. No one ever told them about Masaryk at school, about his democracy. They only talked about him negatively, very negatively. And I didn’t want my children to have such a perception of him, so I told them how it really was, and I told them how he became President, and about Beneš, about Štefánik, and all. I just always reminded them not to talk about it anywhere. (Ludmila Zajícová, born 1923, teacher in elementary school)

Other narrators claimed that the behavior of society and the families was essentially pragmatic, and that “in the context of the times, it couldn’t be dealt with any other way.” One narrator pointed out that we lived not only in a normalized but also in an occupied state, in a state abandoned by the West in 1968 and left to the mercy of Brezhnev.

The way we used to be cautious in protecting our privacy and the strategy of silence were, in my opinion, the right things to do, just like during the Bohemia and Moravia Protectorate. After all, there were two hundred and fifty thousand armed invaders. Whenever we talk about the Nazis we endorse such behavior as pragmatic and prudent … (Jaroslav Sedláček, born 1937, executive in a spa)

Our narrators asserted repeatedly that they left room for their children to develop their own opinions without imposing on them the notion that everything connected to Communism was evil. They tried to show them the world from various perspectives. The tendency to present to children views other than the official ones, and to talk to them openly, was more evident among the intelligentsia than, for example, among farmers or laborers. However, regardless of their profession, we repeatedly heard that parents warned their children that it was inappropriate to present the conflicting views in public.

We rarely got into such borderline situations, so we only had to address this problem from time to time. Sometimes, we found the courage to say no, other times we didn’t; but we definitely didn’t cultivate in our children an attitude against everything that was out there, in the sense that something must be bad because it’s Communist. That would be putting them in a position, in which we were not ourselves, and we wanted to give them the freedom of choice. We told them about many things, and when they were puzzled at school, they could ask at home. So they usually learned about our opinions, but it was never so drastic that I told them something, like, don’t listen to this and don’t say that, it’s not true. They had to decide for themselves which way to choose. They were aware of other views; they knew we were listening to a different radio station; but they also knew that they weren’t supposed to brag about that. We don’t really know whether they did brag, but apparently they didn’t because no one ever pestered us. (Boleslav Buchwaldek, born 1943, computer specialist)

A number of narrators sensed the social pressure resulting from the fact that one thing was said at home and something else in public and the problem that this model was passed on to the children. In contrast to the previous story, another narrator shows that some parents did sometimes intervene in public school education. For example, they did not let their child join the Pioneer organization.[37]

So yes, we always did speak at home quite freely. And so the kids were initiated. They knew there was a double life: that you must say one thing at home and another outside, and that’s what it was like. Except we put our foot down when it came to the Pioneers, that [our son] wouldn’t be one, and that’s that. But otherwise [the kids] knew what they could say and what they couldn’t, right? We’d always tell them, “No, don’t say that anywhere, OK?” (Eva Tóthová, born 1946, dentist)

Many families, however, did not worry about private and public spheres or the problem of where to talk about what, leaving it all up to their children.

I may very well have forgotten what it really was like at home. [After some hesitation, the narrator described how they brought up their children.] I’m not aware that I … and neither did my wife—we didn’t hide our opinions from our children. That was actually impossible, because our parents were still alive, our children’s grandparents, and they were in touch with them, and [the kids] heard a lot from them too. They knew what had happened to them in their lives. I wouldn’t think of hiding anything from them; I simply operated under the assumption that my parents didn’t hide anything from me, and it didn’t put me in danger in any way. It was the times that put me in danger because I’d already been labeled by the regime, put in my place, and that was the end of it. We spoke quite freely in front of the children, but when it came to these additional educational endeavors, we told ourselves, perhaps not too consciously, that our children were clever enough to pick up automatically what to say outside the home and that they didn’t need any special instructions. (Milan Honzík, born 1938, lower-level executive in a chemical enterprise)

The narrators’ views on the topic of “dual” education before 1989 were largely influenced by the popular assessment at the time of the interviews, namely that parents were contemptible for failing to educate their children. Just before the Velvet Revolution, a journalist writing in the exile magazine Listy attributed the crisis in the family to socialism: “Parents (especially fathers) lost authority when they had to conform to the regime and in their everyday life (in their workplace and in their neighborhood) at least to remain inconspicuous. This behavior deprived Czech fathers of their natural authority in their families and often caused a psychological identity crisis. Czech families thus became ‘Waterloos’ ”.[38] This judgment from 1988 is continues to be accepted uncritically to this today. But it is based on moral radicalism and an ideal that no one could have achieved. The course of socialization demanded unsavory compromises, such as lying to one’s children.

Moreover, the stereotype of Czech fathers as absent is an oversimplification from a “politicized and ideological” view of the world. From a more general perspective, the weakening of the role of the father throughout Europe has been discussed at least since the 1960s; in 1963, an inspirational book by Alex Mitscherlich, Auf dem Weg zur vaterlosen Gesellschaft? (Towards a Fatherless Society?), prompted discussion on the loss of the father’s authority. On the one hand, some possible causes mentioned included the separation between the family and work, lack of quality family time, and the detachment of nuclear families from family soil cultivated together; on the other hand, the father’s loss of authority was caused by the democratizing tendencies of industrial society, which gave children the same rights as adults.[39]

Many experts dealing with the human psyche have pointed out the pitfalls of twenty-first-century interpretations regarding “dual” education. The psychiatrist Jindřich Š. wonders whether those who speak or write about the problem of “dual” education today might experience a certain feeling of exclusiveness when they let others know “how openly we talked at home, how culturally aware we were, what important contacts we had with an independent environment, or at least how we listened to foreign radio stations every day. And this can hold true even for those who confessed that they hadn’t talked in public about what they did, said, or listened to in private.”[40] Today’s demand for heroes with a hint of oppositional activism, or at least for unambiguously positive role models, also influenced our narrators’ specific interpretations.

The noticeable pressure in the twenty-first century to have to behaved “heroically” before the revolution makes it difficult to judge the responses of uninvolved narrators. Their most frequent answer—I’ve never been interested in politics, and we never talked about it at home—may be true, or it may be a way of dodging an uncomfortable topic.

We actually never discussed politics at home. I don’t know why, but if such families exist, well, probably they do, but ours was not one of them, it was apolitical, man. Maybe it was because my granddad was a soldier and a policeman. They were not allowed to be members of any party, which was only right. … And the women, my grandma, that was a generation when women stayed in the kitchen, mending socks and not interfering in public life. It was a rare exception for a woman to be a part of public life… There weren’t any discussions about politics because none of us, not myself or those around me or my family or friends, were from the “race” of dissidents, meaning people whose lives revolved around politics. I was one of the vast majority of people who just wanted to enjoy life. (Š. A., born 1955, employee and entrepreneur in the restaurant business)

If this narrator says that his life did not revolve around politics and that he just wanted to enjoy life, it can be reasonably assumed that he was aware of the social standard of happiness that he and his family fulfilled.

Still, in many families, there were no discussions about politics because people simply did not have the time.

Look, we came home from work, took care of the cattle, and it was evening. Then we cook, check the kids’ homework, and go to bed. (Eva Tóthová, born 1946, dentist)

The versions of the story in which there were no political debates were typical of those families in which parents worked as farmers or laborers, of families in small towns and villages. Another frequent explanation was that people had more important things to do than discuss politics, which they could not influence anyway: their families, their hobbies, their existential needs.

Even today, many families do not discuss politics very much or even at all—not because they are not allowed to, but because they are apolitical. The only difference is that Czechs do not care anymore if a fellow citizen is political or not.

Black Sheep, Skeletons in the Closet, and Other Family Secrets

Most Czechs, including our narrators, agree that families failed when it came to discussing politics, society, and culture under the Communist regime., Narrators frequently expressed reservations when it came to their own cases.

We were a bit duped by the times, yeah. But in any case, that’s no excuse for myself or for any of us … You had to be a bit cunning, think ahead a little because you told yourself, I have a family… and let’s be frank, you just had to be a bit wary and have eyes in the back of your head. (X. J., born 1962, fireman)

But does the fact of dual education alone warrant such self-criticism?

The truth, and its dissemination outside the family, is sometimes a difficult thing even in a democratic society. In many families, there are simply some topics that are either passed over in silence or discussed only with the warning “but you mustn’t tell anybody.” Are such skeletons in the closet another form of dual education? For instance, one of the topics that, according to many narrators should be discussed only at home, was the family’s financial situation.

As a precaution, we didn’t discuss work at home at all … After all, I was earning so much money that it would arouse envy all around me if I let people know. We all keep quiet about some things or don’t tell the whole truth… I tend not to entertain company with conversation about how to make money because some unauthorized ear could overhear that. For me, this is and has always been an imperative. No. (Š. A., born 1955, employee and entrepreneur in the restaurant business)

After 1989, my father started to earn a lot of money. He made it absolutely clear to everybody at home that we were not to speak about it in public, especially not at school because people might envy us. … It’s become a bit different in the last few years. People are slowly getting used to social differences. Many times, I stopped myself just as I was just about to boast; but then I held back and didn’t tell my friends anything.[41]

Czech families have also never advertised that one of their members was a convict, an alcoholic, a drug addict, someone seriously ill, gay or lesbian, or a cult member. Most of this information has been kept strictly within the family, carefully protected from the people around them. Sometimes even some family members are kept in the dark about the family secret.

Well, in our family, there was a black sheep, our uncle. He was an alcoholic, who just recently died. We weren’t allowed to talk about his drinking. We even had to hide it from our cousins, and we don’t talk about it to our children and grandchildren. (Jaroslav Sedláček, born 1937, executive in a spa)

Many times families hide previous marriages of one of the partners from their children. They do not disclose foreclosures or the loss of a job, and today Czechs usually do not mention membership in a political party. Aside from politics, is Czech behavior any less conformist than it was before 1989? The genetically and historically encoded protective function of the family and its individual members is part of our nature. Sometimes this means not expressing our opinions in public or telling a white lie to protect one’s family. Do silence and prevarication testify to the crisis of the family or its obsolescence? Or does the family, which still serves to protect its members from the erratic outside world, need to be preserved and developed in turn?

A Man Who Isn’t Stealing from the State Is Stealing from His Family

Before 1989, people used a double standard in providing materially for their families:[42] self-enrichment at the expense of public property. From the official socialist point of view, theft of state or cooperative property marked a more serious offense than theft of personal property, because it disrespected the collective. On the other hand, “popular” morality regarded theft in the private sphere as much more contemptible. The difference in assessment came to be expressed in nuances of language: the general public considered stealing things from a shop “theft,” whereas “taking unattended things home” from state enterprises, construction sites, harvests, or products from warehouses was “self-enrichment.” People justified this deformed morality by rationalizing that, since everything belonged to everybody, they could take from the shared property for themselves and their families. The logic of self-enrichment was of course lopsided because theft is always theft, regardless of who the aggrieved party is.

The widespread stealing of socialist property was largely due to the prevailing economic situation, the shortage of various goods and their faulty distribution, and poorly functioning services. Self-enrichment at the expense of public property became a relatively widespread practice and was even reflected in the commonplace motto, “A man who isn’t stealing from the state is stealing from his family,” which clearly illustrated the morals of the time and society’s lax attitude toward asocial human behavior.

Well, that was quite a terrible motto, and unfortunately it also originated under the influence of the regime. When the regime won’t give you what you need, then you have to take it because it belongs to you too, doesn’t it? You’re just taking what is yours. Everybody’s telling you that it all belongs to us. … So the people more or less accepted that view, some gladly because they were thieves by nature; others reluctantly, but they were forced by circumstances. (Jiří Štěrba, born 1944, technical college teacher)

Ironically, the Communist regime itself introduced this lenient view of theft. Through acts of retribution, nationalization, and collectivization on the way to “a better future,” both the postwar quasi-democratic Third Republic and the Communist regime showed citizens that it was not only acceptable, but even desirable and praiseworthy, to confiscate property without compensation. There are many grim accounts, even in the stories of our narrators, about legalized theft “in the state, national, and public interest” that caused thousands of injustices not only to the enemy population (Sudeten Germans and quislings) but also to the former owners and shareholders of factories and large enterprises and in time also to small Czech entrepreneurs, merchants, and private farmers.

Aside from the economic and social consequences, the lesson learned from this behavior gained momentum and adversely influenced several generations. Its consequences can be still felt today. If the narrators thought that self-enrichment at the expense of the state was normal in the 1970s and 1980s, even while they thought the practice was terrible, today they see their earlier behavior in a more critical light. Their regret that the entire value system of the First Republic (1918–1938) was destroyed is accompanied by their discovery of the culprit: the nefarious Communist regime. Although (as we have already mentioned) the fatal framework of Czechoslovakia was set up by force, it could not have been completely possible without the participation of Czechoslovak citizens, who created part of the system. Only some things were spoken; others were passed over in silence.

That’s one of the things that bother me very, very much. Let me put it into context. The First Republic represented a huge achievement in the way people set up a system of values, in the way they assimilated certain models of behavior, in the way they related to work and general upbringing; and this achievement, so painstakingly built up—simply a precious investment—was trampled by the totalitarian regime, over those fifty years. And one of those deforming mottos was precisely this: a man who isn’t stealing from the state is stealing from his family. So all the positive things about those craftsmen and teachers and graduates, the gymnasiums, etc., that classical upbringing, was virtually trampled and pulverized under the boots of our “normalizers.” (Václav Janoščík, born 1950, lawyer)

Another narrator lamented that people’s behavior before 1989 has carried over directly over into the present day.

I regret the fact that this [behavior] has taken such deep root in people, I’d almost say in their genes, because it’s been twenty years since we got rid of Communism, but people still act as if nothing had changed. They steal away merrily, and they think they are stealing from the state, from someone who is extorting ungodly taxes from them, and I don’t know what else. Which is also true, but they steal from private companies too, and they somehow can’t stop doing it. They just keep on stealing. So the motto is absolutely wrong. But they taught the people to think this way… (Jiří Štěrba, born 1944, technical college teacher)

As is usual with such high-profile and morally complex topics, our respondents’ own experience with stealing under socialism was at variance with “the things that went on then.” The distinction between “us” and “them” was striking in this part of the interview: I did not steal, but I know that it happened.

Well, it’s terrible, yeah. That was a kind of mentality, just unbelievable to me. I don’t know. I never took advantage of that opportunity. I never … I don’t remember ever taking anything home from my workplace. No, I really don’t know. And my husband, because he worked at the institute with serums and vaccines … I don’t know that we ever had any advantages that we got from that. Well, I don’t know, I just don’t. I think that we even … we actually … I think that if anybody could get any advantage from that, then maybe it was when they came into direct contact with money, like somewhere in a shop. For example, I don’t know, if a person worked as a butcher, then he had his customers, and well. … But we never had anything like that and really didn’t get any advantage from it, to tell you the truth. (Blanka Pardonová, born 1942, chemical engineer in brewery domain)

People in the interviews vehemently condemned the general phenomenon of theft, only to support their own clean records by asserting hypocritically that they themselves didn’t steal because there was nothing to steal. A pencil, a pen, some chalk—these were the most frequently mentioned items for which it was not worth getting one’s fingers burnt.

Like my husband always said, all those people, they were stealing, all those workers. But what could we steal? I got a drill bit, and my husband a piece of chalk. (Eva Tóthová, born 1946, dentist)

There wasn’t actually anything I could steal, so it was stupid. When we really wanted some books, we got them, so there was no reason to steal. But people really did steal, they did. That was a regular national motto: a man who isn’t stealing from the state is stealing from his family. Horrible. It’s pretty horrible. … (Marie Peterková, born 1932, typographer)

Well, sometimes I took some apricots from the factory, a tin or something like that. But then they gave us the damaged and deformed cans, so there wasn’t anything to steal. (Zdeňka Knytlová, born 1938, cannery worker)

Those who admitted to stealing in the interviews were a minority, their motives notoriously the same: they stole things not available on the market. One narrator confirmed that stealing was nothing unusual; indeed, it could be funny:

… [W]‌e were sometimes willing to steal, so to speak, things that were not available [in stores]. Like when we had a garden and were coming from Vejprty, and when there was some fertilizer somewhere, a bag of fertilizer, we did our best to get it. … When we were in Vejprty, sometimes we needed some lime or cement or I don’t know what else. These things were also hard to get. They were building something there—don’t ask me what, and my husband says, let’s take it. He got a wheelbarrow and went there. … And now we were on our way back, and the wheelbarrow was making terrible creaking sounds, enough to wake up half the village, and suddenly there was this man. … I don’t remember what he said, but he was a German, and he was stealing too. My son and I just fell over laughing. It was the kind of situation where you’re overcome by a fit of hysterical laughter. You just fall down on your bottom and laugh and laugh. (Eva Dvořáková, born 1932, historian)

Stealing was often attributed to higher-ranking officers and directors. Other people justified their pilfering by reasoning that if “those guys up there” do it, why shouldn’t we?

Everybody was stealing, but nothing was ever reported missing. It was always somehow swept under the carpet. Well, I don’t know… It was not all right, definitely not, but if you knew the higher-ups were stealing, why shouldn’t a worker do the same? (Dagmar Twrdková, born 1950, sales woman and worker in several occupations)

And yet to be convinced that “the higher-ups” were stealing, often just a rumor was enough. The whole twisted system was based on mistrust; people often believed just what they wanted to believe and what suited them, especially if it fitted into their plan.

We never stole too much, just some spare parts or things like that, no extremes. But people would say—I didn’t see it—that a high functionary of the company took a whole houseboat from here, in brass, chrome, stainless steel and larch wood. That’s just a rumor. I didn’t see it. Well, … Of course those who had their snouts in the trough got more. Those who had less opportunity were more scared, so there were certain inhibitions too, you know. (Stanislav Vokurka, born 1945, worker in military aircraft industry)

Before 1989, people did not consider it theft to use for private purposes workplace machinery (during work or after hours), electric energy in enterprises and cooperatives, or tools and instruments. People have since rethought these abuses.

Well, you could do a lot of things. When you needed to mend something, mill something in a machine, or we manufactured some things. We made some things here that you normally couldn’t get, so we of course made them ourselves, you know? The guys involved were machine workers, welders, painters, everybody. It was like that back then—people just helped one another. As for the use of those tools, of the shop area, and the materials, that’s just the way it was back then. (Stanislav Vokurka, born 1945, worker in military aircraft industry)

A former director of one of the clothing cooperatives declared that “a person needs only what his family needs, and that’s enough” (S. V., born 1955, senior manager in the textile industry). However, the question remains as to how demanding a given family was and just how far its members were willing to go to satisfy their own needs.

During the second half of the twentieth century and the first decade of the twenty-first, Czech families have undergone enormous changes and turbulence. Communist ideologues’ unsuccessful attempts to subjugate the family demonstrate its remarkable vitality. It became a refuge from the rigors of the outside world; despite the system, family traditions and memories were preserved and passed on. The effort of the Communist authorities striving to promote a pro-family policy at any cost was reflected in the behavior of the generation that was then starting families. Characteristic trends included a high rate of first marriages, entering marriage at a young age, the baby boom in the 1970s, the construction of new apartments, and subsidies for newlyweds. At the same time, the living conditions of nuclear families remained relatively stable even in the 1980s. The political and economic revolution at the turn of the 1980s and 1990s naturally impacted family behavior, especially for younger people. Self-fulfillment, which was earlier perceived as attainable almost exclusively within the family, started to develop in other areas, such as education, work, and travel.

The family structure has been undergoing dramatic changes; some people speak of its crisis or even its demise. Based on our narrators’ stories, it is obvious that the family is not an innate value. It has been shaped by culture and society, and only society and its members can decide how it will develop further. For some people, family still has meaning, and always will, because it is in family that they can find the harmony they seek and need; however, for others, family can be a source of constant troubles, a tangled skein of complicated relationships and conventions, and in extreme cases “a hell.” The family has long formed the main axis of its members’ course of life; it still serves as a refuge and the kind of environment that allows people to “drop the mask” and be themselves.

3

Friends and Others

How Czechs Evaluate Foreigners and Foreign Countries

In those times before the Velvet Revolution we were always told that the people in the West were our enemies, but I didn’t believe that. I always knew that people are just people all over the world; that there are good people and bad people. I didn’t believe that the enmity was so great; to me it was just some kind of political envy on the part of some people who were pursuing some agenda. I’ve always believed that everywhere in the world there are just good people and bad people, and this is what I still believe today. (Jan Čajník, born 1954, soldier)

Czech historian Bedřich Loewenstein theorized that human existence involves a constant defining of oneself in terms of somebody else or something else. Loewenstein, who emigrated to West Germany after 1968, asked in this regard:

But can we actually act collectively in any other way than by identifying with the values of a certain group or culture? Is not each and every human life lived out under the sign of positioning? Do we not define everything by building fences, i.e. by keeping distance from those who do not belong to us: those suspect people who are not part of our community, with their strange accents and uncertain origins? Are not all our actions hostile and grounded in competitiveness? Is not boundary an essential anthropological category which alone makes orientation and action possible, the world “readable,” and gives our actions unquestionable certainty?[1]

For in Loewenstein’s opinion we do not biologically inherit a group identity with its values and patterns of behavior; we learn it. The same holds true for our concept of the foreign: “Our image of ourselves and that of the foreign are always related to one another, just like right and left or light and darkness. They are opposite conceptual pairs that divide up the space of our experience and enable us to act.”[2] Our concept of foreignness, be it friendly or not, shapes our own identity. Without images of others, it would be impossible, not just for them but also for us, to be known.

Europeans have long known each other through a dualistic tradition. During the Enlightenment, the perception of a North–South axis, dividing the “developed” and “humanist-Renaissance” South from the “backward and barbaric” North, evolved into the idea of a “developed” and “civilized” West set against a “backward” East.[3] The shifting geopolitical and cultural border, along with the newly formed terms “Eastern Europe” and “Western Europe,” redefined the popular conceptions of the continent.[4]

Throughout modern Czech history, there has been a long discussion about whether the geographical space of the country is part of Western or Eastern Europe, or whether it belongs to the symbolic intermediate area of Central Europe.[5] Like Westerners, Czechs have based their relations with other ethnicities, nations, and states on a specifically European–American body of ideas, opinions, knowledge, and stereotypes about the East (and, simultaneously, notions of the West).[6] The Czechs’ perceptions of foreigners changed with each era: the postwar period, the end of the Cold War, and the beginning of their journey “back to the West” through their membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (1999) and in the European Union (2004). Since most narrators were concerned with the bipolar world established by the Cold War, our narrative focuses on Czech attitudes toward Europe and the United States.

Public opinion surveys conducted prior to November 1989 never ventured outside the research boundaries established by the tensions of the Cold War and Soviet pressure. Ideologically, the questionnaires adhered to the Party line (and were used for propaganda purposes), collecting opinions on “war and peace,” where the role of “warmongers” was inevitably ascribed to “Western imperialists” by the majority of respondents, who represented the “voice of the people,” even though the number of conflicting answers and the percentage of views contrary to Marxist–Leninist principles were non-negligible. In public opinion surveys on the topic of war and peace, conducted among Czechs and Slovaks in 1980, most respondents gave the same answer to the question, “Which countries have a policy that threatens world peace?” They named the United States (65 percent), China (59 percent), West Germany (19 percent), and Israel (14 percent). On the other hand, five percent of those questioned considered the Soviet Union a danger to world peace. Contradictions also turned up in answers to the following question: “Which event in the last year posed the greatest danger to world peace?” Twenty-three percent mentioned specific American actions: interventions in the Middle East, President Jimmy Carter’s foreign policy toward socialist countries, instigating the boycott of the Moscow Olympics. However, domestic and military political operations in Afghanistan, where (as we now know) the Soviet Union had started to be intensely involved politically and militarily, were perceived as dangerous by the same number of respondents.[7] On the other hand, questions pertaining to the economic integration of Eastern-bloc countries were handled in a civil tone, with relatively predictable results.[8]

After November 1989, more specific information about Czech society’s values and ideas began to emerge. Initial surveys covered only the views on ethnic minorities living in Czech lands and countries bordering on the Czech Republic. Among foreigners living in the Czech Republic and citizens of the neighboring countries, the favorite nationalities over time were the Slovaks, Poles, and Germans; the Roma, peoples from former Soviet republics, and Balkan nations fell at the other end of the spectrum.[9] Later surveys, which extended to other nations and non-neighboring countries, revealed a more detailed picture of Czech society’s preferences toward foreigners and foreign countries. Among twenty-four nations (including their own), Czechs ranked Slovaks, the French, Swedes, the English, Austrians, Greeks, Poles, and Americans at the top during 2003–2009. At the bottom of the scale were Iraqis, Palestinians, Afghans, Kurds, Turks, the Chinese, Israelis, and Ukrainians.[10] Are the Czechs then a pro-Western nation trying to ward off Asian influences? What are the reasons and motives behind this thinking from an individual perspective? The narratives of our interviewees offer a hint.

Talking about Foreigners

The subject of foreign countries and foreigners was raised in the interviews in many different forms and on many different occasions. First of all, we were very surprised by the frequency of references to relatives, friends, and acquaintances who had emigrated either before 1989 or after, and lived abroad permanently.

Our uncle would always bring us chocolate from Switzerland. It was like Christmas! I can still remember how we unwrapped it. The flat was all filled with that smell, first of the wrappings and then of the chocolate. I’ll remember it all my life. To me, that was the West. (Jaroslav Vejskal, born 1955, musical instrument repairman)

Even the “faithful cadres”—either members of the Communist Party or politically and publicly active citizens—maintained contacts with emigrants and foreign media. Careers played an essential role in the narrators’ lives, and often involved contacts with foreign countries and possibly with “domestic” foreigners. The most important opportunities for encountering foreigners were educational and leisure activities, such as study abroad programs and vacations.

Memories of the major events and the turning points in recent Czech and Czechoslovak history involving foreign nations were prominent.

I can remember August 1968 quite well. I felt so shaky at that time. On that day, when I came home from work, there were tanks rolling down the street nearby. The roar of the tanks, I can still hear it today. But the situation calmed down, time went by, and nothing happened. The soldiers stayed on here, and somehow we survived. (Zdenka Vlčková, born 1949, shop assistant)

In our set of interviews, the historical periods were prioritized in the following order: World War II, particularly its conclusion in 1945; the occupation of Czechoslovakia by the Warsaw Pact Armies in August 1968; the collapse of the Iron Curtain and the end of communist regimes in Central and Eastern Europe in the late 1980s; the disintegration of Czechoslovakia in 1992 and 1993; and finally, the Czech Republic’s integration into the European–Atlantic structures. As a result of these events, some people formed long-term attitudes towards certain ethnic groups and nations. Sometimes a narrator’s worldview changed completely, as in 1968.

The invasion [of 1968] was a crucial period in my life. If some opinions had begun forming in my mind in the 1960s, at that moment they had definitively matured. From then on, I wanted to have nothing in common with the whole idea of communism, cooperation with the Soviet Union, or with Russians, never in my life. I really hate them and the whole socialist business. To me it’s something horrible. (Jiří Růžička, born 1948, secondary school teacher)

The influence of collective memory on individual recollections of major events is clearly evident. This is particularly true of the memories of the arrival of Soviet troops in 1945 and 1968, as some of the narratives seem to emerge from artistic and documentary records, contemporary news articles, photographs, films and television reports, which—especially with the restoration of the freedom of speech and information after the Velvet Revolution of 1989—ended the taboo on discussing these events and popularizing them. The recollections of all the interviewees have one feature in common: a collective identification of events with foreign influences. Whirlwind events, however, are rare; more frequently, encounters with foreigners took place amid the bustle of everyday life.

That student residence of ours in Brno was such a liberal environment. Sometimes I went to music clubs there, or we played football with Arabs. Not many people know that the foreign section was full of Libyans who had monthly scholarships of 400 American dollars, and they were great hosts at Brno wine bars. So these were basically good years for me, a guy from a small village. (Libor Fučík, born 1960, livestock specialist)

The depth of a narrator’s perception of foreigners depended on work and travel opportunities and access to information from abroad, including family ties and friendships. A popular myth disproved by our interviews is the assumption that the persons most knowledgeable about foreign cultures and foreigners must be university graduates (particularly men) and members of the intelligentsia, whereas blue-collar workers and housewives are little interested in the topic and have absolutely no knowledge about it. In fact, the narrators did not reveal any substantial gender, professional, educational, or generational differences in their evaluations of foreigners. The perception of foreign elements and foreign horizons played a significant role in the narrations of “ordinary people” as a whole. When attempting to illustrate the domestic situation and compare it with the knowledge they had about foreign cultures and foreigners, narrators of all stripes tried to think more deeply about the qualities and characteristics of the Czech nation and Czech society. Statements about foreigners are also statements about us.

The Image of the Foreigner

Our narrators began to form ideas about foreigners and foreign countries in childhood. Parents, relatives, and family friends played a major role in this formative process.

Our dad liked to travel, and he’d always tell us how he’d travelled across Europe on bicycle before World War II, about everything he’d seen, and stuff. My brother and I knew his journeys by heart. We knew all the places he’d visited, and we’d always compare them and hoped to do the same in the future—to see the sea and beaches and cities like Hamburg and the tunnel under the sea, all those things. (Václav Smetana, born 1934, orthopedist)

Given their limited travel opportunities, our narrators mentioned written correspondence as a very important and positive source shaping their ideas about life in other countries. This correspondence was conducted by the narrators or their families with relatives or friends who lived abroad, and it also served to expand professional horizons. The picture of the West that emerged from such correspondence was combined with literature, records, blue jeans, T-shirts, and other consumer goods that friends and family sent across the Iron Curtain. Thanks to these exchanges, some narrators were able, even before 1989, to keep pace with Western trends in academia, music, and fashion, which meant a great deal to them, both personally and professionally. With the restoration of the freedom of speech and free exchange of information, and in the wake of the information revolution that followed, the Czech Republic has been definitively “Westernized” in the eyes of our narrators.

The most common sources of information about other countries and events abroad before the Velvet Revolution were foreign radio stations, and later, in some border areas, also foreign television stations. The fact that our narrators gathered information from the media as well as by word of mouth gave us the impression that they were interested in public affairs. Many narrators, having lived through political convulsions wrought by other states, held opinions and views on questions of foreign policy.

Well, I was behind joining NATO one hundred percent, because it would protect us from the never-ending aggressiveness of what is now Russia and was formerly the Soviet Union. Fortunately, Russia has been substantially weakened because it has fallen apart into a number of independent republics, but it is still a superpower with enormous strategic raw material resources. It’s still a superpower with patriotic people whose worldview has been shaped for many years by propaganda and who have never known democracy. (Milan Pavlík, born 1948, car mechanic)

In this case, the narrator shaped not only an idealized image and long-lasting sympathy for other allied nations, but also a deep and prolonged aversion to traitors and historical enemies bordering on stereotype.

Fortunately, from our perspective, people do not live just by politics, and they frequently “humanize” the content of official propaganda, free it from its political agenda, and perceive it in their own way.

The West was an exotic place to me. Yeah, literally. We collected Donald Duck chewing gum wrappers, candy wrappers, and stuff like that, when we could get them. They were just nice to look at, and collecting was a cool hobby—having something from outside the Iron Curtain. (X. J., born 1962, fireman)

Popular folklore gave rise to some amusing comparisons with other countries. These metaphors mostly concerned the bipolar superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union.

If you could only see today how I started my professional training in 1952 in Olomouc! It was a new institution with room for about three hundred people. A beautiful factory, machinery production, everything for free—we weren’t asked to pay for room or board. Olomouc—quite a big city, and for me it was the beginning of a new life. I’d tell myself, this is America! Of course, I didn’t really know what America was like, it was a figure of speech. (Jaroslav Sedláček, born 1937, executive in a spa)

Many of those agricultural cooperative farms had an opportunity in the 1980s to build new local headquarters, usually in the shape of a white cube. It’s quite a typical structure when you drive through the Czech countryside. They’d always call it either a Kremlin or a White House. (Libor Fučík, born 1960, livestock specialist)

Some narrators admit they could do quite well without high politics or public affairs. To them, the foreign horizon was nebulous, and they made no attempt to clarify it.

My ex-wife and I travelled to Romania. Some firemen gave us camping space to set up our tents. But me, personally, I’m not all that attracted to beaches, so we only went there just the one time. After that, we preferred to travel around Czechoslovakia. There are so many beautiful places here that it is impossible to go around to see them all in one lifetime. So still even today, with my second family, I only travel around this country. (Jan Ráž, born 1955, fireman)

However, even for those narrators who were less informed and little interested in public affairs, the quality of consumer goods and services was a telltale sign of belonging either to the West or to the East.

I had never visited Western countries in those days. In fact, one was a little scared of going abroad because newspapers were full of all kinds of horrible stories of how bad things were in the West, how high the unemployment was, and stuff like that. But in fact, people who had relatives in the West and had gone to visit them, were enthusiastic. And now we have the same thing here. Shop windows full of all sorts of goods that you couldn’t get back then, say, things like feminine pads. Or electronic calculators—at our mine we’d always calculate payments using an abacus, and now some people had an opportunity to buy a calculator abroad. That was really something. (Karel Raszka, born 1940, mining engineer)

Living in the West meant one could lose one’s job and suffer unemployment, as the pre-1989 Communist propaganda said, but no one doubted that material conditions were better.

A specific yet telling aspect of knowledge about foreign countries is the acquisition of foreign languages. Narrators recalled learning foreign languages at primary school. Narrators who had attended school under the German occupation often pointed out their distaste for German as a symbol of that dark era.

During the war we were supposed to learn only German. And it was horrible. Even though my mom was fluent in German and she taught me at home, I had a C in German. I just did not enjoy it; it was not for me. Maybe this was my way of defying the Gestapo living in our house during the war. (Alena Růžičková, born 1936, manual worker)

After World War II, many narrators claim to have preferred studying the languages of the Allies, especially Russian or English. This preference is in line with the post-war leaning toward the Allied countries and their cultures in general. A similar aversion towards learning Russian, like towards German after World War II, was brought about by the invasion by the Warsaw Pact armies in August 1968. Some narrators overcame this negativity and invested in foreign languages. In hindsight, they were glad.

I was into languages because my parents were far-sighted in this respect and made me study languages, regardless of the hard times or my interests of the moment. I also had good teachers, and although, for example, the knowledge of Russian is nowadays extremely rare in business, I still have opportunities to use it. There are countries like Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, but also other countries of the former Soviet Union, where your otherwise outstanding business partners start up a conversation say in English or in French, but after a few sentences switch over to Russian. (Oldřich Vacek, born 1946, businessman in foreign trade)

Some narrators who were forced to study German or Russian noted that now, in a liberal, democratic society, people should have the freedom to choose what languages they want to learn. Many narrators admitted that in spite of having studied a language for a long time, they never achieved any fluency because they had no opportunities to use it regularly to communicate with native speakers. They are embarrassed to speak, and are even reluctant to travel to “unknown” foreign countries. Many narrators mentioned the knowledge of foreign languages (especially English, today’s lingua franca) as an essential prerequisite to building bridges with the rest of the world and to finding a good job. They see it as a great opportunity for their children and grandchildren and a handicap for their own generation, which in their opinion did not have the chance to study or practice foreign languages. At the same time, many of them added that the knowledge of foreign languages does not automatically mean success.

Dealing with the “Friendly” East

What Czech travelers to the “friendly” East remembered most vividly was the disconnect between reality and its presentation by the official domestic media (for example, the representations of Western countries). The greatest advantage of travel lay precisely in this awakening, regardless of the destination. Particularly striking were travels to and stays “in a country where tomorrow is yesterday,” that is, the Soviet Union.

In 1950, I had graduated from high school, and then in 1951 went to Russia for five years to attend the university. And I can tell you, it was really tough. Most people remember their studies very fondly, but I have no such memories. The living conditions were horrible: we stayed in a former monastery or military barracks from the days of Peter the Great. There was one particularly awful period during my final year. We had a teaching internship and were sent to schools attended by the brats of the leading Communist officials. When I came back to teach in Czechoslovakia, I said to myself: “Such nice Czech kids!“ (Eva Dvořáková, born 1932, historian)

Visits to their brotherly Slavic superpower, which had been presented as a “paradise for workers and peasants,” were a sobering experience for many of the narrators. Prolonged stays and repeated visits were a wake-up call, as attested particularly by former hardline Communist Party members of the 1940s and 1950s.

More than anything else, my stay in Russia in 1956 made me feel quite depressed in many ways. I came to understand what was actually happening there in the time of the “thaw” after the twentieth congress [of the Soviet Communist Party]. At that time, people spoke about everything openly, and since then there has never again been such openness. The Russians were settling their own accounts, and I was of course part of it. I listened, and I went to theaters. And, well, I started to modify my opinions about Soviet society; plus I also saw the countryside. I traveled to Borodino and saw the overwhelming poverty of those people, their utterly primitive village. (Miroslav Zahrádka, born 1931, university teacher)

On the one hand, the Soviet Union was (often implicitly) recognized as a superpower that had achieved first-class results and had renowned experts in a number of fields, as well as fostered the creation of cultural and artistic patrimony. However, Czech visitors seemed much more struck by the lives of ordinary Soviet citizens. In informal gatherings, the Czechs were sometimes fascinated by the Russian warmth and openness to the visitors “from the West” who came from a country that the Soviet Union had neither hesitated to liberate in 1945 nor to occupy in 1968.

My wife and I visited the Soviet Union, and most of all we wanted to see the Baltic republics—Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. That was at the time of the Moscow Olympics, and preparations were going on in those republics, too. We had pleasant experiences, and I can say that the level of culture was not far from that in Finland. When we visited other parts of the Soviet Union, it was quite a different story. We went to the Caucasus and, well, the people there were more primitive. There was a mixture of ethnicities, and they had strange eating habits. But otherwise there was nothing to complain about. They were really hospitable to us, and we had no problems with them. (Jan Luksch, born 1926, engraver)

On the other hand, eyewitnesses regarded the Soviet Union as the “overlord” of the Communist bloc where Czechoslovakia played the role of a mere vassal, demoted to the rank of an occupied territory after the invasion of August 1968. Whereas some narrators displayed unequivocal opposition to this state of affairs, and noted they would not travel to the Soviet Union “even for free,” others were much more pragmatic.

No matter where you go, you go there to do business, not to comment on the political situation. That means you have to try hard and get closer to people, understand how they work. If you want them to place an order, you might have to write it for them yourself. These things were known to happen. In business, you follow the basic rule—and it may come in handy in life, too—that one should best keep one’s mouth shut and avoid criticizing others to their face, unless it is some strictly personal matter. Because, in business, you can’t be perfectly honest. (Oldřich Vacek, born 1946, businessman in foreign trade)

It did not escape the notice of savvy narrators that relations between ethnic groups in non-Russian parts of the Soviet Union were difficult and often far from harmonious. Our narrators reflected on the different cultural and social habits, proclivity to alcoholism, and poor material conditions of everyday life in the Soviet Union.

Well, my stay [in the Soviet Union] in the late 1980s was awfully interesting, but it’s really a long story. I could almost write a book. I saw a lot of things that I had never dreamed I would see in my life. I saw traditional dugout houses—maybe they are still there. I saw some shops where they cut soap by hand into pieces and weighed them on the scales right before your eyes. Their floors were packed dirt. I was even honored by being taken on a tour of a meat processing plant, which was particularly appetizing. Maybe I’d better not go into what I saw there and especially what I smelled. (Eva Dosedělová, born 1960, journalist and graphic artist)

Narrators also discovered the dark side of the Soviet bureaucracy, which could be equally ruthless in dealing with their own people as with outsiders. The Czechs hated being monitored at almost every step, knowing that the invisible hand was ready to strike as soon as some petty rule was being broken.

Although to a lesser extent, other countries of the Eastern bloc were also submitted to a similar ambivalent assessment. Of course, the criteria were set by the narrators themselves, and the preferences for individual countries varied.

In 1970, prices in Bulgaria soared, and it wasn’t so attractive to us anymore, but at the same time, to those of us who had never travelled to that part of the world, the appeal of Romania had increased. We inadvertently stumbled across places out of reach of the usual tourist routes. We found ourselves wandering around somewhere in the mountains. We made it to places about which you could today say it was a miracle we got through safe and sound. We could have been mugged, stripped of everything, end up in the middle of nowhere. But on the contrary, people were extremely hospitable. (Ladislav Svatek, born 1948, driver and employee of a cooperative farm)

In the opinion of Czechoslovak visitors, the German Democratic Republic, a supposed model country in the 1970s and 1980s, was distinguished by order and precise organization. The streets were clean and tidy, and the shops were stocked with various kinds of scarce goods. The material prosperity, however, stood in contrast to the repressiveness of the state and its tight grip on the population.

In 1972, my soccer team and I made our first trip to the “Compass Land,” that is, East Germany. They had that compass on their flag, so we called them the Compass Land. The name of our soccer club was “Lokomotiva.” We were sponsored by our local railways, so they charged us only one crown for the train ticket. I can say we represented our country well, but what is interesting is that things were under tighter control there. Like, when they took us to a disco and then back from the disco to the hostel. The German [soccer players] came back with us, and then the concierge at the hotel made us all get in line. Those Germans had many more problems than we had here in Czechoslovakia. In our country, everything was somehow more relaxed. (Zdeněk Habrovec, born 1944, worker in a machinery factory and soccer coach)

This observation expresses the hidden, yet not uncommon belief, that the situation in normalization-era Czechoslovakia was not as bad as in other places.

The better traveled Czechoslovaks privately ranked socialist countries based on their combined impressions and experiences. In terms of the quality of life (or the level of economic development) within the Eastern bloc, our unofficial poll puts East Germany alongside the “home team,” Czechoslovakia, in first place, closely followed by Poland and Hungary, and Bulgaria and Romania bringing up the rear. The “semi-capitalist” Yugoslavia and even Cuba were perceived as situated somewhere between East and West.

I longed to travel, and right after my military service I tried to travel as much as it was then possible. First, we went to Yugoslavia, which seemed like a capitalist country to us. There were plenty of various goods in the shops. It didn’t look as monotonous, and the ambiance was totally different from home. We liked it a lot. (Milan Pavlík, born 1948, car mechanic)

Following the collapse of the Iron Curtain and the Communist regimes, the availability and quality of consumer goods and services still remained a criterion for evaluating the countries of the former Eastern bloc (echoing trader-tourism of the past). But the Soviet satellites lost their appeal after 1989, and most Czech travelers looked for other destinations, particularly in the West.

Business people and other Czech citizens, who had resided for long stretches of time outside the Eastern border, expressed opinions about the Czech Republic’s integration into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the European Union and also about national stereotypes.

I’d say that over the six years I spent in Poland, and in the decades of cooperation with Poland, I cannot say that it’s a country where people steal or cheat. I feel that in this respect we Czechs are very similar to the Poles. But they are different. They have always been under the impression that they are like France, the Paris of the East. The fact is that we have to bear in mind that there are only 10 million Czechs compared to some 44 million Poles. So some of those things our politicians after 1990 failed to understand, especially at the time of the screenings before we were admitted to the European Union, that in many cases our entry into the EU and NATO depended on what happened with Poland, and we only came after them. This is something we simply have to keep in mind. In business, the bigger simply comes first. And, of course, in politics, no matter what you say, the same holds true. (Oldřich Vacek, born 1946, businessman in foreign trade)

Narrators often mentioned the flood of incoming foreign workers since 1993 (although some had noticed the same phenomenon around 1989). Those who have foreign co-workers assert that the work hours, for example in three shifts or over the weekend, as well as wages have been designed to take advantage of immigrant labor, putting undue pressure on Czech workers. Some managers also mentioned social and cultural problems resulting from employing foreigners, especially those from former Eastern European countries, with different work and family values.

At that time when we had those Ukrainian girls, just as they had been used to at home, they’d always come up like, “Here I am, so now take care of me and give me what I need.” And they thought we’d take care of them even in private matters. The first six months, they were absolutely wonderful and hard-working. They never talked back. They did everything. A year later they were quite a problem, and after two or three years they were less willing to work overtime than our Czech girls. So I settled that in a pretty drastic fashion. Out with the Ukrainians! Goodbye! (S. V., born 1955, senior manager in the textile industry)

On the other hand, some narrators noted with a sigh that, since 1989, the Czechs and the Slovaks were no longer in interested in blue-collar jobs, such as construction or cleaning.

Well, the job I did, none of these young people would do that, definitely not. Now we have those Yugoslavs, Hungarians, Romanians, and Ukrainians to do this rough construction work. None of our people would do what we did at that time. (Marie Mlezivová, born 1927, construction worker)

In reflecting on the state of the work force, some narrators expressed fears of an increased wave of immigration. According to them, immigrants should accept the local conditions and obey the law, rather than trying to set their own requirements. The interviewees also think that if the society were to make concessions to immigrant communities, such as the Muslims, it would suffer in the long run.

Once upon a Time (and Today) in the West

In their memories of the 1970s and 1980s, many narrators (especially members of the intelligentsia) perceived encounters with Westerners as somehow much more prestigious than contacts with people from the “friendly” countries of the East. The interest of the State Police in a foreign visit, particularly from the West, could be uncomfortable; however, the sense of danger only increased the attractiveness of the meeting. On the other hand, for many employees in the service sector, encounters with foreigners were just part of the daily routine. In particular, they looked forward to the arrival of Western customers because of the prospect of good earnings. Their everyday practice over the years enabled them to take a broader view that allowed them to compare domestic and foreign clients, often favoring the guests from abroad.

But they wouldn’t be Czechs if they weren’t more demanding than a millionaire from New York. The foreigner just comes in, orders something with no fuss, eats it with no fuss, and says a simple thank-you and gives you the tip that you deserve in their opinion. But the Czechs come in all fancy-schmancy, like, a show-off, you know? They boss you around a little, sometimes more, sometimes less, just to show the waiters how important they are, and when it’s time to pay they act like Uncle Scrooge. (Š. A., born 1955, employee and entrepreneur in the restaurant business)

Upon arriving in Western countries, Czechs would first notice the material abundance, the cleanliness of public spaces, and the quality of public transportation, conditions that differed greatly from Czechoslovakia.[11] These experiences only enhanced their preexisting ideas about the West’s superior standard of living. Researchers and students appreciated the cutting-edge facilities, the opportunities for professional growth, as well as the freedom of speech, the free exchange of information, and ability to travel in general; they were surprised, however, to see people willingly engage in civic activities. Not only consumer goods, but also specialized literature, technical tools and devices, and know-how in general had to be imported to Czechoslovakia.

Even before I was appointed head of the department, in 1979 I think it was, I had left for a long-term stay in Great Britain. In London, I had an opportunity to learn about market mechanisms, especially in the field of banking. This practical training had an enormous influence on my further development, because it gave me so much more in comparison to the methods we used back home. Not only did I get acquainted with interesting people abroad, especially bankers, but I could follow the development in what happened over there as opposed to what happened in Czechoslovakia. (Tomáš Potměšil, born 1949, employee in the banking sector and financial consulting)

Many people tried to keep a critical perspective, and discovered that not everything that glittered west of the Iron Curtain was gold. Some narrators—particularly those less materialistic and more intellectual—did not consider this material abundance (and sometimes excess) to be an advantage.

An acquaintance of mine, through his wife who worked in Čedok,[12] procured a trip to Scandinavia for me. Originally I wanted to go to Norway, but in the end it was Denmark and Sweden. So I set out, but when I got there I started feeling sad. We were in a tour bus, very much like those today, full of retired people, and there were shops in one of their towns with traditional glassware, jewelry, and so on. There was an old lady in front of the shop gushing over an ashtray in the form of a swan, saying with tears in her eyes how much she wanted to have it. And I said, “Look at those baubles and junk!” If they had any nicer things, those had no price tags. When they had price tags it was all junk like that. (Eva Dvořáková, born 1932, historian)

The narrators were dismayed by the socioeconomic stratification and the practically impermeable social barriers. In societies where “money makes the world go round,” minorities living in the margins of the society do not share in the general wealth. On these socioeconomic points, narrators were in agreement with the official Communist propaganda. Still, many narrators appreciated their Western hosts’ politeness, respect for conventions, openness, warmth, and optimism.

I don’t think the Czechs, as a nation, are totally negative and hostile, but sometimes they can be terribly closed in on themselves. After visiting various places in Europe, of course, we can all say, “Yes, this nation is great, and that nation isn’t so great.” But in every nation, in every town, in every group there are good people, there are bad people, and there are stupid people. But our attitude is something we could work on. And not just towards foreigners. When you listen to the media, foreigners don’t seem to be too unhappy here. Maybe it’s with our own people that we should be a bit more open. (Milan Štěpánek, born 1966, policeman and police trade unionist)

Some narrators complained about a greater degree of individualism and the superficiality in relationships abroad, something they were not accustomed to in Czechoslovakia and other Eastern countries.

Among other things, Czechs carefully mapped out mainly Western visitors’ opinions and feedback about their own country. They were especially interested in the extent to which foreigners were aware of the political and social conditions and their personal opinions about the everyday life in Czechoslovakia. Many narrators expressed pride when foreigners complimented a fellow Czechoslovakian on some accomplishment. Narrators mentioned, for example, the achievements of selected branches of Czechoslovak industry, agriculture, or water management, usually before but sometimes also after the Velvet Revolution.

It must be said that water management as seen in our enterprises is a smoothly functioning system which even people from Western Europe come to see. Because our watchword, which was put into effect really all the way back in 1966 when it was set up, was that a territory should be administered according to the professional principles of hydrology, that’s something that the rest of Europe discovered, I don’t know, maybe only in the 1990s. (Václav Janoščík, born 1950, lawyer)

The narrators’ pleasure in favorable international comparisons is similarly palpable. Such compliments, including the Western vote of approval, armed the narrators against the opinions of “disbelieving,” skeptical, or begrudging arguments of travelers returning home. Narrators regarded Western endorsements as important for their professional and personal lives in Czechoslovakia and later in the Czech Republic.

On the other hand, the same narrators were appalled by the foreigners’ ignorance of Czech history and geography, including their inability to locate the Czech Republic on the map. Some narrators considered it disrespectful, and a missed opportunity to explore the world. They are pleased that, post-1989, foreigners seem to know more; but this knowledge is limited, restricted to the few places they have visited, major events in Czech history, or a few prominent figures in Czech culture. This trivia test by which foreigners are judged also testifies to a hidden respect and perhaps an inferiority complex Czechs feel towards other nations.

The two systems represented by the Western and the Eastern worlds, by socialism and capitalism, are also subject to a general comparison. Faced with their own experience of the two worlds, the narrators’ assessments are not unequivocal, and they see the negative and the positive sides of both.

I’ve been everywhere possible, both in Russia and the West, so I’ve had more opportunities to make up my mind about certain matters. I’ve never belonged to those enthusiastic admirers of the Western lifestyle, but nor have I condemned it completely. Neither this nor that. It just made one rather angry that so many things there were more convenient in everyday life. There were better opportunities, and so on, and I was angry that it was not the same here. On the other hand, because I saw the way things worked over there, and mainly because I also knew people from the West, I saw that the streets weren’t paved with gold, you see? (Vladimír Hyský, born 1943, administrative assistant in a metal roller factory)

After 1989, many people laid off from the army, security forces, and state-owned industrial enterprises were happy to find employment with foreign companies. Czech workers appreciated that foreign employers judged them only by their abilities and diligence.

Then I worked for some time for a Dutch-American computer firm. My boss, a guy about ten years my junior, took me on even though I had some issues in my past. That was in 1991; life was still pretty wild, and it was definitely not an advantage in job hunting to be a former policeman. But this guy was good to me, because when I told him straight out that I had worked for the police at the surveillance division for sixteen years, he just said: “Do you know how to operate a computer, or can you learn it?” And so I say, “Sure thing, I’d like that.” And he says, “That’s what matters to me.” End of story. He didn’t say another word about it, something I appreciated a lot at that time. (Vladimír Vaněk, born 1951, worker in the Technical Division of the Ministry of Interior)

Another advantage of working for a foreign company is financial, with wages often several times higher than the average earnings in a Czech firm. The drawbacks for narrators were the “hard school of capitalism in practice,” including the requirement of making more effort at work, sometimes at a personal cost, and their foreign supervisors’ wholesale rejection of their pre-1989 work experience, which was considered to be a “surviving relic of socialism.” Narrators also pointed out the negative aspects of multinational corporations and the globalization of the enterprises, impersonal relationships in the workplace, and ageism.

Regardless of their political preferences and worldview, most narrators acknowledged the importance of foreign capital to the Czech economy, and many of them also cited positive examples of business cooperation with foreign countries in the Czech Republic. At the same time, they voiced strong opinions against excessive exploitation of local natural and human resources, against selling out, and against the weakening or destruction of local enterprises and entire sectors of the national economy in response to foreign incentives. Similarly, we heard occasional reservations about, or even disapproval of, selling Czech real estate to foreigners. Many narrators wished that Czech political representatives, businesspeople, and trade unions would use their experience in Western Europe toward building better economic relationships with foreign countries and enhancing the Czech position within the international community.

The narrators’ comparisons between current Czech situations and those in the West after 1989, were far from unambiguous. Some felt that the West, as represented particularly by the United States and the “old” member states of the European Union (EU 15), were far ahead of the Czech Republic when judged by such indicators as income levels. By contrast, others perceived the gaps in supply infrastructure (e.g., the number of shops and businesses) to be closing; in some aspects, they believed that Prague and other large cities had already taken the lead, as compared for instance to the Austrian borderland. When comparing the quality of public life, many narrators were pained by the level of Czech democracy after the Velvet Revolution as compared with its Western counterparts. Reflecting on the so-called Czech economic transformation, a number of narrators bitterly remembered the warning of some Western experts to avoid transplanting Western models uncritically.

We visited an estate owned by a slightly more prosperous French farmer, and he said: “What wouldn’t we give for our cooperatives to be as well organized as yours.” Now these poor fellows are really tied up here 365 days a year. We also visited a lady who said she hadn’t been to the town for fifteen years; she didn’t have the time. And she told us: “Be glad for what you have and never allow this happen to you.” Well, of course, it has happened. Then we visited one estate where they wanted to show us how they lived and to entertain us a little. Well, I had to leave because I felt like crying when I saw it. It reminded me so much of how it was in Czechoslovakia around 1955 or 1958. Really, I couldn’t even swallow a bit of cheese, I was so upset, and I said: “Is this what we want to go back to?” (Anneliese Beníšková, born 1940, agricultural worker)

In comparing personal freedoms, some narrators feel they were much better off than citizens of long-standing Western democracies such as the United States or Great Britain. They prefer Czech social security, health care, liberal approach to alcohol, and even detachment from, and sometimes even contempt for, strict rules and official authorities.

In America they’re always talking about freedom, to put it politely. But actually there is not much personal freedom, and people are even more afraid than they are here. Everybody’s a hero in America when they drive along the highway, a hundred miles per hour or so; but then they see a cop and all at once slam on the brakes, and they shrivel all up when the cop’s looking, you know? There’s no such thing here, or I don’t know about it. I’d say freedom in America is somehow fake, and I don’t like that. (Václav Vejskal, born 1944, miner)

Obviously, such observations are debatable. The primary intention of the narrators who thought this way seemed to be not to praise Czech conditions too highly and thus support one of the foundations of false Czech pride. The negative traits the interviewees detect in foreign countries are meant to serve as a foil against which to preserve and develop positive features of the Czech state, nation, and society.

Foreigners Near and Far

How our narrators perceived foreigners and foreign countries depended on their individual destinies and perspectives, shaped largely by major events. For example, the Allied victory in World War II led to an (almost) inseparable brotherhood with the Soviet Union, a temporary alliance with the United States and Great Britain, and bad feeling toward a “vengeful” West Germany. After 1968, the Soviet Union (especially its ethnic Russians) was regarded as an enemy. Some of these Cold War attitudes have carried over into Czechs’ perceptions of foreigners in the twenty-first century. The collapse of Communism and the end of the Cold War significantly strengthened sympathy, or at least respect, for the Western world, mainly as represented by the United States and Americans, for Western Europe.

The most vivid images came from narrators who were actively interested in what was happening “next door” and who drew on information from a variety of sources. In their memories, the moments of encounter with people or ideas from abroad are largely free of stereotypes. Foreigners and foreign countries appear more balanced and take on more detailed features in the minds of travelers lucky enough to cross the borders of the Bohemian basin. Experience abroad opened their eyes and gave their perceptions a distinct, worldly dimension.

The Czech society highly values foreign relations, but not without contradictions and ambiguities. For instance, one narrator evaluated the European-integration process—a symbol of the “Czech way to the West”—as follows:

I perceived the entry into the European Union as rather positive, but I wasn’t completely sure. I suspected from the start that it might actually mean a creeping loss of independence. I don’t know whether that’s a good thing, but then I think actually nobody knows. When it comes to the economy, the entry has definitely been an advantage. When it comes to strategy for the future, I am not at all sure it is an advantage. But the question is, was there a more reasonable alternative? Could we have stayed on our own? We couldn’t afford that. Our economy was already too weak. (Milan Pavlík, born 1948, car mechanic)

Despite an overall appreciation for EU membership, several narrators with special interests sided with then president Václav Klaus in criticizing the European Union for behaving as a hegemonic power towards its “vassals.”

Gradually it’s becoming clear that those people in Brussels have gone crazy like they did once in Moscow in their relationship to the Comecon, even if maybe in a different way. (Oldřich Vacek, born 1946, businessman in foreign trade)

At the same time, other voices considered Czech criticism of certain manifestations of European integration to be unjustified and emphasized the benefits.

Most importantly, as someone who follows what’s happening, I think it’s a bit unfair for us Czechs to go around grumbling about Brussels, the bureaucracy, and so on. Definitely, we all have a lot to improve on, and maybe in Brussels they have a lot to improve on, too, but our economy could have never generated on its own the type of funds that have been channeled into this country and especially to remote areas such as this. (Libor Fučík, born 1960, livestock specialist)

A number of narrators have a realistic attitude towards EU membership and hope that the integration will in time prove its merit.

The European Union may be a good thing or a bad thing. I say—let us give it some time. Only time will tell. (X. J., born 1962, firefighter)

The range of views on the EU roughly corresponds to public opinion polls conducted once the initial enthusiasm over the entry into the European Union had begun to wane and doubts or apathy had started to set in. The Czechs tend to be more skeptical about the benefits of being part of the EU than are other post-Communist countries.[13] Perhaps this is a manifestation of a new phase in the Czechs’ search for their rightful place in Europe and, by extension, in the globalized world.

In any case, the assessment of foreigners forms one segment of the interviews with most “ordinary people,” regardless of their age, gender, occupation, or region of origin. One possible explanation of why the Czechs mention foreigners and comment on foreign events so frequently is the fact that Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic are situated in Central Europe, at the heart of the second smallest (10,180,000 km²) but the third most populous continent in the world (about 740 million people), a crossroads between the East and the West, where local ethnic groups and entire nations are compelled to delimit their territory and confront “the other.”

Since the beginning of the modern era, the Czechs have compared themselves to powerful nations such as France, Russia, Great Britain, the United States, and especially Germany. This attitude persists and, ironically perhaps, such comparisons have remained the yardstick for the Czechs’ self-image. The interest in smaller nations (both in Europe and elsewhere) that might be more comparable to the Czech Republic in terms of population size, economy, etc., continues to be somewhat marginal.

The Czechs’ hunger for information about life in other countries may also be due to their ties with family and friends residing abroad, which is typical of Central and Eastern European nations and societies with high levels of emigration.[14] Whatever the reasons, it seems that the Czechs, whether as homey observers, as travelers, or as latent emigrants, can simply never live without the wider world.

4

Education—Gateway to Success

Today, when I see my daughter studying and compare it with the time when I was a student, I can’t help envying her. If some people make fun of Communism because there were no bananas, well, I didn’t miss bananas at all. My problem was that every Thursday, when new books were being published, I couldn’t get the book I wanted to buy even though I would queue up in front of the bookshop. And there were few books you’d enjoy reading in freedom: they were easily available in other countries, but not here. This was really very difficult for me to bear. (Ludmila Mesteková, born 1952, librarian and editor)

Knowledge is a core human value, and the ability to educate themselves in a systematic and sustained way has distinguished human beings from other animal species. A discussion of the importance of education in Czech society may be, to use an ancient Greek proverb, like bringing owls to Athens. And yet, the place and meaning of education in history warrants investigation, because over the course of centuries or even decades the emphasis on education has varied not only in terms of individual development but also in shaping states and societies. In the Czech Republic, the relationship of the society to education has changed over time.

By the early nineteenth century, education had already become one of the cornerstones of modern Czech nation building. Unlike large nations, built around universal civic principles (such as the United States or France), the Czechs belong to a group of ethnolinguistic nations differentiated from others by language, culture, and an emphasis on constructing a national identity by educating as many citizens as possible. The failed political and national ambitions of the Austrian and later Austro-Hungarian monarchy led the Czechs to concentrate on cultural and educational issues embodied in these legendary words: “We have nothing but schools and books.”

The general competition between the Czechs and their foremost rivals in the Czech lands, the Czech Germans, continued after the founding of the independent Czechoslovak state in 1918, and as far as education was concerned, it proved quite productive and beneficial to both parties. The expansion of the network of schools and the quality of education put the population in the Czech lands among the highest positions in international educational rankings. It was not until World War II that the Czech lands saw a radical fall in the standard of education: Czech universities were closed in 1939, and opportunities to study in secondary schools were also restricted. The vast majority of the German population was expelled at the end of the war, which also brought the demise of German schooling and education in this part of the world.[1]

Education in the postwar era suffered from conflicted development, and historians have not been able to evaluate it clearly. The educational system was weakened by an attempt to subordinate knowledge to Marxist–Leninist ideology and by experiments in introducing certain foreign (mostly Soviet) models, including markedly biased support for apprenticeships, which became dominant at the expense of general education, with the aim of acquiring a skilled workforce especially for heavy and mechanical engineering industries. The emphasis on creating a classless society and the Communist leadership’s typical view that white-collar employees in Czechoslovakia were still enjoying high “income without work” led to a gradual degradation of intellectual work in favor of ostentatiously praised manual labor, a change that was soon reflected in the salary gap among the various social-professional groups.[2]

Political evaluations of teachers and restrictions on freedom of speech and expression further weakened the educational system. Ideological deformations were especially apparent in the teaching of social sciences; the overwhelming cultural superiority of the Soviet “brothers” was asserted by instituting Russian as the first, and in many cases only, foreign language taught relatively well by qualified teachers at all levels of education.

Last but not least, political and class screenings were used in admissions to secondary schools and universities. Education experts see the Czech educational system’s emphasis on abstract theories and raw data at the expense of open debate, contextualization, and practical training as a major defect. Compared to their foreign counterparts, the generations of Czech students before and shortly after 1989, are often said to have less ability to defend their views and a lower degree of self-confidence and skill in presenting themselves. These shortcomings are attributed to the legacy of an authoritarian education (in schools as well as families) that often punished creative and enterprising pupils, those with differing views, and, in general, those who challenged the authority of teachers or elders, labeling them as “nonconformist back-talkers.”

On the other hand, specialized literature finds one clearly positive trait in pre-1989 education: its democratization. A truly democratic educational system started with preschool (in line with the regime’s effort to free women for employment) and the introduction of education equal in content and quality for children between the ages of six and fifteen. One of the positive consequences of this relative democratization (accompanied by improved material conditions and better student-to-faculty ratios) was a steady increase in the proportion of secondary school and university students within each age group, which helped rank Czechoslovakia’s educational system among the best in the world.[3]

In surveys between 1971 and 1974, the attitudes of fifteen- to twenty-nine-year-old respondents towards education largely coincided with their desire of better employment. Around 20 percent of these young people listed education and a good job, along with good health, as their top priorities. In the early 1970s, education represented the highest goal for the age group between fifteen and nineteen, who—unlike older respondents who were ready to start families or find a life partner—looked forward to furthering their studies or preparing to start their first jobs.[4]

As a number of experts have pointed out, the period after 1989 was, in many respects, one of relative continuity in terms of education. In addition to the restoration of freedom of speech and expression, the collapse of the prevailing Marxist–Leninist paradigm led to such positive results as the decentralization of the educational system and the emergence of alternative programs, including private and church education. The enrollment and the number of higher education institutions increased rapidly after 1989, but the chances of getting into a university, unfortunately, had not improved. The Czech university system, although it had the capacity to increase enrollment, was overwhelmed by a surge of candidates, so-called Husák’s children, born in the 1970s’ baby boom. The degree of social inequality in gaining access to higher education has not changed, either: a child from a working-class family has nine times less chance of attending college than a child from a family of university graduates.[5]

Although the Czech Republic may have tried to catch up with developed countries by increasing its investment in education, after an initial round of financing, state subsidies for education stagnated in the late 1990s, eventually taking a downward turn. Even today, despite a strong rhetoric across the political spectrum, the Czech Republic does not have a clear, long-term education plan. As a teacher who entered the system in the early 1980s stated:

I’ve been teaching for twenty-eight years. During that time, I’ve seen fourteen ministers [of education], which meant dozens of attempts at some kind of a plan for education. So where does the problem lie? Definitely not with us, the teachers; it must be somewhere in the ministry of education. A fish rots from the head down. If they change ministers like gloves, their ideas will never amount to anything sensible—not in our lifetime.[6]

The gap between the Czech Republic and educationally advanced countries is widening. The government has made repeated attempts at reform without any clear goal or adequate financial backing; the quality of teachers has declined; and the system has been stymied in its ability to move even an inch forward, for instance, in improving the quality of foreign language and computer science instruction.[7] In 2009, the Czech Republic invested 4.36 percent of its GDP in public expenditures on education, thus ranking (according to the available data) alongside Slovakia and Romania as the last among the 27 European Union countries (with average investments in education of 5.38 percent of GDP).[8] By comparison, during this same time, the United States invested 5.30 percent of its GDP in education.

Yet public opinion polls and other sociological research show that in the 1990s, Czechs assigned increasing importance to education. Even two decades after the collapse of the socialist experiment, the primary life goal of 14 percent of respondents was to obtain the best possible education (while 18 percent chose success at work). Along with the desire for children and a permanent partner, education ranked fourth out of seven priorities. Education was considered even more important than getting married.[9]

School Days

Regardless of gender and social and professional differences, our narrators gave the distinct impression that education was central to their life stories. Practically all narrators spoke about their schooling, including those who in their spontaneous narratives described their lives in only a few words. The majority of narrators were, after all, children or adolescents during the socialist regime. School is what led them on to their professions and places, and it also influenced their family and leisure time. Close examination of individual narratives reveals differences among the graduates of various types of schools and at various levels of education, although continuing education was not just a prerogative of intellectuals with university diplomas.

Conversations about school brought forth not only nostalgic memories of a carefree time but also recollections about the founding moments of the narrators’ careers.

In 1965, I started my electrician’s training in Spolana, where I stayed until 1968. We were the last class to have studied in the makeshift buildings; afterwards the new school had been built, beautiful and modern, right in our chemical plant. The program of instruction took three years, and it was the best time in my life. Although we were complete strangers gathered from around the district, and although there were just a few of us who had known each other from primary school, we all hit it off instantly. At first, there were more of us, but only twenty-one completed the course, seven women and fourteen men. We had basically the same interests, we were training for the same job, and it was great. (Jaromír Šebek, born 1950, electrician)

There were also relatively more sober, realistic, and even critical comments. Narrators had sour memories of the politicized times, the quality of the schools, the personalities of certain teachers and school staff, and themselves (e.g., self-critical statements about their childhood attitudes toward school attendance and studying). Some narrators simply recalled their schooling as the last period in their lives when they did not have to deal with the responsibilities of work, family and adult life. Sometimes, the impossibility of education was a traumatic memory that tinted a narrator’s whole life story.

I wanted to be either a vet or study at the four-year Agricultural Technical School. That was simply my dream from my childhood. I loved animals, I loved school, and everything. I even had good marks, but unfortunately I was not allowed to study at any school. That was the worst and cruelest thing that regime could do: they actually took revenge on those kids. (Eliška Prošková, born 1949, machinery worker)

The socialist dictatorship used education to regulate access to certain careers, and our narrators saw pre-1989 education as a class issue with political consequences.

If they were not affected by them directly, narrators rarely remembered historic events in connection with their school days. Unless a narrator had some bad experiences first-hand, he or she would seem to have compartmentalized memories of school and historic events. Narrators’ collective memory of national events ran parallel to, but did not intersect, their individual memories of school, formed in a more intimate circle of classmates. This subconscious tactic freed narrators from the influence of major political events on adolescence, which, in retrospect, might call into question their morality and integrity. Such selective memory is probably connected to narrative strategies and to the influence of “mental hygiene” in creating life stories.

I have to say that the times of our studies at the Military Academy were incredibly difficult: there were the Party interviews after 1968; there was the signing to show our approval of the invasion of the armies; there were the changes to Party membership cards. That was a rough period we had to go through, but I would say, again, it didn’t affect me much. Although I have to say that a number of people from our class, about five or seven, had to leave for those reasons: either they were expelled from the Party, or they had some reservations. (Karel Fojtík, born 1939, soldier)

Unless the narrators pursued postgraduate work, education as a topic in their adult lives appeared mainly when they talked about younger generations, either family members or youth in general.

When I started basic firefighter training, it lasted at most three weeks, perhaps even less. Today, it takes half a year. So then I always teased the guys just coming out, “Now tell me, who was smarter? We who just needed three weeks or maybe only two to become a fireman, or you who needed half a year?” (Jan Havrda, born 1946, fireman)

School—The Foundation and the Spice of Life

As with other topics, narrators’ life stories on the subject of education were varied and multilayered. There was a noticeable difference between school attendance in urban and rural areas. Narrators from the country often noted that they sat at the same desks as their parents and grandparents had. Until the age of around eight or ten, school was a single room in which the teacher simultaneously taught children of different ages. On the one hand, narrators felt that this relic of Enlightenment reform—which made school attendance compulsory even in remote villages—posed difficulties for teachers and students. On the other hand, they appreciated the chance of being exposed to the often much more interesting subject matters presented to higher grades.

Compared to the difficulties of multi-age education, the need for children to help out at home presented a much more serious challenge. Working on family farms or looking after younger siblings often interfered with homework.

I was taking cows out to pasture as early as the first grade, when we were just learning to draw the little curve in the number “2.” Our homework was to practice writing, but I would come home from school, throw my bag in the corner, and go graze the cows. And then in the evening, I would forget about my homework. So the next day the teacher kept me in school after class for the first time because I couldn’t write the number two. (Karel Raszka, born 1940, mining engineer)

Another distinct feature of these rural memories is the narrators’ close contact with nature, the great amount of time spent outdoors, “in fresh air,” and the communal character of local life, including—something undesirable from the viewpoint of the Communist regime—church attendance and voluntary religious classes. Narrators who lived both in the country and in the city drew comparisons between the two.

Well, down there in the Šumava foothills, unlike in Prague, there was a long lunch break between classes so we had plenty of time. There was an opportunity for kids to socialize, chase each other, play marbles and whatever, and they also got to know kids from other classes quite well. This reinforced the community bonds and made for good relationships among the children. (Ludmila Mesteková, born 1952, librarian and editor)

Some narrators regarded the ties that bound a small local community together as a plus; others, however, were haunted for decades by local relationships that had soured, which could have a significant impact on their educational careers.

When I was a schoolboy, my mother had a dream that I would continue with my studies in high school—because when she was my age, she had to interrupt her studies because of her marriage to my father, a farmer. So they had a very long and violent row about whether I should continue education or become a farmer. But the Communists had the final say about my studies: it was “No! [because of my “kulak” origins]. (Jan Peřina, born 1936, university teacher of optics)

After many years, despite his “non-class” origin, Jan Peřina got a university degree through a distance learning program, became a professor of physics at Palacký University in Olomouc, and is today a world-famous specialist, the “father” of Czech quantum optics.

Another important distinction between rural and urban students was the lack of secondary schools in the country; rural children usually commuted to institutions outside their hometowns. For this reason some narrators praised the gradual expansion of the network of secondary schools in the second half of the twentieth century.

There were several types of gymnasia under the First Republic, but they were all quite remote from us. And if after the war the new regime might have done something “good,” it was that it reinforced and developed the network of those high schools throughout the country. (Libor Fučík, born 1960, livestock specialist)

The oldest narrators recalled going to school during the First Republic (1918–1938) and especially during World War II. They remembered the mandatory German-language instruction and the disruption of classes by bombings and the approaching front lines in May 1945. The narrators had vivid memories of those days, even more than sixty years later.

Towards the end of the war there was no school at all. We would go there only once a week or once every two weeks to get our homework. Sometimes the teachers would go over something with us very briefly, but we’d be asked to do most of it as homework. My mom was a teacher; she taught mostly math and drawing. But during the war, when the school was falling apart, she actually gathered a few kids from the neighborhood and taught them in our home in the evenings. We would compete with each other in various ways, and it was fine. (M. L., born 1932, doctor)

After the War, some narrators were affected by national (particularly anti-German) hatred or social-class hatred typical of the period.

My father was a German. He came from Galicia, which today is in Poland. Because there was no work for him there, he moved to Rýmařov. During the war, he had to join the German army, and as a consequence, we suffered quite a bit after the war. They made us move into some kind of a wooden shed, and my mother, brothers, and sisters had to help out with farm work. Since, after the war, we were registered as Germans, we had problems at school. You know, rude insults. While some teachers were good to us and wanted the best for us, there were others who bullied us. Well, somehow we got through school. (Konrád Niesner, born 1941, electrician)

Not all narrators who personally experienced the “heavy boot of history,” however, recall these moments with bitterness. On the contrary, they frequently questioned the black-and-white perceptions of those times (evil Germans/Nazis versus good Czechs/patriots, Communists versus non-Communists, etc.), suggesting that the reality was much more varied and complex than it appeared in the propagandistic weeklies of the period, in history textbooks, or in politicians’ media campaigns.

In 1912, when Lenin visited the Prague Congress, he slept in Žižkov, at the house of the parents of the woman who would later be our school principal. And this woman, although she was a sworn Communist, was fond of me for some reason. When the Party had turned me down after 1948, she said something to the effect that no local Communist organization from Žižkov had the right to tell her whether I, the second best student in her high school, could or could not go to university. She wrote such a recommendation for me that I was amazed because not only was I accepted as a medical student, but they instantly made me the head of a study group. That was very interesting. If this hadn’t happened, if that woman hadn’t been so powerful, I might have never gone to college. I really wouldn’t have. (Václav Smetana, born 1934, orthopedist)

Evaluation of their own schoolwork was a prominent memory for narrators. Whereas some narrators could take pride in their achievements, citing them to justify their further educational development, others believed that the development of their personal skills and talents had been thwarted by factors such as health or family or political situation. Narrators with unfulfilled ambitions compensated for them with hobbies and leisure or educational activities as adults. Many narrators did not dwell on their school achievements, and from the context of their later narratives it became clear that they were never proud of them or that they did not see them as important later in life.

A vast majority of school experiences were remembered in connection with classmates and peer groups. The narrators either identified with them or set themselves up against them. The pleasures and sorrows of school days, even outside school, played out within these groupings. A sense of belonging shows up in the narratives, either as a detail of the inner life of these communities or by way of something that distinguished them from other groups. Narrators who belonged to elite groups never failed to point out how they were received by society at large.

When I was in high school, and we would go for a walk outside the barracks—Moravská Třebová is such a small town that it was all but impossible to hide—we usually met up at a pub. The civilians who lived near our military high school didn’t like us much. To them, we soldiers were like a higher sort of people; we took away their girlfriends, and stuff. Although we were just fifteen at that time, we were already perceived as rivals. (Jan Čajník, born 1954, soldier)

Narrators are often nostalgic for their school groups, which represent both an imaginary site of memory and real social bonds that the narrators have tried to maintain through reunions. The classmates’ faces may symbolize for the narrators an important stage in their lives. Seeing those faces at reunions sometimes prompts the narrators’ deeper reflections on the value of their education, especially when they compare themselves to their classmates.

When we met about thirty-five years after the graduation, there was the whole graduating class, which meant almost ninety people, and we had to introduce ourselves one to another. I must say I was quite surprised that among all these people, just two of us had university education. The others had trade school training; popular occupations at that time might have been car mechanic, machinist, mason, etc., but there were also other guys who may not have had good grades in school, so they didn’t have any other choice. But given the environment in which they lived, of course, their parents wanted their children to follow in their footsteps—either remain a farmer, or earn such and such a profession, and so on. (Karel Fojtík, born 1939, soldier)

Together with school and the individual student’s willingness or ability, family completed the triangle of each narrator’s unique education. Families weighed multiple factors in making educational choices: the narrator’s and their parents’ wishes (which might conflict); advice from the extended family; the family’s social status; the number of siblings; financial issues; the political affiliations of the adult members of the family; employability after graduation—these all are recurring elements in the storylines that emerged in the interviews.

Because I’m from a poor family with a lot of kids, one after another we all had to start working right after primary school. None of us could obtain professional training. Only the oldest brother had some training thanks to our grandpa, who supported him in that. Otherwise, all the rest of us had to start earning immediately, because our parents, even if student housing was dirt cheap compared to today, still couldn’t afford to pay our room and board. So they told us we had to take care of ourselves. (Marie Plachá, born 1953, worker in many occupations)

Another family feature that influenced a narrator’s education, and personal growth in general, was moving, a practice prevalent in memories from the 1940s and 1950s. Relocating put increased demands on children, who had to adapt to new neighborhoods and schools.

The vast majority of our narrators structured the stories of their educational lives (even as truants) in terms of what they went on to do. Many times schools connected narrators to their first jobs, thanks not only to the knowledge and skills acquired there but also to the personal contacts made or direct institutional links. Mainly those enrolled in professional training programs or internships, which were closely connected to the business and manufacturing sectors before the Velvet Revolution, found work. Many narrators remained for a better part of their professional careers with their first employer.

That was an unfortunate time, February of 1948, very unfortunate. In June, I had graduated from school, and I wanted to train as a dressmaker or a hairdresser. They wouldn’t accept me. At that time, people who still owned a shop or a private business no longer trained new apprentices [to do so was against the new Communist legislation]. So, because my father already knew he’d have to move back to Pardubice, I started here in the pressing room at Polaban. Later they renamed it as Pragoděv, and that’s the way it stayed until I retired in 1989. (V. S., born 1934, textile worker)

The decision to go to college upon graduation from high school took on a special dimension for young men in light of compulsory military service. If they were drafted, then after reaching the age of eighteen they had to complete two years of the dreaded military service—unless they worked in the mining sector or were already studying at a military or police school. On the other hand, university graduates received basic military training during the last years of their study, which relieved them of one year of military service. In the eyes of many narrators, this was an important motivation to continue their studies.

Many narrators were able to continue their education only as mature students (while they worked, in the vast majority of cases). If a person decided to go back to school, his or her school memories were similar to those who attended school as adolescents, albeit with more reflection.

I must say the most important thing I learned in my adult studies was this: the higher you climb and the broader your horizons, the more you realize how much you still don’t know and how much you will never learn. That was even more true in my case, because I started terribly late, and those lost years—that’s the second thing you realize—you will never get them back. Maybe I should have been more determined. (Jiří Štěrba, born 1944, technical college teacher)

Successful students were rewarded with career advance, increased income, change of job and re-qualification, or escape from a stereotypical life. Narrators frequently mentioned that the costs of study, besides time, effort, and often long commutes, included unmet obligations towards their families and children. Sometimes they also faced political dilemmas (for example, the requirement to join the Communist Party, the Socialist Youth Union, or the Union of Czechoslovak–Soviet Partnership). In some cases, schoolwork broke families apart. In others, narrators felt remorse over missed opportunities and for choosing the wrong course.

Although I had quite a hard life, especially in my early days, because my youth was nothing special, I finally started to live my life to the fullest after I had turned forty. I actually don’t regret anything I did once I had left the army. But unfortunately what preceded the change, before the revolution, including my studies, today I consider a real waste of time. I could have had totally different memories today. At that time, I didn’t regret it. After all, I was young; but now I do regret it because being a soldier didn’t suit me. Thanks to the revolution, I had a chance to get a glimpse of what normal life is. (Josef Man, born 1954, soldier)

Narrators who opted against higher education had either reconciled themselves to their choice or even expressed satisfaction over not upsetting the established rhythm of their lives by taking such a “risky” step. Other narrators attempted to suppress sighs, or expressed open remorse over their decision not to study in light of the growing demand for formal education in a number of professions in the late 1980s, and in particular after 1989. The lack of a college diploma kept some narrators from career advancement in jobs they had already held as well as from landing a new job. Some complained that formal training was an unnecessary requirement. But other narrators acknowledged that they could have achieved much more had they completed their degree and regretted the opportunities they had passed up.

In our company before the revolution, if you wanted to study at an evening technical college or something, you could. That was more or less for working-class people. They could even study at universities. One of us went there too. I don’t know if he ever graduated or not. But my disadvantage was that, at the age when kids learn the best, I just frittered away my time. My mom didn’t have any time for me, my sisters were not around, and when I was older and was supposed to learn something, it didn’t come easy. What other guys could learn in an hour took me maybe two or three hours. I’ve actually suffered all my life because of that. Even now it makes me feel ashamed, but it’s too late today. (Jan Krátký, born 1943, electrician)

When discussing developments in certain industries and professions after 1989, narrators criticized the inflation of education, its formal character, its demands on time and finances, and last but not least, employers’ emphasis on a diploma at the expense of an individual’s real skills and experience. Not only specialists in certain industries but also members of earlier generations questioned the idea of an information society.

The Teacher’s Decisive Role

In the specialized literature, the teacher is seen as a key factor in a properly functioning educational system.[10] Indeed, for some narrators, the figure of the teacher was a metonymy for the school, and even for a certain period in their education. A significant portion of our narrators, however, never mentioned their teachers. These narrators did not remember school in a positive light and wished to forget the experience.

Teachers were remembered as educators and nurturers who exerted considerable influence on the events in the public sphere. Before 1989 (including the prewar period), teachers were widely considered to be the leading representatives of the regime, wielding influence over public opinion through its weakest and most vulnerable element: children and adolescents. To be sure, narrators distinguished between the “old” generation of secondary school and university teachers from the First Republic era (1918–1938) and World War II, on the one hand, and the “new” postwar generation of teachers at all levels of education, on the other.

In the first grade, we had this lady as our teacher, and she was a Godsend. She was very strict but fair, and applied corporal punishment not just for various disciplinary offenses but even if you made a counting mistake. She would hit kids across their hands with a flexible metallic pencil case. And when our first teeth started to get loose, she would pull them out, and we were not allowed to cry. We were not even allowed to spit blood. Those who swallowed the blood in the right way were given a piece of chocolate. She was really one of a kind, and we loved her even if she scared our pants off. Her strong personality has somehow remained with me. (M. L., born 1932, doctor)

Narrators attributed the use of “traditional” drill methods to older teachers, whom they perceived as representatives of an apolitical fellowship, advocates of liberal-democratic education, and general disseminators of “universal knowledge.” In contrast, teachers of the new generation were thought of as young (close in age to the narrators) and less formal, but mostly as politically allegiant, belonging to the Communist Party, and sometimes also lacking in professional experience and making a smaller pedagogical contribution. All the narrators agreed that the dividing line between teachers with “good” and “bad” results followed the lines of political party allegiance and age. As a general rule, they tended to evaluate teachers according to certain roles and personality traits, which brought them closer to one or the other pole.

The curriculum wasn’t worth much. Some of [the instructors] were no experts, but they had no personality, and that was something objectionable. I even had … one lecturer who taught scientific Communism: he would invite female students to his office for consultations, and he was maybe the only one who had a couch in his office. That’s hard to understand in any other than the most obvious way, isn’t it? Especially when you could see his eyes gleaming with lust. It was quite upsetting. (Ludmila Mesteková, born 1952, librarian and editor)

Most frequently, our narrators remembered the degree of expertise of their teachers, the efficiency of their teaching, their relationships with the students, their involvement in public and social life, and their capacity for application of more liberal pedagogic methods within the given political and ideological limits.

Narrators most vividly remembered and most frequently mentioned extreme experiences with their teachers. Feelings of nostalgia resurge when they are talking of good teachers, and feelings of contempt when they mention the generally bad ones. Owing to the intense personal experience and hindsight, some narrators tended to simplify and generalize, and when evaluating their various teachers, they differentiated between what each of them “gave to” or “took from” their lives.

[Aside from some exceptions] we had some very good old teachers who really knew their stuff and wouldn’t teach us any nonsense. That was a good thing. Then, as we were in our senior year, and these gentlemen were retiring one after another, the young teachers started coming in. I can’t tell you what they taught the kids later. But those old professors, they pounded it into our heads back then that we shouldn’t use any tractors because they would suffocate the soil, or that we shouldn’t use artificial fertilizers but instead natural manure to create humus. Only now after those thirty or forty years is it being recognized that they were right. These were the things they taught us back then, but later on people forgot all about it, and the practice was totally different. (Anneliese Beníšková, born 1940, worker in agriculture)

Narrators assigned great importance to the role of teachers in their life stories as a whole. For example, a teacher might have pointed a student in a certain direction in the choice of employment or school or, conversely, shattered unrealistic illusions concerning their potential careers and occupations. Narrators recalled specific things their teachers had taught them, or conversely expressed the feeling that certain classes were just a waste of time. Sometimes, the narrators even saw a teacher as an embodiment of all virtues, a person who served as their role model throughout their lives.

There in school I met a lot of interesting people who later became very influential. To be specific, one was my platoon commander, later General Ducháček—the perfect model of an officer. He was exactly what a man should be: always perfectly groomed, always in a good mood, always on top of things; physically prepared, mentally tough; he was just a perfect leader. You just fell under his spell, I mean in a good way. To us, he was a living model. (Petr Čejka, born 1941, soldier)

Some narrators kept in touch with their teachers in after graduation or a certain period of their education.

I liked my primary school because it was a good group. The only subject I hated was physical education. At the beginning of one lesson, the teacher asked: “Now, where is Jaroslava?” And the others said, “She’s in the toilet.” But actually I had crawled under a vaulting box. They spent the whole class period looking for me, and I watched them through the slits as they were exercising. And when the class was over, I got out, and the teacher wrote a note to my parents. After forty years, when we held a class reunion, we invited all our teachers who were still alive. I met that physical education teacher there, and we also remembered that little episode. We have become good friends. Sometimes we go for a drink together and have a good laugh about such things. (Jaroslava Krudencová, born 1952, worker in a data center).

As for teaching as a profession, whereas some teachers pursued the job to fulfill their childhood dreams, others chose their occupation later, under the influence of their own education and following the example of their own teachers, or just happened to become teachers as a result of some chance event in their lives.

When I got divorced, I felt really very bad, and I decided to leave the factory. I was thinking of working as a shop assistant in a company store, so I could talk to people, just to somehow get out of my slump. So I called the manager at our headquarters, and he said: “No, no, absolutely out of the question. We are just starting a new training center, and we’d like you to go there.” Finally, I was given some sort of recommendation, and they accepted me at that center, so I was a forewoman to those kids for thirteen years. (Julie Quastová, born 1945, leather worker)

Yet other narrators would have liked to teach but faced insurmountable obstacles:

I finished high school in 1956, and I had to decide what to do next. My ambition was to become a teacher. I wanted to study at the Faculty of Education and complete pedagogical training, but the high school principal said: “No, our Republic needs help in the field of chemistry, and you’re good in chemistry. You’ve got excellent grades, so you’ll study chemistry.” It’s true that I didn’t object to chemistry, and I did have excellent grades and so on. So, in the end, I studied at the Institute of Chemical Technology in Pardubice. (Václav Jelínek, born 1939, electrical engineering researcher and head of a company)

The narrators who were teachers felt motivated and rewarded by the observable results of their work with young people. They were strict with their students and often placed considerable demands on them. Many teachers said they appreciated, before 1989, being in a collective with other teachers, and sometimes also in the broader collective of school staff (caretakers, cooks, cleaners), where relationships were based on the collective goal of educating the students to the best of their abilities.

In our school, there were a bunch of really great people, and somehow we managed to escape the direct pressures of normalization. Well, we did have all those dumb political training sessions, seminars on atheism, writing meaningless papers. But I never had the feeling that it was really serious. Here, in our small town, I felt it was more like some kind of a Švejk-like farce. (Jaroslava Wollerová, born 1947, secondary school teacher)

When asked how they viewed material or social compensation for their work, teachers answered in general that money or public recognition were not the main reasons why they were in their profession. In hindsight, many of them had regrets and mixed feelings about their membership in certain social organizations and their active part in carrying out the educational policy of the state and the Party.

Before the Velvet Revolution, being proud of my school and solidarity with the collective were two different things because the school was obviously very ideological, and the principal, in my opinion, was a member of the most infamous nomenklatura elite in Prague. I didn’t like him, and some of the other teachers didn’t like him, either. But obviously some of the teachers fawned over him and sucked up to him, so it’s not like I was all that proud of that school as a whole. But I did feel solidarity with a part of that school as represented by some of the teachers. That was because those people somehow stuck closer together. (Jiří Růžička, born 1948, secondary school teacher)

Even two decades later, the public aspects of their work pre-1989 still provoke remorse and trauma in some narrators. Others, on the other hand, pointed out that they approached the ideologically deformed teaching “mission” pragmatically and with reservations, and sometimes even refused to let themselves be influenced by it.

For many teachers, the Velvet Revolution brought some joy into teaching or at least some relief in the form of the newly won freedom of speech, the depoliticization of education, and, in the case of primary education, improvements in the teaching conditions through the reduction in the number of children per classroom. Others perceived it as just another in the series of political transformations they had experienced in their lives.

I would say we didn’t have very strong feelings about that revolution. We were just glad we could decorate our classrooms the way we liked because nobody was going to tell us what decorations to use. And we felt the greatest joy of all in learning that there wouldn’t be so many children in each class. But that didn’t last long, and now is no longer true. (Miroslava Kubátová, born 1946, nursery school teacher)

A number of our narrators appreciated the gradual improvement in the school equipment. However, shortly after the Velvet Revolution, teachers started feeling uncertain and frustrated for a variety of reasons. They felt negative about the vagueness of the education policy; they were ambivalent about the never-ending attempts to change the school system; they criticized the excessive emphasis on the formal qualifications required of teachers and the rapid deterioration of the relationship between teachers and students and also among members of the teaching staff. Last, but not least, they felt very keenly the Czech public’s ambivalence toward their work. As our narrators saw it, the public expected the teachers to produce excellent academic results and to take on more and more of the family’s traditional role in transmitting values (as can be seen in the results of public opinion polls giving high recognition to teachers).[11] Yet society and its elites have been unable to transform this recognition into a policy of public spending on education, including adequate teacher remuneration and training. Statistical comparisons show that these expenditures are significantly lower than in other countries, as well as lower than in other professions in the Czech Republic.[12] Teachers feel that this new democratic period has not only failed to bring a rapid improvement in society’s attitude towards education that they had hoped for, it has even further deepened the crisis of the education sector as a whole as well as their personal disenchantment.[13]

Equal Opportunity? Discrimination in Education Before (and After) 1989

The program of the first Czechoslovak government after the World War II had already included an emphasis on eliminating racial, gender, and class discrimination in education. These ideals were also embodied in the text of the People’s Constitution of 1948, the first to guarantee the right to education for all citizens, and the second to guarantee equal access to education for both men and women.

Although Czech society did make a real effort to put these principles into effect, actual practice differed from the letter of the law. One problem was posed by section 12 of the third article of the Civil Code, which stated that “the state ensures that everyone receives education and training according to his or her abilities and with regard to the needs of the whole.”[14] This article implied the introduction of class and political criteria into the sphere of education, although such criteria were in sharp contrast with civil and individual personal equality as declared by the 1948 Constitution (and repeated by the later Socialist Constitution of 1960).

Subsequently, a complicated and multilayered system of discrimination developed, such that even those responsible for its implementation could not understand it in all its complexity.[15]

Memories of discrimination reached as far back as preschool. Already at this level a system had been developed for admitting children according to their parents’ permanent residence and occupation. Alongside state schools (for everybody) there were also company nursery schools (and primary schools) intended chiefly for the children of employees of that company. In the opinion of well-informed narrators, these company educational institutions were much better equipped. Teachers wrote comprehensive assessments of the preschoolers, which developed into political profiles that followed them to primary school and perhaps even through to higher levels of education. In the case of preschool children, the most carefully assessed criteria (alongside the political ones) were personality features, general conduct, and academic achievement.

Throughout those three years when a child was in nursery school, we had to write assessments that followed them further on to school. It was hard for us to write those things, especially seeing that you never knew how the child would develop. Just recently we were talking about a child who, for many years appeared to be mentally retarded, but very dexterous manually. His father was a dentist, and we thought: “If only he were brighter, he could follow in his father’s footsteps.” Well, today he actually is a dentist. So, writing those assessments was unfair. We didn’t like writing them. (Miroslava Kubátová, born 1946, nursery school teacher)

In secondary schools and universities, politically engaged classmates, either members of youth organizations or of the Communist Party, joined teachers and cadre workers in writing such assessments. Even many years later, this sensitive issue was a source of negative recollections and controversy.

Upon arrival at the primary school, some narrators experienced discrimination because of their nationality, particularly Czech children during the Nazi Protectorate during World War II and children from German and mixed Czech-German families after the war.

Our schoolmates then asked us who we were. Were we Czechs or Germans? And we said we didn’t know. So then at home we asked our mom, “Mom, who are we, Czechs or Germans?” And she would say: “Girls, I don’t know who we are. Just tell them we are … I don’t know … Hottentots.” And we didn’t know what they were, so we told everybody we were Hottentots. (Anneliese Beníšková, born 1940, worker in agriculture)

The experience of harassment and the awareness of belonging to a minority such as racially inferior Czechs or collaborating Germans were recalled as intensely as later memories of narrators who were discriminated against after the 1948 Communist revolution because of their social class. A number of narrators recounted bleak stories from their past in a pragmatic tone, sometimes even with hints of humor, perhaps out of the need for self-preservation.

It was only when I was about to graduate that I became fully aware that I should have pursued my studies further, but I couldn’t. In hindsight, I told myself that the regime basically turned these kids into new class enemies. Because kids don’t understand anything at first, but they’re smart, and all of a sudden they become aware of being different. Which is the same thing as, I’ve read, happened in the nineteenth century: children from poor families couldn’t study, because they weren’t as well off as kids from rich families, who didn’t need to have as much talent or ability. And so here, after February 1948, history was repeating itself. But it was not like my schoolmates let me feel I was different. No, never. (Milan Honzík, born 1938, lower-level executive in a chemical enterprise)

While this narrator sounds philosophical about his situation, others who endured similar experiences hinted at a still-burning sense of injustice.

At the same time, however, many narrators who grew up in working-class families or whose nationality or political profile were unproblematic, were aware of their advantages and opportunities for educational growth.

Once, I spent two nights drinking with a friend of mine, we emptied maybe three bottles of Ballantine’s. In a self-critical moment of insight, I realized that they could have chosen another guy, who perhaps had always wanted to be a sailor, who had been trying to become one, but I got his place just because I was politically acceptable. In a way, it was a kind of self-pity that I might have taken somebody else’s job. (Jaromír Vápeník, born 1964, seaman, municipal politician after 1989)

By 1948, high school and college admissions had become quite competitive, and a system of scores guidelines[16] for individual disciplines was set up; some applicants started being given preference for political reasons, to such an extent that the public gradually became aware of the necessity of class and political prerequisites for study. Then college applicants recalled that they were expected not only to have a good academic record but also an appropriate class background or else intercessions by “more powerful figures” to counterbalance the handicap of their political class. The personal stories of interventions by relatives, senior Communist Party members, experts in the field, company management, or trade union members are ample proof of the legitimization of political discrimination, even if some narrators were radically opposed to it.

Quite a few narrators, especially those from working-class backgrounds, recalled that, although their superiors would prompt them to apply to secondary schools as part of affirmative action, they did not take advantage of this opportunity for various reasons (family, time, intellectual limitations) or did not complete the course.

If I had had the wits I have now, I would have arranged my life differently. Today, you need a college degree, the higher the better. Back then, under Communism, as a miner, I earned more than a technician. On three occasions, I was encouraged to study at the Mining Technical School, but I always declined. I simply didn’t feel the need, because I was earning good money, so I had no motivation. (Jan Beluš, born 1948, miner)

The extent of the narrators’ regret over the decision to abandon their studies depends on their satisfaction with their professional career growth later in life. The narrators who felt they had been discriminated against were very skeptical of affirmative action and indignantly (and perhaps enviously) viewed such a path to a diploma as a devaluation of education, because under natural (i.e., liberal-democratic) conditions, those applicants would have never stood a chance of being admitted.

Universities applied the most elaborate admission procedures, a situation duly reflected in narrators’ memories. Given that the number of applicants permanently exceeded the schools’ enrollment capacity (especially in the fields of humanities, arts, and education studies), narrators recalled stressful experiences and great dilemmas, especially for their parents.[17] Our narrators often spoke of bribery, the need to search (often repeatedly) for go-betweens, interventions, and also the compromising of their personal convictions in order to gain admittance. Certain narrators applied repeatedly to the same school, resisting their (temporary) adverse fate with will power.

Finally nothing helped; everything failed with those university entrance exams even if the pressure exerted by those family friends who were in the same field was really enormous. This was another valuable experience in my life, the fact that even in such difficult times there were really a lot of people who were somehow trying to help. When it didn’t work out and I didn’t get in, I had to spend two years in the army, and then I tried to re-apply. (Jan Peřina, born 1936, university teacher in the field of optics)

The narrators sometimes compared completing their own university applications to the feelings they later experienced as parents or older relatives. It was remarkable that a number of university graduates did not mention any problems related to admission procedures at all, a phenomenon that can be explained by their “good cadre profile,” by the generation they belonged to, or by their repression of the memory. Were they to ponder how they had managed to pass the screening process, they might have found it painful to consider how important their studies were for their careers, and such thoughts might have disturbed, or called into question, their “world view” and the overall tone of their narratives. Such conscious and unconscious motivations are suggested by some interviews.

My mother wasn’t in the Party at the time when I applied to university. Some years later, I visited one of her former colleagues who told me: “Jarmila, you have no idea how brave your mother was. In the fifties, they handed her an application for Party membership, and she just said: I can’t sign it. My husband would roll over in his grave.” Today, I still can’t understand how she could have been so brave. I wouldn’t have had the guts if I’d had a child in high school and wanted her to go to university. That alone would have been enough to make me swallow my pride. But she took the risk, and somehow everything turned out all right. There was a kind principal at my high school, and he gave me a good reference using the scores guidelines to help me get into a medical school. And so it worked out. (M. L., born 1932, physician)

Generally speaking, our narrators encountered both affirmative action and discrimination at universities.

At our school, the working-class medical students were sometimes pretty nice people, but they knew absolutely nothing. The only ones who succeeded were those who had gone to high school, then had been expelled for political reasons, had worked in a factory, and then again had applied to college. But those who were actually from blue-collar families, I mean no offense to them, but their ignorance was so blatant that all of them were thrown out after the first or second year. None of them ever made it, and nobody cared anymore whether they were from working-class background or not. Those old professors threw them out without any mercy. Even today we are not allowed to kick students out of the program the way they did. (Václav Smetana, born 1934, orthopedist)

The above extract illustrates the difficulties working-class graduates faced in the 1950s in their preparatory courses: they enrolled in the university having completed an accelerated high school program in evening courses, usually lasting only a year.

In the late 1960s, narrators increasingly encountered foreign students from “friendly,” usually developing, countries. Even more frequent, however, were encounters with the offspring of the “new class,” that is, prominent nomenklatura figures.

In our school, there was a mix of professional and political totalitarian VIPs. Sometimes there were people like myself, who somehow managed to get in because they fell within some democratization parameters as defined by guidelines setting out what a socialist student should be like. Among the children of the Communist elite, there was a mine director’s daughter and people of that sort; and then there were some of those we might call “golden youth,” for instance, the father of one of my classmates was head of a big translation publishing house. And I was shocked when I discovered that her family, in 1978 or 1979, lived in a six-room flat with a housemaid. (Eva Dosedělová, born 1960, journalist and graphic designer)

Some narrators recalled with satisfaction certain professors’ immunity to affirmative-action policies, which they interpreted to mean that they had succeeded academically on their own merits, without the help of any protection.

Narrators often mentioned the educational purges of the late 1960s and early 1970s, a powerful tool of discrimination applied mainly to members of the Communist Party. Narrators who reported that they had been at least partially affected by these “educational screenings,”[18] tended to downplay their effect on their personal and professional growth or remembered them indifferently.

With the perspective of time, some narrators, especially those from the armed forces, revisited their attitudes and even expressed remorse over their privileged status. In fact, they did not feel themselves to be privileged at all, either because they were unhappy with their work, or disliked military drill, limited personal freedom, and the long period of service. The following narrator came from a poor family that could not support him in quitting the army before he had fulfilled his contracted service.

The first thing that was a disadvantage for us was that we had to sign a pledge after graduating from the military school. And if you couldn’t pay your way out of it, which cost quite a lot of money back then, you had to serve. People who wanted to quit had to struggle through various laws for a long time and argue with the army. They had a lot of problems, and before they were released to civilian life they were all but labeled as criminals and anti-state elements. And before you could go back to civilian life, you had to serve perhaps twenty years or so. (Jan Čajník, born 1954, soldier)

In such instances this, people had to be sufficiently active politically or pledge to work in a certain capacity for a long time (for instance, police and soldiers were required to fulfill five, ten, or even twenty or more years of service). Some narrators saw this mandatory engagement in exchange for education as acceptable at the time, and sometimes even desirable. Most narrators, as they tell their life stories, tend to present themselves as people who had completed their education and achieved social status on their own merit, rather than through any political influence. Some of them resented the fact that some police academy, military school, or Communist Party school diplomas were not recognized after 1989; they felt they had acquired them through proper study, and condemned the decision to invalidate them as a new form of educational discrimination.

Today there is discrimination against the graduates of the College of the National Security Corps, there is no doubt about it. At first, the new national leaders after 1989 asked for expert reports from the Charles University Faculty of Law, which recognized that the level of our school was what it was, but that it was basically the equivalent of a university law degree. But then a new law was introduced that prohibited our graduates from using any title, thus setting them apart from the others. Our people also weren’t allowed to be in the Chamber of Commercial Lawyers or in the Bar Association. Yet according to another law, they can be judges and prosecutors, which is paradoxical. (Josef Souček, born 1940, policeman and university teacher)

In attempting to capture the essence of the discriminatory system and its functioning, Czech sociologist Petr Matějů summarized the theory and practice of social engineering before the Velvet Revolution:

The original intention was undoubtedly to quickly eliminate favoritism, which had given advantage to children from the families of the intelligentsia, and to quickly open the educational system to social groups that had not been favored before. But once a space had been created in which it was possible to manipulate the selection procedure administratively, it could easily be used by group interests, i.e., it became a space in which the new power elite and its administrators could pursue their own interests.[19]

Discrimination also changed over time. Whereas in the 1940s and 1950s, national or class enemies (real or imagined) could, for all practical purposes, forget about higher education, in the 1960s, the regime’s approach to these “yesterday’s people” started to change. In the 1970s and 1980s, members of the opposition and their offspring obtained university degrees and beyond, despite being persecuted in other ways.[20]

From the stories told about nepotism and bribery, it seems that Czech society accepted discrimination in education as a given and as an obstacle to be overcome if a person was interested in higher education. In the collective memory, both the victims and the perpetrators of discrimination in the education system constitute some of the most typical, perhaps even the most stereotypical, characters of the times before 1989.

The Velvet Revolution and the onset of transformation signaled the demise of the existing class and political barriers, expanding the network of schools and disciplines as well as establishing multiple pedagogical approaches. Despite the undeniable progress in the democratization of education, there persisted limitations preventing further development. These were bitterly criticized by teachers. At the elementary level, inclusion classes (which bring together students of all educational levels with the intention of educating a mutually tolerant generation of children) usually fail—either because of the large class sizes or attrition. There are also legacies of social and ethnic discrimination that limit education and the possibility of affirmative action for groups like the Roma. Children from the Roma community, even if their abilities may be well above average, without any great support from the state, from society, or even their parents, often end up in special education classes and schools lacking any practical capacity to develop their potential. The Czech Republic has been a target of criticism from international nongovernmental organizations for its poor handling of the “Roma issue.” Most of our interviews confirmed that the Roma are neglected or even a taboo subject.

A growing cause of educational inequality is economic limitations. Because of reductions in state support, tuition costs are being passed on to families and to the students themselves. Unlike their wealthier peers, these students are forced to find regular jobs, and so cannot devote themselves fully to studying. The story of economic discrimination in education seems to have turned back to the 1930s and 1940s.

“Onward, Youth!” or Educating Younger Generations

Sometimes spontaneously, but more often when explicitly asked, people talked about their children’s schools, studies, and careers. They would compare their own pursuit of education many years ago with the path taken by their children. These interviews, supported with quantitative data, confirmed that the children and grandchildren of our narrators’ generation usually matched, and many times surpassed, their parents’ levels of education. What the interviews did not demonstrate so clearly was the tendency for careers to be inherited, but narrators expressed pride in their successors.

My son trained to be a certified car mechanic, and then he started working in a repair shop. Maybe he wasn’t happy there or something, I don’t know, but suddenly he came up with another idea: he wanted to be a fireman. At that time, I didn’t do anything to help him. I didn’t show him any support, but he didn’t give up, and they accepted him in spite of his eyesight problems. He worked his way up, and now he’s working in the same position I used to have. Probably he was really more motivated than I had first thought. Today, I have to say I’m very happy he’s there. (Jan Havrda, born 1946, fireman)

Some parents whose children did not meet the family’s expectations regretted, and sometimes even disapproved of, the outcome. This is particularly true of narrators in specialized occupations, with a strong collective ethos, or with university education.

Parents often described intervening in their children’s studies and could be quite emotional about it, depending on the result. Some parents even resorted to bribery to get their children into a chosen school or a training program. Most parents saw these efforts on behalf of their offspring, including the supervision of homework, the expenditure, and the stress, as a natural part of the duties of any good parent or relative.

However, some narrators felt victimized by such experiences, for instance when they were to forced to join the Communist Party contrary to their convictions; to get “involved”; to beg somebody higher up to intercede; or to give someone a bribe.

At the very same time as our son was taking his entrance exams for an agricultural high school, my husband cancelled his membership in the Union of Czechoslovak–Soviet Partnership. And that was a problem because my son’s application was rejected. So I went to the manager of our company and asked him if the trade union could help. To start with, he told me, your husband would have to rejoin the Union of Czechoslovak–Soviet Partnership. So he had to rejoin, and after some struggle we got our son into the forestry program. He was there only about three months, and then he said, “I’m not staying there. I hate it. I want to go to the high school in Hradec Králové.” Once again, we had to find some go-between. Daddy bribed some bigwig, and the boy got in. (Alena Růžičková, born 1936, manual worker)

Narrators disappointed by their aspirations for their children’s education expressed sadness, frustration, or even trauma. Each coped in their own way: they tried to help their children; they concentrated on their grandchildren or on other activities; or they just brooded on what had gone wrong.

But, generally speaking, parents were proud of children who succeeded in school, lived contentedly, and achieved something the parents themselves could not have.

I had my son when I was twenty-eight. He completed the food technology vocational school, and then he wanted to go to university. He probably didn’t stand a chance at a civilian college, so he enrolled in the Military College in Žilina. He studied and had a dual major in quartermaster logistics and supplies as a military subject and economy as a civilian subject. He managed to get married in his freshman year—that’s just life, that’s how I see it. He graduated at the top of his class and got “excellent” grades in all five state exams. He really made up for all the bad things in my whole life. I told myself I was doing a good deed when I married a widower with two sons, and this son of my own is my reward for that. (V. S., born 1934, textile worker)

Narrators other than teachers had only general knowledge of education after 1989, usually as it related to the schooling of their grandchildren. They perceived the sphere of education as more liberal and often as an economic issue, particularly when it came to university education. Considering the tuition charges for university education and the increasing costs of raising a family, the narrators believed that the time was coming again when getting an education would depend to a large extent on the funds invested. Furthermore, the age-old assumption that graduating from high school or university guarantees a job no longer holds true. Many narrators, who grew up in a system of compulsory employment, felt a growing concern for their children and grandchildren.

Workers in professions that formerly enjoyed special favor, such as mining and industry, also tended to assess opportunities for the young generation skeptically. In general, however, narrators perceived young people’s prospects—thanks to the increased opportunities in education—as better than their own when they were young.

Some teachers offered better-informed and more nuanced opinions on the topic of education. Many of them believed that, although their students shared their predecessors’ “eternal” problems and preferences, post-1989 students showed greater materialism and a decreasing level of knowledge and skills. Anguished teachers had a hard time arousing interest in a “bored generation” that is oversaturated with information.

They attribute these obstacles to their work as educators and nurturers to the influence of the transformation, and also partly to the decreasing number of really caring and nurturing families. They describe members of the young generation as “victims of the times.”[21]

Sadly, among our narrators, it was primarily the teachers who were skeptical about the future of the young generation.

Czechs: A Well-Educated Society?

After World War II, the social, gender, and regional distinctions in Czech education had gradually weakened. Despite the emphasis of the socialist dictatorship on the emancipating role of education, the pace of progress was similar to that in Western Europe.[22] Since 1989, the economic transformation, the information revolution, and the increased demand for services have led Czechs to talk of building a “knowledge society.” These same conditions have also increasingly shifted the emphasis to quantitative indicators of growth at the expense of qualitative indicators. The mass admission of students has “produced” many graduates with only marginal concern for their skills, knowledge, or real efficiency. It has also resulted in the increasing formalization and inflation of education—that is, when the majority of society members have a college or university degree, the degree has a lower value on the job market. This quantification is accompanied by a gradual decline in the students’ level of knowledge owing to such practices as “accelerated graduation” (in contrast to the standard length of studies) or to the purchase of degrees without any regular study, practices that have greatly damaged Czechs’ image of education as a whole.

Above all, an increasingly noticeable widening educational gap is complicating, or even closing off, weaker social groups’ access to education. However, this trend is by no means peculiar to the Czech Republic. Although it is very difficult to compare international levels of education, statistics suggest that, in terms of funds invested, the Czech population is better off, even if the gap between the Czech Republic and the lead countries is still stagnating or in some cases gradually increasing.[23] To put it simply, Czechs are still drawing on the socialist legacy. But the socialist era saw corruption as well as democratization in education. What results will be passed on?

As is clear from our narrators’ life stories, most of them managed to help their children and grandchildren achieve at least the same, and oftentimes higher, level of education as they themselves had.[24] With negligible exceptions, the topic of illiteracy did not come up in the interviews, and when it did, it was part of an entertaining story intended to illustrate the period before the war. The prevailing attitude was respect for education. Despite derogatory comments about oneself (“I wasn’t a good student”; “I refused to study”; “I chose the wrong school”) or somebody else (the Communist regime abused the education system for political reasons; employers after 1989 discriminated on the basis of “over-qualification”), the tone of the narrators’ testimonies eventually confirmed the “timeless” value of education. Our narrators, who were brought up and raised according to the ideals of an educated Czech nation, generally assessed that having an education contributed to a happy life.

5

From Mandatory Employment to Unemployment

Karel Čapek, a prominent Czech writer and journalist, when asked what he did in his free time, answered without hesitation: “I work.” A statement by one of the workers interviewed conveys a similar attitude, one shared by most narrators, whether they worked manually or intellectually.

To me, work has always been everything, whether under socialism or now. I never had to think about it back then, and now that I’m retired I don’t have to think about it either, but I still work, and I’m glad I do. I feel sorry for those who are unemployed today. Without work, I’d feel as if I had both legs amputated. … When I lost my job in 2000 and couldn’t find another one for nearly half a year, and had to go to the Labor Office every week, I really started to have the darkest thoughts. (Václav Vejskal, born 1944, miner)

Narrators described their experiences from both sides of the Velvet Revolution. On the one hand, the socialist regime guaranteed employment, even if it bordered on artificial over-employment, and required everyone to work; on the other hand, the post-revolution return to the market economy offered almost unlimited choice of employment, including the possibility of unemployment, whether by choice or unwanted.

Work is one of the activities that distinguishes human beings from animals. For most people, it defines the meaning of their lives. Through work, people change both their natural and cultural environments. It integrates them into society and gives them a sense of belonging, the accompanying sense of responsibility, and the ability to rely on others. Work is a legal source of income that also brings a feeling of satisfaction and an occasion to showcase one’s skills and abilities. It is no wonder that work is so highly valued and respected in almost all societies. Work as a value played a key role in the Marxist–Leninist ideology that held sway in Czechoslovakia until November 1989; similarly, work became a cornerstone of politics and public life in the post-revolutionary transformation. Work became the subject of extensive research, and agencies mapping public opinion regularly introduced work-related questions. Some of their findings have become the basis for our deliberations here.

Surveys conducted by the Center for Public Opinion Research after 1989[1] show that as a priority in life, respondents ranked work in the third place (immediately after family and health). Work ranked just as high in public opinion polls in the 1970s and 1980s.[2] Indeed, the high value placed on work has been remarkably stable since World War II, regardless of the political system in place. That every single narrator touched on work comes therefore as no surprise: indeed, work-related stories and memories were at the heart of the interviews.

Interviews with Men: Work, Work, Work

Whereas oral history studies of work have viewed it mainly from the perspectives of political economy, national economy, or labor efficiency, our aim is to understand the meaning of work, what it meant to be employed before 1989, and how the perception and the value of work have changed since 1989 (including the gender perspective). We wanted to see in particular what topics the narrators themselves would come up with during the interviews.[3]

In terms of the scope and frequency of various topics in men’s biographies, the category of work rises to the top of the list. Men thought back on their work significantly more often than women. Men generally seemed to identify themselves with their work. They stressed feelings of satisfaction when they were successful in their work and of disappointment and depression when they lost their jobs. Findings of this nature are in no way surprising, because in the Czech Republic, especially in our narrators’ generation, born before 1955, men were still expected to provide for their families. Men’s identification with their employment has built up over centuries, and is only gradually being weakened by the industrial revolution.

Work (or its value) is felt as a social, communal, and collective issue. By comparison, the topic of the family (the theme most frequently mentioned by women and the dominant one in their narratives) is much more often brought up by both men and women as something private or even intimate. All the narrators clearly feel protective of their families in conversation, and are reluctant to share it with the researchers, unless they get to know them well.

The difference in the treatment of the two topics is also evident in how the narrators relate their life stories. Whereas in their first interviews narrators tended to speak about their families rather briefly, and only after some prompting would start to describe their relationships in greater detail, they spent considerably more time commenting on their work and its meaning in their lives. At the same time, these were the topics that the interviewees brought up spontaneously. These segments of the interviews were dominated by the narrators’ reflections on the advantages and disadvantages of full employment and the related topic of mandatory employment as a counterpart to today’s concerns about job loss and the fear of ensuing long-term unemployment. The interviews often included anecdotal stories and incidents from work, descriptions of the narrators’ own activities (often very detailed), and recollections of team work and colleagues.

I worked as the warehouse supervisor at a glassworks factory. We were unloading shipments of minerals: carbon, red lead, sand, zinc oxide, arsenic. We loaded it using a special lift and then stored it in a secure room. It was all poison! We had to wear protective gloves. This was company regulation; they needed to be covered in case of accidents. We handled hazardous material, including acid, and so we had to rely on one another. When the freight car arrived at the loading dock, we would hook up a special industrial hose and pump the acid into an underground tank. It was very dangerous. If you inhaled the vapor, it was hell. … I did it for thirty years. I had injuries to hands and feet. Once I got some sulfuric acid in my face, although not directly, but I still ended up in hospital. I still have spots on my face. (Jaroslav Hille, born 1937, glass worker)

I worked in Nusle in Prodex as a seamstress. We manufactured gramophone cases. Then we made accordion and typewriter cases. Everything was handmade; it was a very specialized job. The materials were perforated with a special needle. I was pleased with my work and being able to compare to others’. Plus, we had a good team, hardly any disputes. I would go swimming with my colleagues after work and so on. That’s how I met my husband. (Julie Quastová, born 1945, leather worker)

The Right to Work and Workers’ Responsibilities

After World War II, memories of the Great Depression were still very much alive. In Czechoslovakia, about 1.3 million out of 15 million people suffered unemployment. Therefore, the regime placed special emphasis on social security.[4] The governments in all developed countries had the same goal: to avert another crisis and ensure high employment.

In Czechoslovakia, radical leftist propaganda, led by the Communists, quite effectively criticized the liberal model of democracy and economy. The state could guarantee security it had promised only at the cost of a centrally planned economy. District employment offices set up conditions for employment and were granted the authority to assign individuals to relocate for work by means of so-called “placement cards.”

I got a relocation order to a border area, but I didn’t care. I knew there were loads of work that no one would do for us. (Marcela Králová, born 1949, university scholar and writer)

Other new laws introduced forced requalification and transfer of employees into sectors where there was a labor shortage. This created an administrative system similar to that of the Protectorate during the Nazi occupation, except that it provoked no criticism. On the contrary, people were enthusiastic about their newly gained freedom after the war, and they willingly reported to work in order to build the Republic wherever it was necessary.

After the Communists took over in February 1948, the labor market was gradually dismantled by the nationalization of industry and services as well as by the massive collectivization of agriculture. The government then introduced a prescriptive system of planned economy and management. With the help of the general requirement that everyone have a job, the state attempted to achieve full employment, an endeavor in which it was more or less successful. Provisions guaranteeing everyone the right to work were also enshrined in the 1960 Constitution of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic.[5]

Alongside the right to work, the Constitution also mandated that citizens be required to work,[6] which meant that practically every individual had to be employed. Employment was recorded and attested in each citizen’s identification document. The only adults allowed by law to be unemployed were full-time students, housewives, retired people, and the disabled. If people were caught avoiding work, they were labeled as parasites, and court proceedings were started against them, sometimes even resulting in imprisonment.[7]

Part of the population was well aware that employment was being maintained artificially.

The Communists kept full employment even at the cost of having businesses fail, for instance they might have kept a shaft in operation even when mining it was not at all profitable. What mattered was that people had a job. (Herbert Kisza, born 1943, academic painter)

Some of our narrators described the difference between being employed and working in a rather humorous way.

You had to pretend to be working. Everybody was employed, but for sure they didn’t work one hundred percent of the time. In a business where maybe fifty people were employed back then, today ten are enough. It’s clear that it was artificial, just to give people work. (O. O., born 1948, tram driver)

Almost everybody in our sample of three hundred interviewees welcomed the state’s guarantee of full employment.

I liked it a lot under the Communists. There was work for everybody. Everything was well organized, so we also had a hundred percent employment. There was no need to worry. (Jaroslava Krudencová, born 1952, worker in a data center)

Everybody also knew that those who avoided work exposed themselves to a real danger of being prosecuted and even imprisoned for parasitism. These two factors—the desire to work and the awareness of the law—led nearly all working-age people (and thus almost all our narrators) to seek employment. Almost everybody spent eight hours a day at their workplace throughout their productive lives.

According to experts specializing in employment issues, about 3 percent of every population does not want to work. In the era of real socialism it was almost impossible to come across any formal unemployment; people without work remained hidden until 1989. Only immediate neighbors ever had a chance to meet an unemployed person.

It’s probably true that not everybody wanted to work under socialism, but we all did have security. Some maybe just had the stamp in their ID but still didn’t go to work. That happened too. I heard about it from my husband, who was a supervisor, and even had to go to court because of someone who wouldn’t show up for work. They weren’t able to get him to go to work … They couldn’t do anything with him. Maybe they finally locked him up as a parasite. (Eva Hrstková, born 1937, secondary school teacher)

This narrator is typical in her second-hand knowledge of the willingly unemployed. First-hand experiences were rare, shared by only a few dozen Czechoslovak citizens, such as this man who found himself occasionally homeless both before and after 1989.

Sometimes, they’d bust me for a day because I didn’t have an employment stamp, so I was a kind of parasite. But usually they’d just let me go. They didn’t know what to do with me, right? … Sometimes they’d put me in the Apolinář detox centre in Albertov with alcoholics, and a couple of times I ended up in Bohnice [a psychiatric clinic in Prague]. In the end, they’d always hush it up somehow. Probably, they just didn’t want any more problems with me.[8]

We can see from this account that the Communist regime did not have an answer for everybody. In the most egregious cases, it was at least important “to remove the misfits” from the view of respectable citizens. If now and then the police found a less socially dangerous case, they knew how to turn a blind eye.

In my service, I knew people who didn’t work anywhere, never had an employment stamp in their identity cards, and yet nobody bothered them. We knew this one person who went to the local railway station twice a week, unloaded a train car here, helped chop wood for an old woman there, carried coal and put it down by the road. And he was happy with that. He really didn’t need any more money. So it wasn’t like he was forced to work. But he wasn’t allowed to earn his living in a dishonest way, and that I think was right. (Josef Souček, born 1940, policeman and university teacher)

Still, such a tolerant and humane approach was definitely not the rule. Members of the security forces vividly recalled work avoidance-related cases:

Sure they broke the law, they did. There were a lot of less serious criminal acts: all those shirkers, slackers, parasites, we kept an eye on them, right? These were the majority of criminal acts we dealt with back then, before 1989. … (Jan Hrubeš, born 1947, policeman)

However apolitical it might seem at first glance, the criminal offense of parasitism was often used, or rather abused, for political reasons against dissidents and other persons hostile to the regime. It was difficult for Czechoslovak dissidents and opponents of the regime to find an official job in line with their education or interests. The majority of dissidents lost their jobs (or at least their rank at work) as a consequence of their public denunciation of the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia on August 21, 1968.

A few hundred, mostly younger, dissidents, who had not been involved in the events of 1968, also had difficulty finding suitable jobs in the 1970s and 1980s. The regime was trying to “square the circle”: on the one hand, it seemed convenient to let the dissidents live without the financial security of a job; on the other hand, the Constitution mandated full employment. People who were sacked for their opposition to the regime were thus eventually offered jobs far below their abilities. University graduates found employment as blue-collar workers or even unskilled laborers.

I became a helper in Metrostav, which was menial labor since all I had to do was hold a stick to help conduct tunnel and road construction surveys. It was very poorly paid work, just enough to make ends meet. I was planning to look for something else, since it was actually a kind of transition period, because back then if you didn’t get your stamp within six weeks of your last employment, you were considered a parasite. (Václav Malý, born 1950, Roman Catholic priest and dissident)

Jiří Dienstbier, a journalist, foreign correspondent, signatory to the dissident initiative Charter 77, and first foreign minister after 1989, shared a similar experience:

I went to the labor office once a week; otherwise, I would have been accused of parasitism. I would always get a list of businesses to report to, and I visited them, filled out all the papers, only to be told the next day that they had no work for me; and so forth over and over. Only in spring 1983 did I finally get a temporary job as a night watchman in Prefabricated Buildings. In the end, after an interview with another company, in 1983, I accepted a job as a stoker in Metrostav with a ‘full-time’ stamp in my ID. Until 1989, I worked in the gas boiler room; I had time to read and write, and from time to time do an interview with Radio Free Europe and the Voice of America. It was quite a decent job. (Jiří Dienstbier, born 1937, journalist and dissident)

Whereas for the dissidents, the stamp attesting to their employment was an existential question, there was yet another group in Czechoslovak society for whom the law on full employment posed a problem. These were moneychangers who made their living in the black market, especially in foreign currency exchange.[9] They took advantage of the shortage of Western currencies and fixed exchange rates to make a profit off the exchange rate margins that they manipulated. As one moneychanger boasted, “What others earned in a month I earned in a day.”[10] Thanks to these moneychangers, even an average Czech could from time to time buy Western food and consumer goods that were not available in regular retail outlets. Tuzex was a chain of retail outlets that sold foreign goods in exchange for foreign currencies or specially issued vouchers called bony in Czech. Czechoslovak crowns were not accepted. The name Tuzex was an acronym of TUZemský EXport (domestic export). The shops were used to siphon off foreign currency from the population. The moneychangers exchanged Eastern and Western currency without any license or traded with Tuzex vouchers (bony).

For moneychangers, the legal requirement to work was a nuisance. While they needed time to pursue their illicit activities, they were also expected to work legally. So they would hire a proxy, usually a pensioner, to do the job stated in their identification document—typically that of a stoker or night watchman. The monthly salary was about 1,400 Czechoslovak crowns. The moneychangers earned fifty times as much as the retired people they “employed.” Ideally, however, a moneychanger wanted a stamp attesting to his or her status as a disabled pensioner, which officials would provide for a fat bribe. Then nothing prevented them from launching their “enterprise” on a grand scale. A former moneychanger named Petr recalled his experience in a television interview:

A few days after my school-leaving exam in 1978, the only thing I had to do was get a stamp in my ID showing I was a disabled pensioner. I simply wanted to be a moneychanger. I didn’t have time for any job. I don’t want to sound boastful, but I was one of the best moneychangers in Prague. I was considered an authority. I had a few lackeys and the most luxurious flat in Prague, where filmmakers would often come to shoot. I had a housemaid, a chauffeur, bodyguards. … Many policemen were my friends, and those who were not were afraid of me. Prosecutors and judges were on my side. There was nothing that I couldn’t afford. … [11]

In the 1970s, the state turned a blind eye to the illegal activities of moneychangers. The reason was simple: these profiteers were siphoning off foreign currency and vouchers from the accounts of Czech and Slovak people who worked and were paid abroad. In this way, through the moneychangers and Tuzex stores, the government got its hands on scarce “hard” foreign cash. It was only in the 1980s that the moneychangers started to be seen as a major problem—not due to the ever-increasing amounts of their currency trades (the state still needed the foreign money, although this source was no longer sufficient), but because of public opinion. The public had started to see moneychangers as criminals who did not create any value and only sponged off the work of decent citizens (even though almost every family in the country had at least one direct experience with the black market). By penalizing the moneychangers, who were convicted and sentenced to prison for a period ranging from months to years, the regime attempted to give the impression of acting as a responsible economist and an uncompromising crime fighter.[12]

Nevertheless, many moneychangers accumulated great wealth, which gave these “pioneers of capitalism” (as they see themselves today) an excellent starting position after the 1989 revolution. They had useful contacts in all social circles, and they also had access to free capital which they invested as soon as they could.

Blood, Sweat, and Shopping

As we now know, the socialist economic model (at least the one which was applied in the Soviet satellites) lost out in the competition with the model of capitalism and market economy for being highly inefficient. Macro-economic data suggests that Czechoslovakia started to sink deeper and deeper on the economic scale. In addition to the enormous energy required by Czechoslovak production, the gap between Czechoslovakia and the developed countries also increased in the massive use of human resources, which ran counter to the new conditions, particularly in the 1970s and 1980s. The efficiency of socialism was indeed a frequent target of jokes circulating among the people. One of them was retold in an interview:

The first peculiarity of socialism was that everyone was employed and yet no one worked. The second peculiarity was that no one worked and yet the plan was fulfilled a hundred percent. The third peculiarity was that the plan was fulfilled a hundred percent and yet there was not much to be bought in shops; and the final peculiarity was that no one could buy anything and yet people had everything. (Josef Konečný, born 1950, machinery worker)

Part of the answer to the problem of the socialist economic system’s inefficiency may lie with the people who had a direct influence on efficiency which was directly related to job satisfaction. Assuming this to be true, were Czechoslovakians happy at work? Did the efficiency rate of their work reflect their satisfaction, or rather the reverse? Did they see any prospects for the future in their jobs? The findings of polls conducted in the 1970s and 1980s show that the majority of people were happy at work and optimistic about the prospects of promotion. Throughout the period of normalization, two-thirds of the respondents were upbeat about these questions, while a quarter of them were about partly satisfied, and less than ten percent were dissatisfied.[13]

These data suggest that efficiency and job satisfaction were not connected. However, when researchers admitted that there could be problems in the workplace and probed more deeply, they arrived at more telling findings. When asked about the shortcomings at their workplaces, respondents gave a whole range of answers: they called for more consistent remuneration according to the quality and quantity of work performed (70 percent gave this high priority, 26 percent medium priority, 4 percent low priority); for better organization of work, planning, norms, management (70: 25: 5); for modernization and the introduction of new technologies (67: 26: 7); for a work ethic and better attitudes to work (61: 33: 6); and, lastly, for higher quality of labor and products (56: 37: 7).[14]

The interview questions were much more open than those in this public opinion survey questionnaire. Narrators most frequently saw low productivity in their own workplaces as a function of poor long-term planning.

We simply tried to meet our quotas. Those quotas were always set by somebody else, and those people had certainly never woked at such pace, or for so little money. It’s not like we had any machines to help us: if we needed to pick up the pace, it meant striking the hammer a little faster, and we managed to earn some quarterly bonus. But at the same time we were scared that the next term or the next month they might tell us that we had gone way over our goals and that our targets were too low, so they would readjust them. So we actually didn’t dare work any faster… On the one hand, they were pushing us to meet the target, to ensure a bonus for them, too, but on the other hand, they wanted us to slow down, to fit into the scheduled salary funds and not to spend money on bonuses. (Julie Quastová, born 1945, leather worker)

Poorly estimated targets could lead to the inefficient use of work time, as seen in other interviews. For example, a temporary holiday worker observed:

Like manual workers—at first sight I could tell they had their work divided up right. I saw that during my summer holiday job. But I also saw that among those average workers, there were some who were really clever and able to finish all their work planned for a whole day very fast, so that suddenly they had nothing to do. And there were always some supervisors checking to see that they were working right and doing a good job. But to keep the targets from being raised for the slower workers, they just hid the good ones. Like there was one guy who was always sleeping in those huge pipes, or in Brno they always went to the company cinema. They used to show morning movies at 10 o’clock. So they’d go to the cinema. At noon, they’d come back, eat lunch, have a shower, and at 2 they were already crowding around the gate to leave… So the system had little bugs like that. In some ways, it was awfully limiting. (Igor Czajkowski, born 1941, music teacher)

In these extracts, one frequently expressed opinion was that low quotas led to low productivity. On the other hand, many witnesses were for various reasons happy with their quotas, especially those who compared socialist targets with those of the present-day market system, which they consider less humane. But they themselves unwittingly illustrate the popular criticism of the current conditions when they admit that “today you have to work a lot harder.”

Another frequently mentioned obstacle to the productivity of the socialist economy was the inefficient use of work time. According to some narrators, work would come to a halt owing mainly to bad organization and lack of materials they often had to wait for.

Well, again, we were waiting for some spare parts from the warehouse. So we sat down and had a snack, because we had worked hard the whole time, but the director came and said, “I don’t like you just sitting around having coffee at nine. You’ll have lunch at 11.” And so I said, “Look, boss, I know you don’t like it, and maybe this really shouldn’t have happened, but we’re not the ones causing the supply problem, so we’re just having coffee at nine o’clock, taking it easy for a moment. When these guys are tightening screws, they work hard, so they should have a chance to take a break. It’s just ten or fifteen minutes. Really, the hold-up won’t last any longer. They’ll have their coffee, chat a little, and then go back to work. The work will get done. Take my word that it’ll get done.” (Josef Křepelka, born 1947, worker in many occupations)

In no account did an employee ever remember looking around on their own for some other work in the workshop or factory when there was a shortage of materials or a supply breakdown. Employees themselves also influenced work efficiency by how hard they worked and how wisely they used their work hours. Asked in a 1973 poll to comment how well their work time was used, half the respondents replied, “perfectly,” more than a third, “neither well nor badly,” and over a tenth evaluate their time use as “poor.”[15]

Answers to the next question, “How many minutes of your work time are not used for work?,” were much more surprising. More than half of the respondents admitted to wasting up to thirty minutes a day, a third admitted up to an hour, and about 15 percent said more than an hour.[16] However, the researchers explicitly state that this data is not reliable, because respondents gave figures lower than they really were. Overall, respondents underestimated the time spent not working by 40 percent. That’s an enormous amount of wasted time!

If these findings seem incredible, or even incomprehensible, by today’s standards, it’s because public and private time was understood differently in those days. Many citizens perceived the hours spent at work to be time that was “taken away” from their private lives. Workers, whose jobs made it possible, did their shopping and errands during working hours or attended to other personal matters. A quarter of polled respondents did their shopping during working hours regularly and almost two-thirds did it occasionally.[17] (This is, of course, not an exclusively socialist problem; workers in capitalist economies spend company time shopping on the Internet, surfing the Web, making personal calls, and so on.) Most shops were closed by the time people got off work, and many goods were often available only for a short time after delivery. Furthermore, once the official workday ended, many people had other jobs, moonlighting, volunteering, or caring for their families. Many narrators lamented that “[they] worked all the time,” and that it was hard work, real drudgery. During normalization, even white-collar workers assumed blue-collar roles as plumbers, masons, carpenters, and metal machinists after hours and on weekends. Our narrators’ generation seemed to think that people today do not work all the time, or if they do, they don’t work hard.

I wish everybody could try it, especially those who have no respect for work. Try getting the raw materials and be paid 20, 30 hellers a piece, or 60 crowns per shift. The point was that at six in the morning I switched on a machine that weighed over a 100 kilos, and instead of two, I worked on four machines, and I managed it. Like I always say, everybody should try that. (Anna Neuwirthová, born 1942, worker in many occupations)

What can I say? It was hard work, hard work, hard work, every day, eight and a half hours, sometimes twelve. (Václav Vejskal, born 1944, miner)

How can it be that workers were simultaneously slacking off and working hard? Call it selective memory. Narrators think back to pleasant moments when they just hung around, took a coffee break alone or with a friend, played cards, sat in a pub or hunted down some scarce good. On the other hand, they can also vividly recall dropping with fatigue when working overtime in order to meet with the weekly, monthly or annual quota. And when they got home, they went out again to work a second shift to make ends meet. The moments of slacking off or the hours of exhausting drudgery, undoubtedly stand out in memory more than the days like any other, when people just worked normally.

Many narrators were uncertain in their assessments of the socialist economy. They knew that socialism as a system could not compete with the developed Western economies, but they also saw the system produce enough resources to subsidize daycare, kindergartens, housing construction, transportation, energy, food, culture, recreation, and world-class sport. Above all, education and healthcare, including medication—were all free. (Zdeňka Knytlová, born 1938, worker in cannery)

The regime demanded that workers be politically involved, and memories of political meetings constitute a special segment of the interviews. Workers were required to participate in training sessions and lectures, party and trade union meetings, official celebrations, rallies, the “spontaneous” welcoming of delegations, and so on. The scope and form of such activities depended on the specific job of the narrators, on their leaders, and on their work collectives.

Although some narrators commented that a few practical and social events made sense (such as union meetings because of their influence on the work environment), they disliked the frequency of the meetings. Some called them “a necessary evil,” “an unpleasant duty,” or yet “empty talk and a waste of time.” Some say that these meetings detracted not only from work time, which could have been spent more productively, but also from valuable leisure time, including evenings, weekends, and holidays. Regardless of the narrators’ political commitment, those who did not work manually, especially white-collar workers, complained much more frequently. Some narrators compared the meeting phenomenon with the current practice.

It’s a big plus that it’s not that way today. Of course, if you’re a member of a political party, you will attend various events from time to time. That’s clear. But that’s different. Thanks to these past experiences, you have developed a kind of indifference towards meetings and conferences of this kind. Maybe even towards relatively important things like civil defense exercises. So you were really sabotaging them, the same way as people paid no attention to political schooling in Marxism–Leninism. … But, at the end of the day, that turns out to be not quite right. I still have mixed feelings about those meetings. When somebody was showing us how to give first aid, people were laughing. In fact, it made them insensitive, insensitive to anything at all. It was terrible, a terrible parade of wasted time. Really, now when I realize how many hours a week, a month, we used to spend on such meaningless activities … (Vladimír Hyský, born 1943, administrative assistant at a rolling mill)

Many narrators survived the tedium by either pretending to pay attention or making fun of the proceedings. Many people recollected the strategies they used to avoid these obligations altogether, such as excusing oneself under the pretext of a bogus schedule conflict or signing the attendance sheet without actually attending. Narrators who succeeded in avoiding these events often displayed some pride; those who failed, expressed disappointment or resignation. Interestingly, not a single narrator who weasled out of a training session or a meeting ever hurried back to work to make up for the loss; they usually went home or off to their moonlighting job.

Curiously enough, some narrators did not draw much difference between meetings then and after 1989.

… I never went to the VUML [Evening University of Marxism–Leninism] I managed to get out of it. The manager came every year to Kolín saying I’d have to go to the VUML the next year, and I’d always say, yes, ma’am, next year. And she’d always say, all right, next year. I always managed to avoid it. Only now under the new manager I couldn’t get out of some training. It was under the current regime in [Prague’s] Motol Hospital. In 1996, I had to go learn about distribution of wealth under capitalism. The lecturer was a jerk, a former Marxism instructor from Ostrava, some kind of engineer … And we learned about how everything was supposed to work, about the importance of material things. We got various directives exactly in the old Marxist way. You wouldn’t believe it. … And it was all about product, product, product, and then at the bottom there was a footnote: product = the patient. The first time the manager wanted us to go through that training, the senior doctor in pediatric surgery stood up and said, we’re not going to listen to such rubbish. And we all stood up in protest and walked out of the director’s meeting. She made a terrible fuss about it and called us in one by one to tell us that things could not go on that way. We shouldn’t think for a minute it was going to be like it was before, she said, and that we were indeed going to take that training. And as part of our punishment, we had to report in on Saturdays and attend the training sessions in small groups of twenty people. (Václav Smetana, born 1934, orthopedist)

Narrators largely viewed various types of post-1989 training sessions as pointless, especially if the pedagogical methods, the instructors, or the means of enforcing attendance bore resemblance to those before 1989. Many narrators concluded that nothing had really changed. Only a very few narrators found non-work time training sessions useful—and only when they were able to increase their own professional skills.

Pride in One’s Work—Illusion or Reality?

Given how often workers were trying to “skip work,” it may come as a surprise that many narrators took great pride in their work, their products, their company, their office, their hospital, or their school. Again, there has always been a divide between narrators who have always been proud of their work, albeit with reservations, and those who described their jobs before the revolution as uninspiring and dull professions. The latter opinion is shared by many Czechs, such as workers in production lines or those “temples of consumerism,” supermarkets.

The relatively one-sided perception of work under socialism as deadening is significantly reinforced by dissidents, members of the underground, and independent intellectuals who lost their careers after 1968 or were even fired from their companies, offices, or institutions. This group of people was marginalized in the aftermath of the Warsaw Pact invasion. Against their will, they had given up not only their positions and functions, but, more importantly, the creative work that brought them satisfaction and joy. Still other workers had never been given a good career opportunity because of their political views. These groups perceived their jobs, usually devoid of intellectual engagement, as unimportant, monotonous, and uninspiring. Their private dissatisfaction affected their assessment of the broader situation of workers country-wide. These dissenters became conspicuous promoters of a new cultural memory in society and media, and they often described every aspect of industry with a certain contempt and narrow-mindedness—starting with the low-quality products and ending with the terrible conditions at their workplaces.

From their point of view, this evaluation is understandable and personally honest. But even though these critics have ruled the airwaves since 1989, the majority of people did not necessarily remember their work so negatively. Czechs accept that in a democratic society the memory of one group does not have to be fully understandable to, or “true” for, another group, and that they do not have to identify with it. In this plurality of memories from various groups of the population lies a less biased, more holistic knowledge of the past.

In light of the media’s portrayal of work in the socialist economy, it may come as a surprise that many narrators expressed solidarity with their companies; there was satisfaction in their voices, and many times they felt proud of their work.

I was proud of our company because we exported a lot, above all to America, Canada, Australia, and the Arab Emirates. But America was in the first place, and I have relatives in America. That’s why I was so proud that our products went there. When I wrote to [my aunt], or when [she] came here, I would ask her how our glass was doing over there, and she would say, “Yeah, Czech crystal. But not many people can afford to buy it because it’s so expensive.” (Jaroslav Hille, born 1937, glass worker)

Some narrators paradoxically liked their companies, but hated the working conditions, which, in some cases, were life threatening. Yet the older generation recalled with pride being physically and mentally able to handle dangerous jobs.

Ours was the dirtiest workplace in the Ostrava New Steelworks: the blast furnace. Graphite, dust, gas, heat. If you were working right in front of it, it was maybe seventy degrees centigrade, but there was that cold wind on your back because everything was wide open. I wouldn’t have been there if I didn’t like it. But sometimes I really hated to go to work… Well, the dirt or—I don’t know—the breakdowns. That new furnace once caught on fire. We worked day and night, sometimes even twenty-four hours, non-stop. When I got home, I felt like a whipped dog. (Konrád Niesner, born 1941, electrician)

Many witnesses realized the real benefits of their jobs.

I was happy when a piece of mine came out right. You could see the result right off, and it’s something that’ll be there when I’m gone. (Alena Ekslerová, born 1952, factory worker)

In addition to satisfaction in a well-made product, women workers often stressed the pleasure they felt in being able to match the men. Aside from their dissatisfaction about being unfairly compensated as compared to the men, women cherished the feeling of being appreciated. The respect they got in the workplace could sometimes make up for the lack recognition they got from their families. Even if these were “Communist” honors, the narrators were rightly proud of them.

I enjoyed it. In those days, you might say I really lived for the factory. I enjoyed my work. I can tell you I’m a workaholic to this day. I worked, worked all the time. I liked it better than working in some place like an office or somewhere like that. I’m really like … I love work. I’ve never earned very much money … I was respected, yes, but as for getting any great advantage from it, nothing special. … When it comes to any financial compensation or something like that, no, nothing much. But I did enjoy being respected. (Zdeňka Knytlová, born 1938, cannery worker)

By no means were blue-collar workers the only ones who enjoyed being appreciated; white-collar workers and service employees also stressed the satisfactions of recognition. In particular, professionals such as doctors and medical personnel, soldiers, firefighters, policemen, and others who served the community, the state, or the motherland (it did not matter under what regime), took pride in public recognition of their service, which in their eyes often bordered on a “mission.” Awards such as diplomas, trophies, souvenir items, and obsolete tools evoked nostalgia mixed with notions about what their work should have been but was not.

I still have my uniform, and I don’t know … I’m not going to throw it away because it’s a reminder, part of my memories. There are some medals on it, you know, for my service to the homeland, for the defense of the homeland. But … I have to say you usually got it just for actually having put in some years in the army. So every now and then you got a medal. In some ways it was a sham. That was the way it should have been, but it wasn’t necessarily so. On the other hand, I would say … people somehow lived in peace and at ease, because they knew that there was always some army guarding the border, just in case. So the soldier was always on call, always there protecting the socialist way of life. (Jan Čajník, born 1954, soldier)

Other narrators did not see their work as worthy of particular attention. They saw it merely as a source of money and never stressed their allegiance to the company.

No. I never boast very much about it. Why should I? And I never did. Somehow, I never got to like it. (O. O., born 1948, tram driver)

Only a very small portion of the narrators said they were ashamed of their jobs. One high school teacher said:

I couldn’t be proud of my school. For one thing, the headmaster accepted students from “friendly states” without admission exams; and, besides, the school was very ideological. (Jiří Růžička, born 1948, secondary school teacher)

Social Networks Now and Then

To some extent, our narrators’ memories must have been influenced by today’s collective view of the past, by the current political situation, and by their general welfare. Although we can never map these influences with precision, an awareness of their existence may help to clarify the history of interpersonal relationships among colleagues and the changes these relationships underwent after 1989.

Our narrators highly valued their work teams. When asked specifically about their colleagues, narrators said that they lacked the time for them, that after work they had to attend to their families or work a second shift in moonlighting jobs, or that on weekends they were busy with their summer homes or allotment gardens. And yet they grew nostalgic reminiscing about the time when they were young, healthy, full of energy, and part of a group.

Since personal time was often merged with the workday, friendships formed at work often extended into the private lives of the narrators. Moreover, socialism was full of slogans about the collective: everything belonged to everybody, so why shouldn’t the bonds of friendship, which extended beyond the company gates, be part of it?

We made plans at work with our mates: to go swimming or play football, somewhere nearby, in a gym or some yard, you know, to work up some thirst and then have a few beers. It was a good group of people. In those days, it was definitely good. You can bet it was. (Jan Eksler, born 1948, worker machinery industry)

At social events, it was easy to make friends. We’d have a drink. There was always something going on in the evenings. The kids had a great old time in the mountains. We’d go to Lubice, which is near Jeseníky. We got it all for free, food and buses—everything for free. The kids had a lot of fun. But today, these are kind of strange times. People don’t know one another. (Konrád Niesner, born 1941, electrician)

In fact, the lament that people no longer know each other well was common before November 1989 and had much more to do with modernization trends, with people migrating from villages to towns, away from historic centers, or even just moving from one house where they knew each other well to newly built, anonymous housing. In most interviews, narrators could not help but compare their memories of their colleagues or their group of friends with the present time:

The relationships at work today are terrible. Everything’s all mucked up; everything’s ruined. People are jealous of one another. No, no, people are like that. Set one against another. That’s so disgusting, so nasty, so … How can I put it? Like strangers, that’s right. Today everybody’s just looking out for themselves. That’s how I could put it. But the team, it’s not there anymore. The best times were back then. I can say those were the best times. (Josef Křepelka, born 1947, worker in many occupations)

One of the narrators had such a pessimistic view of the present that she said would never change places with her interviewer, a woman a generation younger.

I think today the times are such that I don’t envy you, you young people. On the one hand, I say, yes, it’s nice to have a whole life ahead of you, but on the other, when I see the struggle you face, always chasing after something and having no time to sit down together, and so forth. We used to sing, sit around in the evening; the whole village was singing, the old and the young … It was the harvest, potatoes. … Whenever anybody had a field and needed help, the whole village came, including the children. In winter, we would pluck feathers … And all that singing and good cheer and fun, oh dear … (Marie Plachá, born 1953, worker in many occupations)

The idealization of the “good old days” is to some extent proportional to the sense of abandonment and loss of social contacts of the past. It is certain that our times are much more hectic; young people are at first glance much more absorbed in their work, studying, or socio-cultural activities; the world has simply opened up for them. This, however, does not necessarily mean that they do not care about one another, that there is no friendships between them. Communication as a means of establishing social ties, and friendships among the younger generation, have certainly not disappeared: they are only less apparent to their parents and grandparents who do not understand social media. Communal feather plucking, singing around a campfire, and organized tours have been replaced by online networks. Their content and the amount of sharing of personal stories and views is actually similar to the past; only the format has changed. What was previously the only possible, form of meeting—face to face—is often being replaced by virtual meetings. This form is no more or less authentic than the traditional forms. Moreover, young people still do get together in person.

In particular, blue-collar workers and women blamed excessive individualization for a lack of a social life. Having been brought up in a collective, they were unable to adapt to the new lifestyle or did so only with great difficulty. They attributed the breakup of traditional communities first to the mindset of young people, who thought only “of their own benefit and [were] unwilling to sacrifice anything for the community,” and second, to the influx of so-called guest workers from the East, who came to fill vacant positions with different customs, work ethics, and mentalities. In the narrators’ opinion, neither the young people nor the foreign workers have either time or need for friends or colleagues. They are only looking out for themselves.

Not only the narrators’ confidence, but also the value system it took them decades to build, was shaken by competition, hard business, “sharp elbows,” and the takeover by young people of positions that, according to the narrators, rightfully belonged to them by age and experience. They felt uprooted and, in many instances, disappointed by how their employers had treated them over decades, for example, by laying them off a year before retirement.

So how is work and employment seen by the younger generation? Are they really as cocky and pushy as the older generation tends to assume? Although we conducted no interviews with the younger generations, other researchers have done reliable surveys.

Young people today know they cannot take finding a job for granted (as was the case before November 1989), and this knowledge leads them to accommodate to the reality. “I think about my future job every day, and sometimes I wake up in terror in the middle of the night,” says Anna Nassová, a young student, in describing her fears for the future.[18] People have to be more ruthless and tougher: this is the imperative of our times. Young people today are tougher even on themselves: they study, work, and have less free time than the previous generations. They are not without social sensitivity, either, as they are sometimes accused—at least when it comes to their own families and friends. They do not want to rely on their parents financially, and most of them have some kind of a job during their studies. “I teach English, I’m a computers and technology blogger, and I’m also looking for a job in administration. I’m reluctant to ask my parents for money, and I would like to become fully independent.”[19]

The narrators were even younger and already working, which may account for their highly idealized memories of the collective. In addition, leveled salaries made it easier for them to maintain good relationships with their co-workers. According to public opinion polls, in the 1970s and 1980s, almost two-thirds of people were happy with their income.[20] Narrators frequently mentioned less envy as a result of the leveling of salaries. And yet envy clearly still existed, because it is not limited to money: “you can envy almost anything, perhaps even cancer” (Josef Man, born 1954, soldier).

Look, there were always disagreements about some things, but usually they had nothing to do with work. There wasn’t much to envy because we had quite a wise group leader who knew how to keep some balance between salaries and bonuses. Of course, there was some envy, but the similarity in salaries kept it down. (Jaroslava Krudencová, born 1952, worker in a data center)

A narrator who worked as a car mechanic summed up the need for differences in remuneration (and the concomitant gap between the rich and the poor) with historical insight. He was one of the few narrators who also expressed the idea of personal responsibility:

After the revolution, the privatization of big companies like Poldi in Kladno and Škoda in Plzeň had begun, and of course brought changes to social stratification. Suddenly, rich people started to emerge, ostantatiously rich people with expensive cars and houses… And we had all been used to the equality of possessions, where everybody had more or less the same pay. And suddenly it started to change. … We had to get used to the fact that some people are much richer, … but we also had to work much harder. At first, people didn’t realize that capitalism also meant hard work, that there was a great deal of ruthlessness, and they had to be prepared for the fact that if they have no money, they can be evicted from their apartment and lose everything. This was all new to us, and yet it’s common around the world, and it can’t be any other way. So we had to learn to take responsibility for our own lives. That means that people must think more about the future, about what they will face. (Milan Pavlík, born 1948, car mechanic)

Although, in theory, socialism aimed for equality of results—according to the well-known slogan “reward according to the quantity, quality, and the social significance of work,” the practice was another matter. Research into salary systems and changes in social security has shown that even a system based on equality is not fair for all. “It is unfair as regards the relationship between performance and reward, between the reward for men and for women, between people of different educational backgrounds, between various fields of activity, and between the privileged and ordinary citizens.”[21] All these inequalities in pay were also reflected in our interviews:

I felt that the evaluation system was very unjust. At that time, I don’t know … let me put it concretely in numbers. As director of the Tesla company in Hradec Králové, my monthly gross salary might have been 7,200 crowns, plus I had an annual bonus of some 14,000 crowns. When I compare that to the workers’ salaries, I must say that the leveling in the past regime … was really bad. The system simply couldn’t evaluate the work of an executive manager and his enormous responsibility as compared to that of the workers. And the difference in salaries was simply not enough. (Václav Jelínek, born 1939, electrical engineering researcher and head of a company)[22]

The pay was simply not right: the differences between qualified work, highly qualified work, and the work of people with elementary education, and also the differences between the salaries of men and of women. I just used to tell myself that at least in the area of education, it was fair: male and female teachers had the same salary. But in some sectors, a woman always had less than a man in the same position. (Eva Hrstková, born 1937, secondary school teacher)

Some narrators also pointed out the inequality between card-carrying Communist Party members and non-Party members.

Well, of course, the Communists had better work in the mines. They were the ones who dug the coal. They were conspicuous and famous because they were shown everywhere; but they also got much more money than the others. And Party membership was the decisive factor. (Václav Vejskal, born 1944, miner)

Well, being in the Party was like getting a lift to the top of the ladder. For us teachers it meant that those who were in the Party … not that they had more money, but they could be sure that they were considered the most likely candidates for promotion and aspired to the position of the headmaster or deputy headmaster. And the headmaster did have a bit more money, although the difference was only about 2,000 or even less.[23]

The narrators expressed a feeling of greater injustice over abuse of a function, improper work evaluations, or unfair workload based on Party membership. They appreciated it when an evaluation left out political criteria.

It was in 1975. I was working with a team of, I must say, great guys. And two were members of the Communist Party. But there were never any signs of that. No one gave them anything for free. They got no advantage from it. After all, they had only joined the Party to get on the waiting list for an apartment. (Jan Caletka, born 1950, bricklayer and amateur archaeologist)

We were an incredibly good team. … Our boss was anti-Communist, one of the foremen was a Communist, the other one too; between the three of them, that was some fighting, you see what I mean? There were always clashes. They were up against each other. Sometimes it was terrible, but we always somehow came to an agreement … And to this day we still meet, and it’s fantastic. (Alena Růžičková, born 1936, manual worker)

Queuing for Bananas versus Queuing for Work

It would not be an exaggeration to compare the shift from socialist to market economy to the difference between day and night. Czechoslovak society put great emphasis on social security. Job security was paramount, even at the cost of artificial full employment, egalitarianism, and salary leveling. People were also brought up to believe that socialism was superior to the unfair capitalist system. The schools and the government taught that socialism was the first fair social system in the world. Slogans proclaimed that socialism “stood for the elimination of exploitation, allowing people to work, and ensuring that people were rewarded according to merit.” And many people really believed that.

Their faith made the shock of pluralist democracy and market economy after the 1989 revolution even stronger. The revolution brought both freedom and the gradual demise of social security. The public was genuinely shocked to learn that the market that both politicians and experts had sworn by for decades had a dark side. The moderate concern about unemployment that Czechs had in the early days after the revolution has given way to panic and anxiety.

People today are terribly afraid of losing their jobs. First, they may have to accept a worse job, and then they could be unemployed altogether. Because nowadays … that’s something I’ve been through when they tell you “If you don’t like it here, you can leave.” That’s bad. Or at a meeting when the manager and his deputies shouted, “There are crowds of people outside the gate. You can leave if you don’t like it.” It was terrifying, and a lot of people suffered mental breakdowns as a result. People who had worked for a company all their lives are not to blame that it is now going bankrupt. Everybody thought they were going to stay there till they retired… It was better before. People knew they had to work, but on the other hand, they had something to rely on. (Eliška Prošková, born 1949, machinery worker)

In 1975, polls aiming to assess how Czechs and Slovaks perceived financial crises in the capitalist economy reported that 80 percent of respondents said that the most serious problem of Western society was unemployment,[24] even though none of them had ever experienced unemployment first-hand (during the Great Depression they would have been infants), and their image of Western capitalism was mediated through Communist propaganda. The problem of inflation came only second (and with a considerable margin): it was mentioned by 40 percent of the respondents. These results do not explicitly reflect the actual Czechoslovak situation, since under socialism unemployment did not officially exist, and prices were controlled; moreover, the main purpose of the poll was propaganda. Nevertheless, the response may indicate a latent fear of unemployment.

Whereas in the 1970s citizens were commenting on a system in which they had never lived and expressing merely hypothetical worries, twenty years later narrators were forced to react to real unemployment problems. Reactions to this new and as yet unfamiliar phenomenon were clearly negative. According to two-thirds of the respondents in 2002, the unemployment rate was too high; and only a third thought it was moderate; in 2005, it was too high according to 77 percent of the respondents and moderate according to 17 percent. In 2011, the proportions returned to those of 2002: two-thirds of the people surveyed thought unemployment was a problem while about one third were not bothered by it.[25] And yet unemployment in the Czech Republic, even for a short period, has never reached such high figures as in Poland, Hungary, or Slovakia. Unemployment started at zero (November 1989); in the mid-1990s it was about 3 percent; in 2003 and 2004 it soared to double digits for the first time (10.3 percent); and in 2014 it was slightly over 9 percent.

Capitalism lost out to socialism when citizens compared pre- and post-revolutionary labor markets. Whereas in 1998, 19 percent of respondents thought that conditions under capitalism were better and 35 percent said they were worse,[26] in 2005 polls showed a very different evaluation: 27 percent rated the current conditions as better, while 47 percent said that the conditions before the revolution were better.[27]

The narrators’ experiences, explanations, and attitudes help fill in the outline drawn by the raw data. Pessimistic opinions and attitudes pervaded the parts of the interviews devoted to unemployment. Unasked, narrators compared their own experiences with the market economy, including unemployment, and their memories of full employment under the old regime. Some people were embarrassed, and obviously influenced by virtual propaganda that the market economy, despite its shortcomings, is the best of all options. The narrators felt they should think the same. Eventually, with a certain amount of fear, lest she be labeled a nostalgic “friend of the old regime,” or even a Communist, one narrator admitted:

I don’t want to seem like I’m in favor of socialism, but one tends to remember just the good things. One way or another, you could always deal with the queues, and you could always be sure you’d get paid every month—unlike now. My younger son sometimes gets paid a month late or not at all. Before, everything was more certain, especially in terms of work. You could take out a loan. Now you never know what tomorrow will bring. (O. O., born 1948, tram driver)

Unemployment has become a nightmare for many people. A number of narrators openly confessed in the interviews how much the mere thought of losing their jobs troubles them and gets in the way of their enjoyment of life.

My husband lost his job after working in construction and heavy industry for forty years in three-shift operations. When his notice arrived, I thought it was his last moment. Since then, he has barely slept and eaten. Now I fear what will happen to me when we have to live on one salary. (Gertruda Schneiderová, born 1935, textile worker)

Psychologists and psychiatrists have confirmed the health problems that can result directly from the loss of a job. According to studies, in 2011, the fear of job loss and the resulting poverty, along with long-term stress, brought half a million Czechs to psychiatric offices. That is an increase of 43 percent among adults seeking psychological help in ten years.[28] Unemployment has even been mentioned as a factor in suicides.[29] Psychological and psychiatric studies indicate that the impact of job loss is comparable to the death of a best friend or relative.[30]

Dozens of narrators compared waiting in line at the unemployent office to waiting in line before the revolution for bananas, tangerines, and, especially at Christmas time, oranges for their children. In many popular documentaries and series, viewers are repeatedly reassured about how they “suffered in the lines for tropical fruit.” Some narrators seized on this materialized view of their pasts to make a kitschy, oversimplified comparison to queuing at unemployment offices.

Oranges used to be scarce. Now it’s jobs. I think people would rather make do without oranges. Until 1989 we were happy as we had work. We kept working at the same place. (Marie Mlezivová, born 1927, construction worker)

We believed everything would be better just as we were promised, but it’s not better; it’s worse. And you say there were no bananas? Today there’s no work. The lines at unemployment offices are a lot longer than those for bananas were. … I leave it up to you to decide what’s more important in life. (Konrád Niesner, born 1941, electrician)

Today you can buy everything. The shops are full of oranges and mangos. But there’s no work, and just think how expensive it is for us retirees. (Gertruda Schneiderová, born 1935, textile worker)

Collective and individual memories reinforce each other, explaining in this instance vivid memories of queuing for scarce goods, instead of lack of freedom, authoritarianism, propaganda, censorship, closed borders, and dissidents. Both in the media and in popular culture, having to queue for bananas has been presented as a shortcoming of socialism. These images fall on the fertile ground of the personal experience of the narrators, who internalize the collective idea that they were short-changed as consumers rather than admit to their own compromises with the regime.

Unemployment had a much greater effect on the older generation, especially those who were close to retirement, those with no more than elementary education, blue-collar workers, workers in agriculture, and some former officials and employees of the state sector. Younger narrators and university graduates are much more adaptable and, faced by the threat of unemployment, actively search for other opportunities or re-training, start their own businesses, commute to other cities, or go abroad. A similar picture is likely to be found in the whole of Central Europe.

Our narrators’ world fell apart with the change in the political system. Everything had changed: the old patterns of behavior no longer work, some are counterproductive while, others may even seem ridiculous to the younger generation—for example loyalty to the company or home repair of the old family Škoda. Nor can the older generation rely on physical and mental powers as strong as colleagues twenty or thirty years younger. This is quite natural; but whereas in the past, older generations made up for their shortcomings with practical life experience, today they feel empty-handed. Modern devices and modern attitudes, such as willingness to travel or change employers or occupations have created a wide gap between the old and the young.

This older generation, which was persuaded that it was working for a better future—if not their own, then definitely their children’s and their children’s children—suddenly feels it has nothing to pass on. Many narrators were visibly embarrassed to share their feeling of failure to leave some legacy, which they had perceived as immensely important.

Some narrators felt that the feeling of humiliation was incomparably harsher than material need.

Today, you’re scared of losing your job… Four years ago I actually experienced myself what it’s like to be without a job and, at nearly fifty-three, to be begging and scrounging for work. Although, I don’t know … you work in a kitchen for thirty-five years, you’re never on sick leave, and then to be looking for a new job at my age… It’s painful and humiliating. It’s more than a human being can take. (Jaroslava Pavezová, born 1951, cook)

Even many of those fortunate enough to be employed are still aware of the complexity of the times.

The problem today is the terrible and ever widening gap between the rich and the poor. I just recently read an article about the fact that children have a hard time understanding why their schoolmates can afford to buy this or that while they can’t have those things. The gap between wealth and poverty, as we see it, is a big problem. (Václav Jelínek, born 1939, electrical engineering researcher and head of a company)

According to one narrator, one of the advantages of the old regime was that:

People couldn’t sink to the very bottom, and I can’t remember any homeless people. (Petr Myška, born 1953, doctor)

Not all members of the older generation were unhappy. Narrators with a high degree of flexibility and often an entrepreneurial spirit, who were not afraid of change and willing to keep learning, were not bothered by unemployment and were content with the changes brought about by the 1989 revolution. Usually, it was the better-educated people who had never relied on the state very much, who had this more optimistic outlook.

Whenever I look into the past and compare what I can do today … I’ve made kind of a balance sheet of credits and debits. What I’ve lost and what I’ve gained from it. I can clearly say that today I have more opportunities. But the minus is that I have to work harder. I have less free time, and it takes much more effort. Work eats up my free time. It gnaws away my nerves and my health. In order to live reasonably and tolerably, I have to invest more time and money. But, on the other hand, the fact that I’m investing more also means that I have to learn a lot more, and that’s a good thing. At least I can ward off senility. Before, the situation was bad in that you left school and felt that you had it under your belt. You were taken care of for the rest of your life. In thirty years’ time, you’d still get by with what you had learned in school. So this was a plus and a minus at the same time. The roughness today suits me. I never asked the state for anything. I’m basically a rightist. I’m contributing to social benefits from my taxes. I’m giving eight crowns per box of cigarettes to the state, and I’m not asking the state to look after me in terms of social security. By making money, I help the state save money. (Vladimír Vaněk, born 1951, employee in the Technical Division of the Ministry of Interior)

Another narrator also felt more or less happy with the present situation, although he had had ten jobs in twenty years. However, as a professional soldier, as he said, he discovered a world he had never dreamed of.

We have worries today too but of a different kind. Before, it was like you had a job for life, and that was for good. You finished where you started, and you retired. And you were afraid of change, of change anything in any way. After all, where would you start over, right? Today, it’s completely different. You’re afraid of losing your job because it’s hard to find one, but you’re not afraid of change itself. I found that it’s no mortal danger. When you change jobs, you learn a new profession, which will enrich you in some way, and you prove to yourself that you can handle things you thought you could never handle. (Josef Man, born 1954, soldier)

“Capitalism Is More Efficient, but Under Socialism We Had More Fun”

Immediately after expressing this opinion, Václav Vejskal, a miner born in 1944 added with a laugh that “it is not that simple.”

Many narrators did not feel it was contradictory that their working years were a constant drudgery (at work, in a second job, and at home); they had lots of fun with their friends, whether pursuing sports or recreation organized by their trade union, or just sitting down for a beer, even during work hours. The physical grind of work in many professions was in a way compensated for by the state’s paternalism, which rid the narrators of their worries (so widespread today) and their own responsibility to make decisions. Social and health insurance were taken for granted. Work was a necessity, but there was no problem finding and keeping it. And even the queues and hunting for scarce goods did not demand as much time, attention, or energy from the older generation as everyday life does today. For many narrators, the accelerating pace of life comes ever more frequently into conflict with their age. Only a negligible number of narrators believed that the requirement to work limited people’s freedom to decide about their lives.

Narrators characterized the period before 1989 as one of friendships nourished in a homogenous environment which they referred to as living in a collective, and which many of them evidently miss today. The work collectives were united not only by similar interests but also by a similar standard of living. Blue-collar narrators and people employed in agriculture, administration, and the service sector usually did not complain about their salaries so long as these sufficed to cover their basic needs.

However, university graduates (scientists, teachers, physicians, engineers, etc.) were disappointed that the Communist regime did not value their educations more highly. The better-educated spoke out against their treatment as compared to the uneducated much more often than women would complain about their compensation as compared to men’s. Unlike intellectuals, women seemed reconciled to their “lot as women.”

The nostalgia with which many of the narrators look back on the previous regime, especially the right to work, can be attributed both to their increasing age and their declining standard of living (perhaps with the exception of those who have managed to provide material and financial security for themselves). The number of people who are willing and able to learn new things, to study new technologies and languages, to commute long distances to work, and so on, is increasing, but not as rapidly as many politicians and economy experts had imagined. With only a few exceptions, our narrators had never thought it would be so hard, and they are less flexible than younger people and perceive the value of work differently. Real socialism may have failed as a political, economic, and in some ways also social, system, but our narrators revealed some aspects of capitalism’s victory as questionable.

6

The Meaning of Free Time

Work, Family, and Leisure

Today, with hindsight, I often wonder how we managed to get everything done: all the work on our farm, plus the care of our family, the household, and so on. But we did manage it all, and we always got to go abroad for a vacation with the kids. We’d always arrange for our relatives from Karlovy Vary to come here on vacation and take care of the cattle and the house while we were away. [We went] to Hungary, to the seaside in Bulgaria, often to Slovakia—always for two weeks. We’d never spend our holiday at home. And in winter we’d take the kids to the mountains. Somehow, we managed it all. (Anneliese Beníšková, born 1940, worker in agriculture)

Free time can be defined as the hours not spent on work or meeting basic physiological needs such as sleeping and eating. How many hours one has and how they are spent depends on such objective circumstances as work schedule, the nature of the job, family situation, financial resources, and people’s subjective decisions. Free time is a modern phenomenon. In pre-modern times, meeting the necessities of life swallowed up almost all of a person’s waking hours. Except for religious holidays, leisure was a privilege of the highest social strata. Only in the second half of the nineteenth century did other Czechs begin to enjoy it.

In 1918, Czechoslovakia was one of the first countries in the world to adopt the eight-hour day and the six-day week for all employees, and in 1968 the socialist regime introduced the five-day work week. Guaranteed recreation time was meant to ensure the highest and most efficient performance at work. The length of an employee’s paid annual leave (typically two to four weeks before 1989), which depended on the occupation and the number of years worked, also determined the amount of holidays. After 1989, annual leave was lengthened by two weeks to a total of four to six weeks, and in some professions (e.g., teaching) eight.

At present, Czechs enjoy more leisure than ever before in history. A 1974 survey found that on workdays, men on average had fewer than four hours of free time, women on average had fewer than two, and a quarter of respondents had none.[1] Surveys conducted in 2005 and 2009 showed that the amount of free time (three to four hours per workday) remained the same for the majority of people; this data unfortunately does not distinguish between men and women. One in five respondents had between five and six hours of free time a day, and the number of people with no free time at all dropped sharply to 6 percent.[2] In the first half of the 1970s, working men had more than eight and a quarter hours of free time on their days off whereas working women had just five; almost one in five Czechoslovaks had no free time on weekends.[3] More recently, the number of people with no free time on weekends is the same as those with no time on workdays (about 6 percent), while almost half of the respondents enjoy somewhere between seven and fourteen hours.[4]

Even before the Velvet Revolution, there were many possible ways for people to spend their leisure time, including such passive activities as reading, listening to the radio or music, or watching television, and more active pursuits such as traveling, hiking, playing sports, and going to the cinema and concerts. Widely popular activities among Czechs were building a summer house or improving the family property, tending to allotment gardens, do-it-yourself projects, and reunions with family and friends.[5] More ambitious pursuits included working a second job, taking care of children, and participating in public affairs. After the collapse of Communism, leisure time continued to be dominated by watching TV, reading, listening to music, sports, meeting friends, traveling, hiking, and working on summer homes and gardening.[6]

Many questionable conclusions have been drawn about Czechoslovakian attitudes toward leisure time. For example, some Czech historians believe that interest in leisure activities after the Warsaw Pact invasion in 1968 must have stemmed from “the citizens’ attempt to escape politics and public life into their own private world.” [7]

Some unexpected developments have affected Czechs’ use of leisure time since the late 1960s. Activities that the regime had restricted before 1989, such as foreign travel, became hugely popular in the 1990s. Paradoxically, the period after the Velvet Revolution brought its own restrictions as incomes or amount of leisure had time decreased. Modern technologies and the general rise in the standard of living have also altered people’s use of their time. Car ownership and TV watching have grown continually from the mid-1960s, with a sharp rise after 1989.[8] The digital revolution, starting roughly with the turn of the millennium, created yet another shift in the landscape.

Free Time in Question

Most narrators referred to leisure activities only in passing or not at all. When prompted with a specific question, narrators almost always had ready memories of their leisure activities.[9]

Manual laborers and mothers did not have much their free time to enjoy leisure activities. Men with DIY skills often supplemented their income with extra chores. For many women, free time basically meant more work, taking care of their households and families.

Whenever I wasn’t at work, I was with the kids. After all I had two, so I had to be with them. Cooking, cleaning, washing, then taking them for a walk or to the cinema. In winter, we’d go sledding or ice-skating. (O. O., born 1948, tram driver)

Men and women remembered their free time from different angles. Men basically separated their time into two categories: work hours and free time, with family time as a side topic. Women also divided their time into two major categories: the workday and family time, with free time as a side topic—but even that mostly spent with their families. Narrators also recalled using their free time for “required voluntary” involvement in political, trade union, or special interest organizations. Although many of our narrators remember this free time fondly, these activities were no more true leisure than childcare or moonlighting.

Many narrators distinguished the periods in their lives by how much free time they had—more during childhood, adolescence, and retirement, and less or none when they were raising children and working demanding jobs. Oftentimes they structured their life stories according to these chronological criteria.

Of course, I used to have immeasurably more free time than I do now. Even though maybe the family situation was different because my son was three and a half when I went back to work after maternity leave, so that the only way we managed to take care of him was thanks to our parents. Otherwise, if I remember correctly, I worked from a quarter past seven to four. Basically, I can say I wouldn’t get home until five o’clock, but somehow I was still able to get my housework done. (Eva Wolfová, born 1948, museum curator)

Free time came up as a topic in many childhood and school stories. Understandably, memories of this period often evoked nostalgia and might have been embellished. Memories of leisure time livened up narrations about everyday work routines, and free time was often remembered as family time. Some retired narrators reported shifts, sometimes radical, in how they would spend their free time.

Differences between the narrators’ accounts of leisure depend on their profession and sometimes their home region. Narrators from the capital and urban areas and those from the countryside and small towns had very different memories.

I was born in Prague and have lived in the city center all my life, which is a different life than somewhere in the backwoods. I have wonderful childhood memories. (Věra Seková, born 1943, dermatologist)

A noticeable difference between traditional and modern lifestyles extends to the perception of leisure. At the same time, the differences between the city and the country are gradually being blurred. Traditional rural and provincial structures declined with accelerated urbanization in the 1960s, and the trend was even more pronounced after the Velvet Revolution of 1989.

Memories of free time also had a public and political dimension. The socialist state promoted spending free time in the “socialist spirit” by celebrating state holidays and anniversaries, participating in trade union and corporate recreation, and volunteering for work projects and public service. Ironically, some later historians also came to emphasize this type of leisure.[10] From the perspective of oral history, these supposed free time activities are obviously less easy to classify as leisure. Our narrators’ reactions to this topic varied widely, from rejection of these activities as forms of leisure, to failure to mention them, to approval of and identification with them.

Stories about free time cemented the conscious (re)construction of memory and reflection on the past and the present. This topic can serve not only as a source of memories but also as a narrative device that helps narrators humanize and integrate their memories into the bigger picture. For example, one narrator who claimed to have relatively little free time could, through his story about holiday-related events, create a different impression from that of a workaholic. Similarly, another narrator who would relax passively after work became more than just a couch potato through the memories of hiking or working on his summer house.

I have nice memories of my days in the primary school. But I also have to say that I had trouble with my schoolwork in the ninth grade because there were a great bunch of us guys in our town who did a lot of activities together. So I had to train to be a bricklayer. But in the ninth grade when we were asked what we wanted to be, I said an archaeologist. My class teacher laughed at that, and my classmates were surprised, but there was already something in me because I had been interested in prehistory all my life. Yes, I was compelled to become a bricklayer, and I’m glad of it. Later, I got on-site professional training, and during summer vacations I worked with Dr. Poláček excavating an ancient Bronze Age site under Kámen Castle. (Jan Caletka, born 1950, bricklayer and amateur archaeologist)

In Communist Czechoslovakia, popular films, TV series, and other media strongly influenced most people’s ideal image of how to spend leisure time. After the Velvet Revolution, similar constructs reflecting the new situation began to appear very quickly.[11] Thus, to some extent, our narrators’ retrospective glance at their leisure time through a lens colored by the media.

Leisure Activities Then and Now

The vast majority of narrators had fond memories of childhood as a relatively carefree time, and some remembered it with great nostalgia. Their memories were often framed by stories about certain childhood games. Typical leisure activities for many middle-class narrators who were born before or shortly after World War II and grew up in towns included learning to play a musical instrument, participating in sport or scout associations (Sokol, Junák), and visiting with extended family.

There were seven of us cousins altogether. Our families lived according to the old [petit bourgeois] order before the war, then during it, and even after it; we’d meet every Sunday until the 1950s. We’d celebrate holidays together, visit each other on the New Year’s Eve or at Christmas, and then we’d all sleep in one room, so it was a lot of fun. We played various games too; sometimes maybe our parents would act out various historical figures, and we had to guess who they were. So that way I knew about the Three Musketeers and the Hunchback of Notre Dame, and our parents mimicked various prime ministers, and our uncle did imitations of Chaplin, Hitler, and so on. (Václav Smetana, born 1934, orthopedist)

In many families, some of these customs were passed on to the next generation.

By contrast, some of the younger narrators had less attractive memories of their free time in new, postwar housing projects. For some narrators, it was a major change.

So after we moved away from the old town, we lived in a new building completed in the 1950s. For me, it was an enormous change. Instead of fighting with our peers for the position of the leader, we played cards, various sports, or just quarreled, and we spent less time outdoors too. The waters of life became calmer, and life was more or less concentrated somewhere between those buildings and in those vacant lots where we’d go searching for various kinds of entertainment. (Václav Janoščík, born 1950, lawyer)

Nevertheless, narrators perceived this typical 1950s (and to some extent 1960s) urban experience as at least more active than their children’s in the 1970s, not to mention their grandchildren’s after the Velvet Revolution.

The narrators who grew up in cities after World War II often mention their after-school activities in sports, art, or hobby clubs. Not only did they devote their free time to them, but they also developed abilities and skills that they considered very important for their future careers and life in general.

In contrast, rural children did not have much time for activities for their own development, as they were expected to help out with farm chores from a very early age. Their lives followed the rhythm of the farming seasons. If they did have leisure opportunities, they remembered either playing outdoors games involving movement or else joining the adults who got together in the evening after work, “singing, drinking, telling jokes, playing cards, listening to records, dancing.” (Karel Fojtík, born 1939, soldier)

In a few cases, children who lived in the countryside did not have electricity until after World War II, which influenced their choice of leisure activities.

For the rest, modern technology, such as radio and later television broadcasts, represented a unique category of spending free time. Watching TV was in particular a completely new and initially collective experience, as our narrators recalled from childhood or early adolescence.

When we wanted to watch a fairy tale at Christmas, we really had to beg our parents to be allowed to visit our neighbors. They were the only ones in the village who had a black and white television set, and the whole village would come there. It was like going to a cinema: chairs and everything, and someone saying, “Kids, be nice and quiet.” And we really didn’t make a sound. You could hear a pin drop. This is one of my favorite memories, how there were twenty of us kids in that one room sitting in a row on a bench or chairs. (Marie Plachá, born 1953, worker in many occupations)

Particularly in the 1950s and 1960s, many narrators perceived a TV set as a very valuable part of home furniture and a symbol of luxury, much like a washing machine or even a car.

As the narrators got older, they gradually replaced childhood games with reading, listening to music, and pursuing hobbies such as amateur radio or collecting. The interests they had when young often stayed with them with minor changes throughout their lives.

I’ve been interested in all kinds of literature and in history since I was young, and I have a passion for collecting things too. I collect postcards and photographs. This goes hand in hand with my interest in the history of this city. These are simply the hobbies that somehow keep me going, and thanks to them my life, especially now that I’m retired, is more interesting and bearable. (Milan Honzík, born 1938, lower-level executive in a chemical enterprise)

Besides individual interests, there were memories of cultural and social group activities: dance and etiquette courses, going to restaurants and cafés, parties and concerts, playing musical instruments. In particular, narrators with a talent for music and singing not only enjoyed respect and popularity in their peer groups, but were also able to earn some extra money.

While still a child I was granted permission to perform during social gatherings because the headmaster of the gymnasium, otherwise a very strict man, recognized the fact that I came from a socially disadvantaged family. Because I got paid for those performances, twelve crowns an hour at the wine bar, and once they got drunk some guests used to make special requests for certain songs. In those situations, the band was very quick to react: of course, they played the songs, and I sang them. And then I sometimes got a fifty-crown note stuck to my forehead. (Václav Jelínek, born 1939, electrical engineering researcher and head of a company)

Performing also helped many young male musicians through their one or two years of military service.

Popular group activities included competitive or recreational sports (football, ice-hockey, volleyball, basketball, etc.) and more generally outdoors pastimes involving some physical activity. The narrators from major cities and industrial agglomerations mentioned in particular their interest in hiking and backpacking, the latter often suppressed because of its connection with the free-thinking and independent hippie subculture not supported by the regime.

The common denominator of many group activities was getting to know members of the opposite sex, an intense experience that often led to partnerships and later marriages.

I met my husband when we were both backpacking. Yeah, backpacking, the only freedom. Those were different times, and today’s kids don’t go backpacking the way we did. It doesn’t appeal to them. They have more freedom now, but at that time, to escape from the city simply meant backpacking. We chatted, slept out in the open, sang songs around the campfire. Nice, those were very nice times. (Eliška Prošková, born 1949, machinery worker)

The adolescent memories of many narrators fall in the late 1950s and the “golden” 1960s when, as in other countries, a large generation of baby boomers enjoyed relative prosperity and a gradual easing up of traditional social conventions. They recalled reading Western literature, watching the newest films in cinemas, listening to rock music, letting their hair grow, and wearing the latest fashions (or at least their imitations of them). As a consequence of their blending in with memories of the political events of the 1960s, especially the Prague Spring and the Warsaw Pact invasion in August 1968, for many narrators these very specific recollections took on a markedly emotional charge.

Through their involvement in various hobbies and leisure activities, many narrators were shaping their academic interests and their future careers.

Those of us who weren’t natives of Brno would stay in private rooms, and there was a group of five of us boys. And we’d always find a girl as a model, to pose for our drawings in one of those rooms… And we really enjoyed that; we lived for it, and of course I wanted to study art further. And my dad said he’d manage somehow. (Herbert Kisza, born 1943, academic painter)

University in particular, but also boarding schools and apprenticeships, often gave students more room for self-development, independently of the authority of teachers and parents. Moreover, especially for out-of-town students, studying in a large city broadened their horizons and expanded their opportunities for social and cultural activities.

Growing up, getting a job, and starting a family significantly changed a person’s lifestyle.

I’d go to work in the morning, and after work I’d spend the afternoons on my hobbies, whether it was volleyball or climbing. But quite often we’d just go to a pub because this was where we met. And then we’d stretch the evening out by meeting friends or listening to music. Well, but then children came along, and so I focused on my family. (Václav Janoščík, born 1950, lawyer)

Free time becomes the more precious the less one has it as an adult. It is impossible to know exactly how much free time our narrators had on their workdays. Besides, they often indicated that they had to give up their hobbies and interests. Whereas women did so usually in order to take care of their families, men did it in order to moonlight and boost the family budget.

Whenever I was free, I’d go moonlighting with a colleague of mine because, when I was building a house, I had bricklayers come in and I had to pay them. Otherwise, I did a lot by myself. I was earning quite a bit in my job, but you know how it is. You have three kids, you buy them clothes and food, and it’s all gone. The kids grew up I don’t know how, because I’d go from job to job. If we could earn some extra money, we’d work sixteen hours a day. So I tell you, my youth went by terribly fast. (Konrád Niesner, born 1941, electrician)

The only way to improve the family’s standard of living often meant constructing or remodeling one’s home, apartment, or second home on one’s own, which often impinged on quality family time.

We didn’t have much free time because when we had started to build our house, we would always come here straight from work. Saturdays, Sundays, holidays, always here. It was quite a challenge, real drudgery, let me tell you. It was not like today; there weren’t any turnkey contracts. (Alena Růžičková, born 1936, manual worker)

When our narrators did have time to relax, many of them preferred less physically demanding, less time-consuming, and perhaps even more passive hobbies. A typical example is watching sports instead of actively playing them, often in a pub with friends (for many years, the Czechs led the world in per capita beer consumption).[12] In the 1970s and early 1980s, TV watching became commonplace and began to replace the cinema.[13] Another example is the shift from hiking (including camping) to driving, weekending in the countryside, or gardening. But even when they had relatively less free time, some narrators still pursued their hobbies, active sports, or their more intellectual, cultural, and social activities (reading, music, singing, amateur theatre, concerts, entertainment, cinema, etc.), just as they had done “when they were young.”

The arrival of new technologies (video recorders, compact disc players, personal computers, and mobile phones) and their incursions into people’s lives, typical of post-1989 Czech society, is usually mentioned either by tech-savvy narrators or in narrators’ reflections on the younger generation (their children and grandchildren). According to many narrators, the new generation, unlike their own, have adapted to the new gadgets without any problems, although often at the expense of other forms of leisure, especially physical activities.[14]

Moments of relaxation were often spent with family or friends. Narrators frequently mentioned get-togethers of colleagues outside the workplace—teaming up for sports, social events, or hiking—in which their families also took part.

We played table tennis at work. We were kind of a team. Our company also organized competitions in shooting small-caliber rifles or air guns. They had interesting activities for children, too. That was great. There were a lot of children in those company apartments, because we were all about the same age. On International Children’s Day, we’d organize a cycling race, various competitions, and then we’d have a bonfire in the evening. And sometimes we just did it on a Saturday or Sunday. The children still remember it. They loved it. And we’d go swimming too. The good thing was that it was all paid for by our trade union. (Milan Ducko, born 1937, printing worker)

Free time was also used to maintain the neighborhood community and build other civic organizations. From today’s perspective, these organizations might seem pro-regime and pro-Communist, but many narrators found genuine meaning in this minor form of required participation. Oftentimes they did not see such activities as purely pro-regime, especially since some of the organizations they belonged to exist to this day.

I’ve been in the Women’s Association since 1985; I became a member because I helped them organize a jumble sale with second-hand clothes. And after 1990, some three hundred members, mostly Communists, suddenly disappeared. But in 1991, I simply took it upon myself, and since then I’ve been the chairwoman. There are seventeen of us that have remained. But I can say people are nice to us because what we’re doing is really good for the local community. Twice a year we organize a jumble sale and besides that various tours and festivals, and those seventeen girls are really happy to come and help me. And we always divide the money we collect between various organizations. (Marie Kovaříková, born 1953, metalworker-miller)

Such memories convey both a hint of nostalgia and pride in doing work for the benefit of the local community.

Some narrators were beyond their productive age and were getting accustomed to their new roles as pensioners. Their use of free time is strongly influenced by the material conditions they had achieved and their health. Many continued to work even after they had retired, some of them part-time and others even full-time. Remaining in the ranks of working people meant not only a welcome source of income, but also an opportunity to maintain physical and mental energy and a regular routine.

Retirement age represents a totally new period for many of our narrators in terms of leisure. Those who retired after 1989 with a relatively high standard of living often felt “they could do everything but didn’t have to do anything.” Many retirees can still pursue their hobbies and even take up some new ones. A typical example is a renewed passion for traveling abroad, which, since the administrative barriers were lifted, has been restricted only by financial resources. Gatherings and reunions with former colleagues have taken on special significance during retirement.

In that department, we’d always say, if we don’t earn much, at least we have a lot of laughs. And, as I say, we still get together, every birthday, every name day, and other times besides. We still have these social gatherings, and sometimes we go together to the seaside in Croatia, always the same place these last four years. Our wives seem to like one another too, so that’s great. Only we have to be a bit more careful about our health now, but otherwise, we’re still a pretty cheerful bunch. (Jan Hrdina, born 1943, construction engineer)

Unfortunately, retirement brings with it fewer joyful occasions and more problems, such as declining health, loss of a partner, alienation from former friends by newly created social differences, feelings of loneliness, or financial worries. In hindsight, the enormous effort put into work and material gain were not always seen as unambiguously positive. The value of free time in the autumn of one’s life is relative and largely dependent on the current physical and mental state of the narrator.

Well, it would be nice to go to the mountains or to the swimming pool in the summer, or to the cinema—there are lots of possibilities, only sometimes you just can’t. You either have free time and no money, or you have the money and lack the time, so that’s how it is in life. You always have to sacrifice something. And there are very few people who have both time and money. They’re really few and far between. (Jan Beluš, born 1948, miner)

The Weekend’s Here! Weekend Gardeners and Villagers

Shortly after 1968, the Czechoslovak and Czech weekend culture arose as a mass phenomenon. It happened more often in urban environments than in remote rural areas, which still lived in the traditional way.

Because in industry they worked, as they say, eight hours; Saturdays and Sundays were free, right? But we farmers, we have to work when the weather is good. Nobody bothers to check when it’s 2 p.m. so we can go home. We work till evening, till it’s dark. From dawn to dusk, Saturdays, Sundays, all this seasonal work, hay, harvests, beets. But that’s just what farming is about. And the cattle won’t ask you whether it is Saturday or Sunday. They need to be fed everyday. (Bohumír Balajka, born 1947, cooperative farmer)

Besides moonlighting, resting and relaxing, or pursuing their hobbies, our narrators many times devoted their weekends to taking care of their families or visiting their extended family and relatives. For many people, these visits helped to break up their daily routine and offered an escape from the confined space of their city apartments.

Our aunt lived just outside the city in a village, so we’d often go there, almost every Sunday. She lived just opposite a soccer field, so my husband would instantly take the boys out for soccer. But otherwise, as far as going somewhere on weekends, I can’t say we did it very often. Maybe once a year we took our kids to some historic castle, but otherwise we just couldn’t afford it. (V. S., born 1934, textile worker)

As this narrator illustrates, one reason for visiting relatives was that material conditions did not permit more expensive trips.

In the late 1940s, leisure activities centered on summer homes; allotment gardens also took off and have been popular ever since.[15] This is a legacy of early modern times, when the aristocracy constructed palaces in towns in addition to their country mansions, changing residences with the seasons. It was passed down through the bourgeoisie which imitated aristocratic practices to the extent their finances would allow. If they could not afford to buy a property, they at least rented summer quarters, which offered an escape from urban overcrowding and pollution.[16]

In the second half of the twentieth century, prompted by a number of factors, the practice was revived. The number of second homes in Czechoslovakia before World War II was estimated in the tens of thousands. During the 1960s, those figures climbed to a hundred thousand. The most rapid increase in the number of second homes occurred in the 1970s and the 1980s; in those twenty years, their number more than doubled to reach 270,000. Some authors calculate that over 12 percent of all households owned a recreational property right after the Velvet Revolution, though these figures may be exaggerated.[17]

Our narrators frequently recounted stories about their cottages, country homes, and allotments, often in connection with their leisure time during weekends (but also during holidays, vacations, and sometimes even on weekdays). Even narrators without strong attachments to this style of leisure mentioned it.

Garden? No, thank you. We do have a garden outside the city, but I’m not too excited about it. It’s just not my cup of tea. (Alena Ekslerová, born 1952, factory worker)

The collective memory of the time before the Velvet Revolution as a subculture of cottagers and weekend villagers is very strong and is emphasized by some scholars and the people who lived it, as well as the media and the popular cinema.

According to some political refugees and dissidents, after 1968, under the terms of the unwritten social contract between Czechoslovak society and the pro-Moscow government of Gustáv Husák, people’s material needs—including car ownership, cottages and country homes, and travel abroad—were increasingly satisfied in exchange for political loyalty.[18] However, both additional research and our analyses of the personal stories of our narrators suggest that the phenomenon was the result of more than just a quid pro quo.[19]

Multiple factors prompted the citizens of a state that purportedly defended the interests of urban, working-class people to procure and cultivate houses or garden plots in the country.[20] Limited opportunities to travel abroad in part led Czechs and Slovaks to spend their free time in their own country. Furthermore, the only legal way to invest one’s savings was in a second home or allotment garden.

We bought that country home back in 1949 because our grandma and her next-door friend had already been going on day trips outside Prague during the First Republic, and they wanted to have something of their own. And then the Czech Sudetenland were abandoned, and some kind of an organization advertised in a newspaper that country homes were available. So grandpa simply chose one of those houses. Originally, it was meant to be only a temporary arrangement for two years, but we still have that house today. (Dana Pečená, born 1956, court recorder)

The postwar expulsion of the German population from the Sudeten region made tens of thousands of farms available, which stimulated the development of recreational housing. Another major impetus was the gradual abandonment of farms in the transformation from a rural, agricultural to an industrial, urban economy. Nevertheless, many narrators agreed that it was not easy to acquire a country home in the 1970s and 1980s, especially because of the regulations imposed by the state and the Communist Party and also due to the lack of suitable properties.[21]

Starting in the late 1960s, ownership of a cottage or a country home was considered relatively prestigious and pushed its owner up a notch on the social ladder in the supposedly egalitarian society (just as the ownership of a car or vacations abroad did). A common slogan asked: “If all our neighbors and colleagues from work have a cottage or a country house, why don’t we?”

People sought an escape from the bustle of the city and the gradually deteriorating natural environment in urban industrial areas. Many narrators longed to get closer to nature and to traditional manual and agricultural work. They also wanted a break from the daily grind.

On weekends, we sometimes worked, sometimes attended meetings or conferences. But as soon as we had the time, especially in spring, we went to our country home. During the summer vacations, too, it was just the country home, the country home. So, somehow, over the past fifteen, twenty years, we haven’t travelled anywhere because our country home is in the middle of the woods, in a secluded place, very quiet and relaxing, and it’s just beautiful there. (Ivo Samec, born 1950, teacher and a Communist Party official before the Velvet Revolution)

Given the long tradition of this subculture, some narrators were led to it by childhood memories of time spent in the countryside with their relatives or in ancestral summer homes and cottages, some of them during the First Republic (1918–1938) or during World War II.[22] Parents would express the wish to either continue this tradition with their children or get them out of the housing project into the fresh, country air. For those who could not afford a home, a plot in an allotment garden was an option.

For us, the reason was quite simple: because our children were quite young, we didn’t want them to spend the afternoons in the dirt of the housing project. So my wife and I naïvely thought, well, we’ll have a garden, and we’ll take them there at least during the summer. The environment will be far better for them, and so on. But, of course, it was a big mistake because the poor things soon got bored in the garden. They had no friends there, and they didn’t enjoy working in the garden, either. But we did have the garden for a couple of decades, and I must say, especially when my wife retired, she liked to go there to relax, and we each enjoyed a little rest from the other. (Milan Honzík, born 1938, lower level executive in a chemical enterprise)

Memories of summer homes and gardens as a space to spend leisure time with the family often recur in the interviews.

Some narrators perceived cottages and country homes as actual second residences, even surpassing in some respects, given their attractiveness, their places of permanent residence.[23] These properties offered a space where to pursue one’s hobbies, find peace and quiet for intellectual and artistic endeavors and DIY projects, and the opportunity to reconnect as a couple or a family. Such motivations often overlapped, complemented one another, and changed over the course of the years.

I couldn’t tell my husband that I wasn’t going anywhere, because it just went without saying. After all, that was why we had the cottage—to make use of it sometimes. But now that I’m retired, I’m blissfully happy because I can decide about my money, my time, everything. And my old dream from the past has come true. When I used to have to go to our country home every week, I’d always envy the tourists. They could come on Tuesday, Wednesday, or Saturday. Now I too can go when and where I want. (Miroslava Kubátová, born 1946, kindergarten teacher)

Not all narrators cherished their recreational homes. The main reasons were work, money, and the desire not to be bound to a single location in their free time. The accessibility of the place and the amount of free time one could spend there were key factors.

At first, we wouldn’t go to our country home all that often. We had to travel by bus; we would get there on Friday and had to come back on Sunday, or someone would give us a lift. Some acquaintances from Klatovy often came to the house next door, so they would usually drive us home. And then my husband’s parents helped us buy a car, so we could come here regularly every week, and we started to fix the house up. (Zdenka Klausová, born 1941, textile worker)

Although Czechoslovakia boasted a well-developed public rail and bus network, individual transport by car significantly helped the development of weekend leisure. On average, second homes in the Bohemian Basin were 100–150 km away from the primary residences; suburban cottages were much closer. Despite poor roads, these distances could be covered on a motorbike or by car within a relatively short time.[24]

When talking about their cottages or country homes, some narrators emphasized the construction or remodeling of these buildings. This process required a lot of organizational and manual skills, and often went on for many years.

No, no, we didn’t go anywhere on weekends because we were remodeling our country home. And there was no end to it because we didn’t have the money. One year we built the chimney, the year after that something else, and after five years the chimney collapsed. It was endless. Now that we’ve given the country home to our son, it’s his turn. Two years ago the whole house collapsed under heavy snow. [Our son] says he always plays football on Saturdays and Sundays. In a word, he just has no time for it… (Milena Filipová, born 1944, art historian)

These construction and renovation projects not only placed a significant burden on the family budget but often also affected family life: instead of having a rest or helping with the children or household, fathers were busy fixing up the house, while mothers ensured the stability of the household and looked after the children alone, something some of them still remember with a slight bitterness in their voices. Some narrators blamed this added strain on the already big workload for their health problems. On the other hand, in many narrations, we find a sense of pride in the results, especially if the person (usually a man) built or remodeled the family summer house or garden by himself, which was common before the Velvet Revolution.

The narrators who engaged in gardening emphasized the collective aspect and the group ethos of their hobby, which probably resulted from both organized membership and the necessity to cooperate with the owners of adjacent plots.[25]

It’s been twenty-three years since these gardens were created, and from the very beginning I’ve been on the allotments committee. And now the chairman has died, so everything’s up to me. Even though, by now, we have all bought them [from the state], we still make sure that the road is kept clear, that the locks are secure, that there is no damage, and so on. It’s all going pretty well, except for this guy from Prague. He wants to make some new changes, but we already have our kind of order, and we all want to stick to it. And even though the allotments are private property, there still have to be some common rules so that we have some kind of order. But he won’t accept this. He’d like to be the big boss around here. I’d be happy to let him take over, but all the other people here would suffer. (Jaroslav Hille, born 1937, glass worker)

This disrespect for the established ways in the allotments is probably why some narrators on principle oppose gardeners who have acquired their plots after the Velvet Revolution.[26] From the older gardeners’ point of view, the newcomers are often not willing to follow the traditional rules.

The collective aspect is considerably less important in the narratives of cottagers: the owners of country homes give the impression of proud individualists. As the surveys conducted by anthropologist and historian Petra Schindler-Wisten have shown,[27] many narrators owning country homes set themselves apart from cottagers, and sometimes even saw themselves as an “elite.”

At my country home, I have a much larger property. For me, it’s a house in its own right. A cottage would always be something provisional, even though nowadays many people are rebuilding their cottages into permanent residences. But then it would always bother me that the cottages are too close to one another. (Jan Mertlík, born 1949, architect)

Unfortunately, our rather general interviews could not confirm this interesting finding.

However, some year-round residents commented with irritation and even critically on the weekenders’ public display (bordering on boastfulness) of how cultured they fancied themselves and how much better their standard of living was. Locals resented the weekenders for their “strangeness,” their different social habits, or their weekend or holiday lifestyle. Some locals expressed silent disapproval or even overt defiance. Others were more philosophical in their opinions and able to appreciate the weekenders’ education and experience, higher social status, their capacity for hard manual work, the technological innovations they introduced, or their ability to represent local needs to “powerful people” in the cities. No one could dispute the financial benefits that vacationers brought to the countryside, and many of these weekenders later became either legally or de facto residents when they moved in permanently after retirement.

Occasional negative opinions aside, ownership of a second home under politically repressive conditions was a democratizing phenomenon. In general, ownership of a cottage or a country home was not taken as socially exclusive.

The expectation that cottages, country homes, and allotments would gradually disappear in the Czech Republic was not fulfilled. Studies have shown that although weekenders largely abandoned the countryside in the years immediately following the Velvet Revolution, many people later returned.[28] According to the Czech Statistical Office, in 2011 there were almost 170,000 non-permanently inhabited houses serving for recreation, meaning that about 4 percent of all households own a recreational building.[29]

This finding corresponds to the testimonies of our narrators, whose motivations for procuring a second home remain similar to those before the Velvet Revolution. Owing to the widening stratification of Czech society and the higher quality gardening and home improvement services, many second-home owners can now afford to renovate their second homes more thoroughly, furnishing them with the modern comforts and amenities of primary residences.

The less well-off second-home owner continues to be the builder, tradesman, handyman, and gardener, all in one. The physically demanding and time-consuming cultivation of vegetables with uncertain results, combined with the fall in prices and extensive import of agricultural products, have rendered gardening less worthwhile, and many growers have given it up. Still, as retirement approached, many narrators wished to move away from the city and live permanently in their second homes in the country.[30]

Holidays on the Road

The summer months of July and August are the natural vacation time. Children and young people (and to some extent even university students, with an extension to September) have a school holiday, and most Czech working people take a vacation during these two months.

From the perspective of school children, the most significant other breaks are Christmas to New Year’s; a one-week spring break sometime in the first two months of the year; and Easter break, which lasts from Maundy Thursday to Easter Monday. Both the socialist dictatorship, despite its aversion to religious festivals, and the post-1989 regime, in its quest for new holidays, have honored the tradition, which had evolved after the Enlightenment reforms of the Habsburg monarchy in the eighteenth century.

Whereas narrators who grew up in the countryside were involved in agricultural work and devoted their free time to seasonal outdoor activities, city children had a different experience. The organization of their time away from school was dependent on programs organized by the state, school, community organizations, or their parents. Narrators raised in the city remembered summer camps organized by the scouts and later by so-called pioneer organizations, by their parents’ trade unions, or by their close relatives.

My dad died when I was thirteen, so I was raised by the Pioneers and the Socialist Youth Union. My mom worked from dawn to dusk, and she didn’t have much time left for me. But I was in a good group of peers, and I can say that I grew up among them, and time went by at its own pace. (Josef Souček, born 1940, policeman and university teacher)

Urban youth remembered visits with their grandparents and other relatives in small towns or in the countryside.

My mom and I lived on our own in the town of Tábor, where we just had one common room with a balcony. Basically, I was just there on weekdays because at weekends I either stayed with my dad or my grandma; in fact, we still had to go to school and work on Saturdays back then, so we’d always leave on Saturday afternoons and stay there through Sundays. And I never spent my breaks in Tábor—always with my grandparents, and we spent Christmas with them too. (Irena Blážová, born 1948, photographer)

Parents’ and close relatives’ professions, wealth, and free time determined how children spent their breaks. Some narrators pointed out that their parents could not look after them throughout summer vacation because their vacations were shorter. Others bitterly recalled having to join a group or feeling abandoned at summer camp.

I have the best of childhood memories. In winter, I’d go skiing with my parents. In summer, I’d go to summer camps, something I held against my parents back then, although they tried to explain that they only had a month’s vacation and I had to go. Sometimes, I didn’t even open their letters, and they are still unopened. Both mom and dad would write letters to me; my aunt would send me chocolates, but I still couldn’t come to terms with the situation. I felt they were trying to get rid of me. I would have been so good if they had let me stay at home in Prague. (Věra Seková, born 1943, dermatologist)

Speaking of childhood family vacations, narrators’ memories were invariably positive, albeit with a poorly concealed sigh that since the Velvet Revolution their grandchildren have been raised differently, in a more liberal spirit, and with completely different options for leisure and vacations. As they started families of their own, some narrators adopted many of their parents’ habits. Family traditions from the past may have simplified the choice of a place for family vacations.

Many Czechoslovak people didn’t go to the seaside for vacation. They went to the Balaton in Hungary. That was our “sea.” Actually, it’s a large lake, but it was nice and something totally different from home. We lived in cabins, and I already liked it when I was a child. Then I was there again with my kids, and they liked it too. The only difference was, now I had to look after them. When I was there as a child with my mom, she looked after me. (O. O., born 1948, streetcar driver)

Parents may have sent their children to summer camps to instill in them modest material expectations, build up their physical and mental strength, and teach them independence and teamwork. However, not all families had the means to provide their children with opportunities for self-development during the summer months. Some narrators pointed out that, as teenagers, they had to find a summer job, which was not only financially profitable but also educational. The state not only welcomed, but also often required, seasonal jobs in farming or temporary jobs in mines and industrial enterprises as a prerequisite for enrolling in certain types of schools. Teachers supervised this work for whole groups of high school and university students.

Back then, it was quite normal for schools to organize summer jobs for students in harvesting hops. Occasionally, that might still happen even today, but it’s much less common because of mechanization and the shrinking of farmland. But back then, we’d go for at least two weeks. Still, I must say, although I never was a champion in gathering hops by the tubful, we all looked forward to the evenings—roaming around villages and strumming the guitar, first dates with girls, yeah, those were the times. But, as I say, somehow we just took it for granted. (Vladimír Hyský, born 1943, administrative assistant in a metal roller factory)

After graduation, an individual’s vacation depended on the type of employment, seniority, and personal possibilities and preferences. In both real socialism and democratic society, the length of vacation could be an indicator of social status. As it often happens, one’s social status could yield either appreciation and admiration or envy and resentment. “Privileged” narrators attempted to relativize their benefits or even to justify themselves.

Group travel at subsidized prices (or even completely free of charge) was an important and well-supported form of tourism from the end of World War II until the collapse of the Communist regime in 1989. Frequent memories included vacations organized by trade unions, special interest groups, or the Central Council for Recreational Care of the Trade Unions.

Well, that Revolutionary Trade Union Movement did look after the employees. I mean, we went on all kinds of holidays funded by the company. Every company had its recreational facilities, and ours had several. We had one in Jeseník, another one near Třebíč, two in the Jeseníky mountains, then something at Vranov Lake. And we had foreign exchange recreation too, with Yugoslavia. First, they came here in winter to the mountains, because we had snow, and then we went there in summer to their seaside resorts. (Josef Konečný, born 1950, machinery worker)

In hindsight, many people praised the affordability of these holidays, especially in view of the fact that this system of recreation collapsed after 1989. However, not everyone agreed that these collective excursions—often accompanied with an ideological agenda—were a dream holiday.

You know, I never liked those trade unions too much, although maybe this is wrong. Trade unions should play a positive role. Even now, I’m not very fond of them. The trade union here meant that you got a box of chocolates or a bar of soap on International Women’s Day. I don’t think they did any good, especially back then, before the Velvet Revolution. Maybe they organized some kind of recreation, they did, indeed. But I never used that either. So then what were the trade unions for? I don’t know. (Jarmila Erbanová, born 1944, nurse)

It was the “pro-regime” and collective character of these recreational vouchers and the impossibility to choose the destination freely that discouraged some people from using them.

Individual or family holidays grew increasingly possible with the weakening of ideological control and the regime’s gradual abandonment of its efforts to manage people’s free time. The increasing standard of living also helped, even if it could hardly be compared to the United States or Western Europe.

Despite the limited services and chronically recurring shortages for which the Eastern bloc was notorious, even Czechoslovakians experienced some material progress, for example through the gradual increase in car ownership. It started to reach mass proportions in the late 1960s and grew rapidly in the 1970s and 1980s. This trend continued in the period of transformation and climaxed in the second decade after the Velvet Revolution. Stories about buying a car were some of the most recurrent in the interviews, not only for reasons of prestige but also because ownership of a car qualitatively extended the limits of leisure.

It took us a long time to save the money for the car—a Škoda 100—and we still had to be put on a waiting list. But, fortunately, in the end we got around it like this: there was some kind of regulation that if you were a doctor, you were entitled to have a car because maybe you needed to drive to see your patients. And because my wife was a doctor, we applied for a car under her name. So we skipped about a year on the waiting list, and the car was officially my wife’s. We would visit her parents in Poděbrady on weekends; many times we just drove around in the area, and then once we went to Yugoslavia. When the borders opened up after the Velvet Revolution, I told myself, I’m not up to going anywhere very far, so my daughter and I took a map and used a compass to make a circle with a thousand-kilometer radius, and then we drove around all over the Alps and slept in a tent. (František Hudec, born 1938, researcher and manager)

Many narrators felt a greater freedom of movement when they no longer had to depend on public transportation. For some of them, especially men but some women as well, driving a car became a passion, and years later they still talked about it with excitement and pride.

My husband and I have only had one hobby since we were young: cars and motorbikes, and it’s stuck with me till now. Because I’m really into motors, and so having a car meant a world to me. I’ve driven all my life. I don’t drive at present because my sons live here in town, and they both have their own cars and always give me a lift. But when they were little, we’d only take holidays abroad. Even in the Communist times, we were able to go to Slovakia, East Germany, Hungary. We went there pretty often. (Marie Leksová, born 1943, saleswoman)

After the Velvet Revolution, car ownership became commonplace and what was formerly perceived as a luxury item became just another modern convenience. (Still, some narrators emphasized that they could never afford their own car.) Air travel too has lost its prestige. Whereas narrators never failed to mention having taken a plane trip before the Velvet Revolution, in their accounts of more recent experiences, they took flying for granted.

Depending on their opportunities and interests, people often travelled not only within the Czech lands but also to Slovakia; thanks to the affordable prices of recreational visits and tours, spending their holidays abroad became quite commonplace, especially in the 1970s and 1980s. In summertime, favorite destinations were often domestic lake- and riverside localities with beach areas, or seaside resorts abroad. The sea was the only tourist attraction that, as a landlocked country Czechoslovakia, and later the Czech Republic, could not offer tourists and vacationers. Many narrators also mentioned cultural, historical, and natural sightseeing tours, both in their own country and abroad. Athletic types often remembered hiking, cycling, and skiing. During shortages of particular consumer goods, an added benefit of foreign travel was the opportunity to shop.

The limited opportunity to travel outside the country, especially to the West and to the countries of the former Yugoslavia, was painfully reflected in the interviews. Besides geopolitical and ideological obstacles, the socialist dictatorship throughout its existence faced a shortage of foreign currency, and before every trip abroad people had to file special requests to obtain it. It was not easy for a person without any political connections to get through the complex bureaucratic application procedure, which was once aptly described as a thick wall of paper. As many narrators recalled, success in arranging a holiday in one of the Western countries amounted to winning the lottery. From the second half of the 1960s on, quite a few narrators used the services of travel agencies (of which in real-socialist Czechoslovakia there were only eleven). The travel agencies offered only a limited number of destinations but helped cut through some red tape.

Surveys show that before the collapse of the Communist regime, in the late 1980s, almost 95 percent of all travel was done inside Czechoslovakia.[31] Narrators frequently mentioned the freedom to travel after the Velvet Revolution, and surveys show that the increased opportunity to travel was one of the most welcome changes after the Velvet Revolution. Many narrators tried to make up for the travel restrictions, and took advantage of being able to visit especially Western countries and seaside resorts.

Extreme frugality also featured in the memories of travel before the Velvet Revolution, and to some extent after. People made special efforts to travel extremely cheaply by roughing it—sleeping in tents, taking along food from home, and so on—and carefully budgeting their foreign exchange.

Then with Svazarm [Union for Cooperation with the Army] we got all the way to Austria on those bikes when the borders had opened after 1989. … I adored the landscape, the mountains and hills, the lakes, the clean water. You couldn’t ever find that anywhere back home. It was just after the revolution, and there were areas by the lakes and car parks where you could sleep unofficially. I had a caravan for three which I had made myself, so we cooked there, ate there, swam in the lake, and everything was super. It was simply a holiday for the price of the gas. (Jan Krátký, born 1943, electrical engineer)

Only when some narrators started travelling abroad in the late 1990s and at the turn of the millennium, did they note the shift in quality and comfort of travel. Old buses were replaced by luxury coaches and planes;[32] sleeping in the open or in tents at campsites was replaced by apartments and hotels; instead of preparing food brought along from home, they ate in local restaurants or bought food in local supermarkets. Some narrators even pointed out that, since the collapse of Communism, they spent every holiday abroad (sometimes at very exotic destinations).

During Communism, we went to Bulgaria and Romania. Only now after [what I call] the “crack” [the Velvet Revolution] we could travel more. Unlike before. But, otherwise, because of that I at least travelled all around Czechoslovakia, and was very happy about that. There are so many beautiful places here. But before, if I had a chance to travel abroad I would have jumped at it, and I would’ve never seen what we have got at home. And I would have missed out on a lot because it’s really beautiful. Because now, I mean after the “crack,” I’ve spent all my holidays abroad. France, Spain, Greece, Italy, and now I’m going to the Arab Emirates. So far, I haven’t taken any holidays in the Czech Republic after the “crack.” (H. L., born 1949, handyman)

Such statements reflect a clear rise in the standard of living and in travel opportunities at least for a part of the Czech population since 2000. There is also a marked shift from group tours to trips tailored to individual interests. This feature is by all indications connected to an increase in Czech travelers’ self-confidence (including language skills) and to the greater ease of getting information about a destination online. The internet and other technologies have brought about a major shift in booking travel. Even narrators who were unwilling or unable financially to travel ranked the Czech Republic among the countries with a highly developed tourist industry, where people spend their holidays as they wish, within their own means.

A Turning Point or Gradual Change? How Much Free Time We Need and How We Spend It

Perhaps never in history has Czech society had so much free time, something that is clear both from public opinion surveys and from the frequency with which this topic came up in the interviews. Exactly how much free time our narrators actually had couldn’t be determined. Whereas in their youth, they took free time for granted, later in life it became more valuable. Whereas free time in the countryside was highly prized, in towns and cities it was easier to come by. The amount of free time also has its gender aspect: during the 1950s and 1960s, in particular, and generally before the Velvet Revolution, married women with children and especially single mothers were so busy looking after their families and households that they had no opportunity to use their free time for relaxation. Fathers, too, in their own words, were limited in their leisure activities by overtime and moonlighting jobs, political engagement, and building or maintaining their own homes, cooperative apartments, or second houses.

Taken together, our interviews don’t conclusively show whether average citizens had more free time before or after the Velvet Revolution. Though they seem to indicate that people enjoyed more free time after 1989, the period of democratic transformation following the Velvet Revolution often corresponded to a period in our narrators’ lives when their children had grown up, when most of them were relatively well off, and when they had retired.

People spent their leisure time in manifold ways, but there were some common general features. While they emphasized a collective approach to leisure, determined by the political and ideological context in the period before the Velvet Revolution, Western countries had a similar setup at least until the 1960s. Despite the fact that the collective approach lasted longer in Czechoslovakia, already in the 1970s and 1980s the Euro-American models of individualized and active leisure appealed to more and more people. The boom in individual or family leisure activities seems to have peaked before the revolution of 1989, offering a wide range of options depending on the traveler’s health, interests, and financial means. During the second half of the twentieth century, an increasing number of people adopted healthier, more active lifestyles, which undoubtedly corresponds to the significant reduction in mortality and increased life expectancy.[33] It seems that leisure society, with all its attributes and values, has put down deep roots in our part of the world.

7

Us and Them

Inspired by the rallying cry of Václav Havel during the demonstration on Wenceslas Square on November 22, 1989, Czechoslovakians across the land took up the chant, “We’re not like them! We’re not like them!” They were rejecting violence against the Communists who had themselves held power by force. The message was, “We are different. We are not taking revenge.” If “them” meant the armed Communists, who were the “we”? Were they the rest of the nation, the silent majority, everyone except the officials of the Communist regime and members of repressive state bodies? Or were they just thousands of party members who were not really active, but were members for pragmatic reasons, such as access to housing and higher salaries? What common feature determined who belonged to “us,” if “they” seem to be so clearly defined? And, finally, has the Velvet Revolution made obsolete the idea of a distinction between us and them?

From a historical perspective, the division of Czechoslovak society into us and them, haves and have-nots, those who control and those who are controlled, corresponds to a traditional Czech pattern based on the dichotomy between ordinary people and an elite. Dissidents and intellectuals frequently spoke in terms of the powerful and the powerless. “They” was a derogatory term referring to those in power, be it hereditary, political, or economic.[1] Power, no matter what its source, always presupposes choice, whereas its absence marks dependence. Dozens of fault lines divide Czechs from one another, not just political or economic power.

Before 1989, the prevailing feeling in the public sphere was one of the helplessness of the majority under a minority rule. After 1948, despite proclamations about the equality of all people (except of course the so-called class enemies), decision-making on important issues was concentrated in the hands of a relatively small group of people. Only later did people connected with power on lower levels also have their part in decision-making processes.

Power shifted from those who owned the means of production and wealth to those who possessed the means of coercion. After 1989, a new hierarchy was established. People who had been able to take advantage of the situation after the Velvet Revolution and seize public office or personal material advantage became the new haves. On the other side, the lives of have-nots in the emerging regime remained as “ordinary” as they had been in the previous one, or got harder because of unemployment. Haves are conspicuous in the media, whereas have-nots are rarely mentioned, as if their stories might disturb the harmony of the new system by pointing out its faults and shortcomings.

Individuals, political parties, firms, and nongovernmental organizations are all too complex to be without flaws. The argument that Czechs were worse off under the totalitarian regime and that therefore it is inappropriate to compare the regimes is not watertight. Unpleasant conversations are necessary for society to address its problems. Several Czech politicians and some mass media blocked solutions when they outright condemned critics of the current establishment as “supporters of the old order.”

Narrators who fell into the category of “ordinary people” seemed to have bought into the new establishment’s message. They made embarrassed statements and apologized when their own memories were not in line with the matrix of popular memory. Some of them appeared to be caught off guard; others were disoriented because they remembered a different experience from that created by the new media.

I’m sorry, but maybe I’m not the right person for your sample. I’ve never felt that … that I am or should be, as I’ve been told by the TV, a member of a “lost generation,” and that because of the regime under which I grew up, I’ve been definitively written off because I didn’t fight against the regime. How can we explain it today? We had fun and enjoyed ourselves even during the time of those bigwigs. (Miroslav Jiránek, born 1951, painter)

I don’t like it when people just take history as a set of unrelated data, just from the political point of view. This doesn’t tell you anything. I’m sorry, but real life back then was exactly as it is today. Those people had their loves, they had their grievances, their passions. There were good people and bad people, and the same thing repeats itself in every generation … Our everyday life wasn’t much different from that of our grandparents and our children, under different conditions of course. (Milena Flodrová, born 1935, historian in museum)

We kept explaining over and over again to these reluctant narrators that they had an unquestioned right to their own memories; that their memories need not conform to some textbook interpretations; and that our research required their personal views of the past and their own interpretation of their former attitudes. For instance, they were told that, while some people remembered life before 1989 as images of barbed wire, foreign currency vouchers, mandatory celebration of national holidays instituted by the Marxist doctrine, others spoke about the purchase of their first car, their first date with their partner, or happy May Day celebrations. Some remember the 1990s as the beginning of freedom, new opportunities in business, and ability to travel; others interpret them as the beginning of privatization and the pillage of the state. Most hesitant narrators, after repeated assurances that they would not be judged or criticized for their views, eventually gave us their personal stories.

The Assumptions and the Reality

Taken individually, to a varying extent, each narrator either identified or dissociated himself or herself from a particular group. The memories we had collected opened new ways of understanding where and how narrators placed themselves on the axis between “us” and “them.” No previous research agency had asked respondents for their opinions about the polarization of society.

Before November 1989, the Institute for Public Opinion Research did a survey focused on “Opinions on the propriety of the manner in which the Communist Party assumed its leading role in society in the years 1986, 1988, and 1989.”[2] From it we can glean how Czechoslovakian citizens perceived Communist Party officials about three years before the collapse of the regime.

In 1986, 57 percent of the respondents in the Czech lands and 61 percent in Slovakia assessed the Communist Party’s leadership as properly assumed; in 1988, it was 40 percent in the Czech lands and 50 percent in Slovakia; and in 1989, just 29 percent in the Czech lands and 35 percent in Slovakia. These figures illustrate a marked decrease in the faith of the people in the Communist officials and their policies. In the Czech lands, these policies were distrusted by 33 percent in 1986, by 43 percent in 1988, and by 46 percent in 1989; the rest had no opinion. In Slovakia the results were 26 percent, 32 percent, and 40 percent, respectively.[3]

We also clearly see an increase in the courage and willingness of the respondents to freely express their opinions. The most commonly cited reasons for the negative evaluation of the Party’s and its representatives’ policies were the privileges of Party members (15 percent of respondents), its non-democratic leadership (14 percent of respondents), mismanagement (8 percent), and contradiction between words and actions (8 percent of respondents).[4]

Since November 1989, respondents’ satisfaction with their involvement in all areas of public life has ranged between 11 percent (in 2007) and 19 percent (in 2011), while dissatisfaction and a sense of helplessness at having no influence show a constant increase, from 42 percent in 2004 to 51 percent in 2012,[5] according to surveys conducted by the Center for Public Opinion Research.

Based on the results of these surveys, it seems that the have-nots have been dissatisfied not only with the decisions of their political representatives (the haves) but also with their own involvement in public life. This experience may be peculiar to that segment of Czechoslovak and Czech people who perceive themselves as “us,” or it may be a feeling that affects humankind in general.

We had assumed that the interviews would help us find dozens of dividing lines in the society. Although there were memories of ethnic, gender, and education differences, three main dividing lines dominanted in the interviews, namely membership in the Communist Party, the network of connections, and economic background.[6] The topics that came up most frequently in the interviews included:

1.   The dividing line between “us,” non-Communists, and “them,” Communists or, more specifically, Communist officials (or simply, between ordinary people and those politically active);

2.   “Us,” without connections and opportunities to take advantage of nepotistic networks versus “them,” people in the right places, heads of companies, people with the official power, head waiters, greengrocers, and generally dealers in scarce or luxury goods (or simply, ordinary people versus the “greengrocers”);

3.   “Us,” who after 1989 find themselves again without influence or economic resources, versus “them,” profiteers, shady businessmen, people with access to information from the era before the Velvet Revolution, or those who know the right people (or, ordinary people versus an economic elite).

“Us,” Non-Communists, and “Them,” Communists

After 1948, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia became the leading force in society.[7] It solidified its position after 1960 through Article 4 of the Constitution about the leading role of the Party in Czechoslovakia. So long as such provisions were in force, Communist Party members occupied a privileged position in contrast to non-Party members. Whether this statement held true for each and every individual Communist Party member is debatable. Before 1989, when people spoke about the Communist Party, they generally had its top leadership in mind: the headquarters, the Central Committee and the Bureau, the Secretariat, and the caucus at all levels. “Rank-and-file members were the last to come because they were just as easily manipulated as the rest of the people,” says the Czechoslovak philosopher and literary critic Milan Šimečka.[8] He adds:

The so-called membership in the leading party under real socialism was a group of people difficult to define. Long gone were the times when Communist parties in Eastern Europe were formed by ideologically aligned people willing to make sacrifices for the idea of equality, social justice, and freedom. As soon as these parties became governing parties, their membership changed substantially. Governance is no longer an ideological matter; it is a practical matter.[9]

Milan Šimečka (who was a Communist Party member until 1969) noted members from all walks of life:

In the ruling Party, I met people with all possible political views: committed followers of the more noble traditions of the movement; narrow minded sectarians; missionaries of the Party mythology; pragmatists of power; cynical manipulators; cold-blooded ideology mongers; self-serving careerists without any ideological affiliation; ordinary people who did not subscribe to any ideas; committed Christians; apolitical activists who discharged their excess energy in the Party; economic managers who understood the Party as an enterprise in need of control; and a great number of people for whom the Party was nothing but a tiresome burden of meetings and training sessions. In the Party, I even met ideologically mature anti-Communists; sincere admirers of Western consumer society; adherents of competitive capitalism; anti-Semites; etc. Obviously, I cannot give any quantitative evaluation of the situation, and one could scarcely find any sociological institute ready to attempt to take on this job.[10]

Šimečka paints a colorful picture of the membership in the Communist Party. His description largely corresponds to that of our narrators’—members and non-members alike. Even in the years of normalization we could find among the members of the Communist Party the same types of people as those enumerated by Šimečka.

After the Velvet Revolution, the Communist Party and its membership changed dramatically. In 1993, the Czech Parliament declared that the Communist regime that had ruled Czechoslovakia from 1948 to 1989 was criminal, illegitimate, and contemptible.[11] In 1990, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia had transformed into the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia, publicly distancing itself from the past. In the ruins of the old Communist Party there arose a new party with a similar name that apologized for the excesses of the past (some say sufficiently, others disagree). The labeling of the Communist regime as criminal and contemptible keeps lawyers, political scientists, and even some journalists busy even today. In elections, the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia regularly receives 15 percent of the votes, mainly protest voters dissatisfied with the current situation.

Many political scientists and politicians had wrongly predicted that, given the advanced age of its voters, the Communist Party would sooner or later cease to exist. Sometimes, especially during electoral campaigns, there emerge discussions about outlawing the Party. However, judicial institutions never fail to point out that the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia has not deviated from correct behavior in a parliamentary democracy.

How Did Non-Communists View Communist Party Members?

It is probably not surprising that the narrators’ assessments of the ruling Communist Party were largely unfavorable. Almost every family had some sort of negative experience, for which rightly or wrongly they blamed the Communist Party and its “bigwigs.” At the same time, when assessing their fellow citizens who had joined the Communist Party, the narrators’ judgments were based on a more general perspective and practical experience.

Well, they tried to break me too … like “If you want a family and if you want to grow professionally … you don’t want to be just an ordinary livestock worker all your life.” And, well, and I have to confess: it was really hard on me. But finally, with the help of my family and a friend of mine who was a pastor, I managed to hold out. But I understand those who gave in to the pressure. In 1968, they were taught a lesson, and they were simply afraid. There were still plenty of things to make you worry. You wanted to get a lot for your family home, to get a decent job, to get your children into good schools …, provided they were talented enough. You were simply held hostage to the state. That’s how I see it today. Many people see it differently today, but that’s just my view, OK? (Libor Fučík, born 1960, livestock specialist).

Much more critical of people who joined the Communist Party was a secondary school teacher who himself declined to join the Party, just as the previous narrator did.

It was over a million Communists that gave them that strength. It gave strength to those who were in the Party to do as they pleased. And they all made me angry when they said that they were doing this for their children’s or for their parents’ sake, and that they didn’t really agree with that line of thought. Most people who joined the Party, I think, got no advantages from it—perhaps just a bit of peace and quiet. But it wasn’t the peace of the soul; actually, I think it was rather a highway to hell, you know … (Jiří Růžička, born 1948, secondary school teacher)

Other non-Party members described members of the Communist Party as opportunists, whose only concern was personal gain and the profit of their families and closest friends.

In the last years before the revolution, everybody was joining the Party. It was ridiculous even because they had to meet some kind of quota and so on and so forth, and were kowtowing and climbing over others to land a cozy position. (Zlatko Dvořák, born 1946, policeman)

I never joined the Communist Party; there was no pressure. I think people were joining the Party voluntarily, to get some advantage from it rather than being forced by anyone. (Albín Novák, born 1951, fireman)

Whereas this narrator did not perceive any pressure to join the Communist Party in the normalized society of the 1980s, either collectively or personally, others, especially blue-collar workers, did feel it.

Well, there was pressure on manual workers to join the Party because there were supposed to be ten workers in the Party per every official who was allowed to join the Party. So they recruited them. They’d try to persuade workers to join the Party because they needed them to be able to take in another university graduate who wanted to be promoted, but the requirement was membership in the Party. (Josef Konečný, born 1950, machinery worker)

Indeed, to maintain its perception as a workers’ party, the Communist Party predefined the ideal ratio of new members from the ranks of blue-collar and other workers, clearly in favor of blue-collar workers. In the 1950s and 1960s, a directive was in force according to which the structure of the Communist Party membership should consist of 60 percent workers, 20 percent cooperative farm workers, and 20 percent others. In practice, this guideline was hard to follow, because there was not much to offer to manual workers in return for their joining the Communist Party. According to statistical data, in 1951, 42 percent of Communist Party members were manual workers whereas in 1960 it was only 36 percent. People in the interviews cited various target ratios as they knew them from hearsay or as they themselves remembered them. Some said the ratio was 5:1; others thought it was 10:1 in favor of blue-collar workers.[12]

The discrepancy may have originated in the varying social structures in different regions. The situation in “white-collar” Prague and the “college town” of Olomouc was different from the situation in the “blue-collar” cities of Ostrava or Plzeň. Our interviews also showed that it was mainly people with secondary, and above all university, education who applied for the membership in the Communist Party in the 1980s, because they needed it to be able to pursue their careers successfully. Blue-collar workers became collectively aware that they would not improve their status by joining the Party and that the phrase “the Communist Party means government by the workers” was just a cliché.

They got a lot of mileage out of the fiction that we were governed by the working class; but the workers actually had to keep quiet. Ninety percent of workers had to keep quiet. And when you didn’t like something and raised a complaint, you were given some menial job or you were summoned to the Party Committee, and you were warned: “Either you change, or you’re through.” It made no difference whether you were a worker or not. God forbid you should stand up to them. They would just blow you away. Everybody knows that. (Konrád Niesner, born 1941, electrician)

The worst assessment of Party membership came from those who experienced injustices and harassment from Communist Party members first hand, especially in the case of some position in the workplace, compliance with the schedule, or remuneration for work.

Sometimes they left work at ten and went to the Party Committee. They returned at one, washed up, and went home. It’s hard to say exactly, but it made people angry, and we always grumbled. There were no Communists on my shift, but there was one on the other shift, and he’d always go off, leaving the other guys to do his job for him. Well, you know, they grumbled, but in the end they had to shut up because otherwise they’d be asking for trouble. … Well, there were also some decent guys among the Communists, but most of them were looked out only for themselves. I’m not judging everyone who was in the Party, because some of them were honest, but mostly they were just in it for profit. Some of them could do nothing better than blather away at meetings. That’s what they were good at. (Konrád Niesner, born 1941, electrician)

Another difficulty for non-members of the Communist Party was their lack of access to information. Party members circumvented them in the affairs of the company (ironically, the same narrators who condemned this practice thought that the important issues were not discussed at the meetings anyway).

That Party group met regularly. To be frank, they were probably discussing complete rubbish, but on the other hand, they might have been talking about, I don’t know, some organizational stuff and the like, and those who were not in the Party were not allowed in there. And those non-members had a very, very hard time putting up with that. Just imagine, some people get together, and you are excluded, and yet they are discussing things that affect you, and finally come out with some announcement. (Vojtěcha Špičáková, born 1928, doctor)

Generally, non-members criticized almost everyone who had joined the Communist Party; however, when they talked about their own acquaintances, neighbors, co-workers, or even relatives who became Communists, the non-Party members were much more conciliatory.

Those Communists during normalization, they weren’t … they had nothing to do with the 1950s and 1960s. They were my own age, and something totally different was at stake for them. They simply worked and served as models, but they didn’t harm anybody. In the 1970s, no, never. (Jan Caletka, born 1950, bricklayer and amateur archaeologist)

This narrator felt (either spontaneously or through conventional wisdom) that it was perhaps necessary to extend his perspective further to include the past.

Of course, I condemn those times. I don’t want to make it look like … I’m appalled when I read about the things that went on back then, like when they made three farmers from our village leave their homes and sent them to jail for failing to pay their contributions to the state. That was a contrived system. They imprisoned decent and hard-working people and evicted entire families. That must have been terrible. It’s a terrible tragedy, and I really condemn it. But now I’m talking about those Communists who were our friends in the village. They were also just hardworking people and served as models. But the whole past of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, that really makes my blood boil. That’s something terrible. (Jan Caletka, born 1950, bricklayer and amateur archaeologist)

You have to bear in mind that there were also Party members among ordinary workers. For example, in one of the workshops where I worked, there was a very good Party member, and I wasn’t very much bothered by his involvement with the Party because he was just … He had his own convictions, and who was I to try to change his mind? (Walter Schöbel, born 1930, glass worker)

When the narrators who were not members of the Party knew Party members personally, there was a human dimension involved in their assessment. “Us” perceived “them” as people of flesh and bone, with all their positive and negative traits—at any rate, as different from the anonymous mass of Communist Party members. We have also recorded instances when non-Party members mentioned that Communists helped them by telling them in advance what they were up to.

For example, we also had colleagues who were in the Party, but then they were a different breed of Party members … We always teased them for being that kind of Party members. It was more like they were able to warn us. “This or that is coming. Don’t do this and that.” We were no Party members, and I’ve never been one, but those Party members who were at the meetings, they told us this and that, be careful, and stuff. (Milena Flodrová, born 1935, historian in a museum)

Why Did People Join the Communist Party? Justifications and Rationalizations

For many narrators who had joined the Communist Party, it was and still is a very sensitive issue.

I was afraid that we would get on the topic of Party membership. And that’s the skeleton in the closet. This issue really bothers me. I’ve lived through worse situations, but that was stupid … Well, originally, I didn’t want to give you this interview, but I had already said yes. And when I say yes I mean yes. (Jan Havrda, born 1946, fireman)

Most of those who decided to describe for us the circumstances of their first involvement with the Communist Party attempted to use their narration to justify and explain a misstep that many perceived as one of their life’s failures.[13]

Ordinary people almost never offered ideology as their main motive for joining the Communist Party (although it was frequently mentioned in another one of our studies that focused on Communist elites).[14] It is almost impossible to determine whether or not it was a factor at the time when they joined the Communist Party, or whether our narrators who were formerly Party members are ashamed to admit to it in the current social configuration. If they did mention ideology, then it was accompanied by an apology: although they were committed Communists, they tried in the first place to be good people. This justification is repeated quite frequently.

My husband was a Communist … and I think he even believed in the ideology. If everybody had been a Communist of the kind he was, people would have gold knobs on their doors, you know? He helped everybody. He was a terribly good person. (Gerta Suchá, born 1936, laboratory technician)

On the other hand, another man who joined the Communist Party after being instructed by a colleague of his that nobody took the ideology, Party membership, and Party offices too seriously, did not give much thought to ideology.

Well, they needed a Party member, and they thought of me. I said I didn’t want to, but [my colleague] began trying to persuade me not with the official ideology and in the official way, because he despised it himself. Instead, he said: “Man, for goodness’ sake, you can think what you like, but you may be head of the company one day. You’re able to handle it, and now it really makes no difference whether it’s Marxism or something else. We don’t even hold any Party meetings here—we just make up some minutes now and then. So this is how things are, and who knows whether this will last forever or a thousand years.” (Libor Fučík, born 1960, livestock specialist)

Some narrators openly confessed that they did not believe in the Communist ideology, while others remained silent. We can only guess whether they were or still are convinced Communists. But even the top representatives of the Communist Party, especially those who were younger and relatively new to their offices, admitted in other interviews to the absence of ideology and to unadulterated pragmatism. For example, Miroslav Štĕpán, a member of the Communist Party Central Committee Presidium, told us: “There was no ideology in this country after 1968. We just pretended to have some ideology.”[15] If someone from the top political spheres felt this way, it is hard to expect to find any ideological convictions among ordinary members.[16] It is not as if ordinary members decided to join on the basis of Communist Party officials’ speeches. The invasion by the “friendly” armies of the Warsaw Pact in August 1968 deeply shook their faith in socialism. Even where there were remnants of faith in the idea of real socialism, people were daily confronted with the worsening conditions of practical life.

Ideology itself was often replaced by another strong motive: family background. “There was no choice: we were predestined.” “I grew up in that environment.” “My family convinced me.” Through this construct, the narrators wanted to explain that they had had no alternative but to join the Communist Party and continue the family tradition.

I come from a family with a distinctly left-wing orientation. I saw it all around me. (Eva Dosedělová, born 1960, journalist and graphic artist)

I was born into a family of hardline Communists. There were three pictures in our living room: Gottwald, Zápotocký, and Stalin. Sometime in the 1950s, Stalin had disappeared, and in his place I hung a picture of cowboys at an Apache fort. My parents addressed their friends and acquaintances as “comrades.” They’d never say something like, “Look, Mrs. X is coming.” They would always call her a “comrade.” Everybody was a Communist in our building. Whenever there was a Communist meeting, the apartments were empty. … So, well, this was how I grew up. I don’t have any bad memories of that time. We didn’t give it much thought as children. It’s just today that I think back about that. (Jan Havrda, born 1946, fireman)

Some narrators understood their entry or membership in the Communist Party as a historical fact and destiny, something about which there was nothing they could do. They offered these constructs not just to us (the interviewers) but also to the wider community to justify their own failure—if indeed, after all these years, they still perceived their joining the Communist Party as a failure.

Well, nevertheless, I eventually gave in to my brother’s pressure or actually to the pressure from both my brothers. I became a candidate, and then after about three years I actually joined the Party. And I was one of those typically not too active members. I was at peace, and so were my brothers. They could say in all questionnaires: one brother in the Party, the other one too, and so on. But in my case it had no further impact because I … I don’t know, I didn’t … I just went on being a member. (Ladislav Svatek, born 1948, driver and employee of a cooperative farm)

In addition to naming their family background as a motivation for joining the Communist Party, many narrators also mentioned achieving a long-sought peace. The narrators cited above and below, Party members and blue-collar workers who did not pursue any career in the Communist Party, had both been urged to join the Party for several months, and as they both admit, what eventually won them over was their desire to have some peace. They might also have been counting on some benefits issuing from their membership.

Joining the Communist Party was more or less a necessity. My middle brother was also in the Party for the same reasons, but he joined the Party because he wanted to enroll in correspondence courses at the university, and he needed a recommendation from his employer. So, again, he joined the Party more or less with these ulterior motives. Most, or at least a great many, people joined the Party for similar reasons—to be left in peace. I also wanted to have my peace. This is why we can’t pigeon-hole anybody, not even today when here and there the question still comes up about whether somebody was or wasn’t in the Party. The question is, did that person hold any significant position, and what kind of position was it? Did they do any harm to other people from that position? Like Grebeníček senior did as an investigator for the State Security in a prison somewhere in Uherské Hradiště. (Milan Ducko, born 1937, printing worker)

This man has suggested yet another dividing line between “us” and “them,” namely, the line between ordinary members and Party officials. Narrators who conceived their stories in a similar vein mentioned in particular the fact that rank-and-file Party members were only doing the Party’s bidding. They had to set an example and usually derived no benefits from their membership, especially when compared to Party officials. Such an explanation, from the narrators’ perspective, makes sense, as it frees them from any responsibility for decisions which, for the most part, they were indeed unable to influence. We can never know whether Communist Party members really did not recognize that their membership helped sanction and legitimize the decisions of the supreme bodies of the Party, or whether they just did not want to accept that fact. But their effort to switch to the winning side is obvious.

The business of joining the Communist Party didn’t work how people today claim it did. Oftentimes [ordinary Party members] had their special Party tasks, and they always had more duties than [non-members]. The ones who were the best off were skilled craftsmen without any Party affiliation; they were the best off. They just did their job, and they knew how to do it. They did good work and got good pay. There was no corruption among Party members. At that time, when someone stole something or cheated someone out of a hundred crowns, it was the end for him. It was so strict back then that nobody dared do that. Maybe it was different with the highest-ranking officials. They did have advantages. But other members? They simply had to do what the Party told them to. Everyone had to comply, and that was it. (Arnošt Dražský, born 1930, wheelwright-mechanic)

It was a matter of course: members were expected to get involved. Nobody perceived it as careerism. That’s nonsense. They were just people in district committees or in the Central Committee. But the soldiers out in the field, that is, all of us who were on lower levels, we never felt it like that. The Party demanded, “Set an example.” The Party needed people who were honest, hard working, able to set a good example so that it would be represented by those people and not by some slackers or thieves. … If I look at it from the viewpoint of those who were not in the Party, the situation was easier for them. First, because they weren’t required to pay those high membership dues. They weren’t required to attend Party meetings. They didn’t have to avoid having personal problems so carefully, which would have been a disgrace for the whole local organization. If a non-Party member did something like that, then it was just a non-Party member, after all. So for the members, it was not all that easy. It was difficult for them; they were just soldiers, you might say, who were moving the country forward. (Jaroslav Sedláček, born 1937, executive in a spa)

While a clear boundary separated Communist Party officials from ordinary members (“honest soldiers out in the field”), some self-declared “committed Communists” regarded with some jealousy people who possessed no Party membership card at all.

Our narrators had specific people in mind. First of all, those “clever” non-Party members: narrators gave us examples of craftsmen who were able “to earn good money besides not having to pay Party membership dues, weren’t required to attend meetings, and didn’t have to behave perfectly.” Without irony, these narrators complain that “we, the honest members of the Party, had to lead the country by setting an example,” while “they” had fun and even earned more money. The envy expressed by these rank-and-file Communists with respect to non-Party members contradicts their own statements that they did not join the Communist Party for personal profit. They considered leading a model life a burden, never mind the obligation of paying Party membership dues and attending meetings.

These particular Communist Party members could not see the consequences of the dysfunctional Communist system, in this instance, as regarded remuneration. If the Communist Party had been able to motivate people to do their jobs properly during working hours, there would not have been any need for overpaid moonlighting jobs done by professionals, who were paid five times more to do properly, after hours, the same job they had done sloppily on the clock.

In the interviews it became clear that many people had joined the Communist Party exclusively for profit, and some of them, sometimes apologetically, alluded to this fact.

I became a Party member, I admit it. I’m not saying this as an excuse or an apology, but the fact is that, on the one hand, a person would just like to succeed a little in life; I wasn’t ready to give up on my education and all I had learned. On the other hand, I told myself that if one gave some evidence of … some level of identification with certain ideas, that’s not necessarily the same thing as selling one’s soul to the regime, so it’s … well, one just took part in various events … If I wanted to be on that Committee for Work Safety, members of the Party got priority. What can we say? That’s how it was. And that was part of the reason why there were so many people in the Party: they simply thought it might bring them some benefits in the future. (Vladimír Hyský, born 1943, administrative assistant at a rolling mill)

Many narrators suggested that advantages resulted from Party membership and adapted to the prevailing circumstances at a relatively young age. They frequently mentioned Party membership in relation to their college years. Many of them remembered how those students who entered the university as Communist Party candidates or members were easily recognizable. They talked about them as a privileged group, which they did not hesitate to label pejoratively as the “aristocracy.” The thing they held most against them were the special breaks they got in their studies, preferential treatment in choosing their dissertation topics, and generally easier study conditions. Students in journalism—a politically and ideologically charged discipline—were mainly children of prominent professionals and politicians. An ordinary student admitted that she joined the Communist Party while she was studying at the university and, in her last year, she wanted to work part-time in the daily Večerní Praha.

I myself joined the Party only in my last year because I wanted to work in Večerní Praha, and I thought that membership might help me. I don’t know. In any case, if I had applied as a non-Party member it would probably have been quite difficult to maintain that position because there was really intense pressure to become a member. Generally speaking, it was virtually impossible to work in this kind of a newspaper if you weren’t a member of the Party. (Eva Dosedělová, born 1960, journalist and graphic artist)

Many narrators mentioned joining the Communist Party as a professional requirement or as a prerequisite to a career.

And how did I become a Communist? I was quite a prominent figure on my shift, even though I was just a squad leader. And there was a period when there was a shoemaker who was made a commander, and he coined the slogan, “Every leading worker is a political worker.” And I knew I loved my job, and I also knew how to do it, but I simply wanted to be a leading worker. (Jan Havrda, born 1946, fireman)

As for me, in 1979, I got into a situation where they told me plain and simple that if I wanted to be a manager, I had to join the Party. But they also said, “We’re not saying you have to, but then you will just stay in the prevention department, and we’ll find somebody else.” It took me a long time to decide, because my wife’s family had suffered a lot from the Communists. But maybe in the end my colleagues decided in my favor when they said, “For goodness’ sake, accept it because if somebody who doesn’t know anything about the business takes over, then everything you’ve done so far will be lost.” So eventually I said yes. (Jiří Horáček, born 1949, fireman)

In addition to a better career and the better pay it entailed, the highest triumph for a Communist Party member was being awarded an apartment. A number of people joined the Party in exchange for an apartment as a pragmatic way out of a disadvantageous or even highly frustrating housing and family situation.

They kept awarding people apartments, and when you saw it again and again, it annoyed you to see who the people getting an apartment were, because they were friends, acquaintances, and lovers of directors, etc. And then they finally came to me and asked whether I wanted to join the Party. And they said, “Look, comrade, you know, you’re young and promising, and you’ve applied for an apartment three times. Well, try this. Try supporting us, come on!” So, eventually, they convinced both me and my wife, and we both signed on. (Jan Eksler, born 1948, worker machinery industry)

The same man even today wonders whether he did the right thing when he gave in, and tries to tell himself that it was the only way to start a family.

Sure, a person who has somewhere to live and is taken care of, he might say “I’d never do that,” but I think he would. Even if you think you have some pride and I don’t know what else, when it comes to family … In the end, membership in the Party also brought me animosity: people envied me those extra five hellers on my paycheck, and they said, “That’s because he’s a Communist.” They didn’t see or didn’t want to see that I worked like a dog. (Jan Eksler, born 1948, worker machinery industry)

Another narrator literally had his whole life changed by joining the Communist Party.

Some government agents visited me and started to negotiate with me. They had found out that my standard of living was low because I worked as an assistant at the university. I had no apartment of my own, and my wife and son lived with her parents in Plzeň. I was on a waiting list for a car, but I had no chance of getting one. So one day they came up with an offer that I could immediately get all those things if I started working with them and became the main cryptologist for the state … and I became a Party member, which was a requirement for the job. I got everything I needed: money, so that I was able to travel … I got an apartment, a very nice one. I also got a voucher for a car. So I left that university, where the conditions were really miserable. (Bohumír Plaček, born 1933, cryptologist)

Another narrator told a similar story whose plot hinged on membership in the Communist Party. She had pursued her career from her youth, knowing that she might have to make some compromises to maintain it. Despite having top grades, her university application was rejected twice. She started to ask herself where she had made a mistake.

So I started to think very hard about what conditions I might have failed to meet to be denied admission. And then I simply did my best to meet those conditions, right? Those conditions involved mainly having some kind of an acquaintance, some string pulling, and if possible an excellent political profile. (S. V., born 1955, senior manager in the textile industry)

This woman joined the Communist Party and started to build her career. Although very young, and a woman in a sexist system, she was offered the position of the head of a district branch of the Vkus Clothing Cooperative in Hradec Králové.

And I said, “Look, I only have one problem. We have a two-room flat, and my husband has to commute to Hradec from Pardubice. I’d have to commute too, and we’d probably have to drown the baby. So if I get an apartment in Hradec, a big apartment, because you see, we are a family … And if I’m to do this kind of a job, I need my mother to come and look after the baby.” And they said yes, I’d get the apartment. So we got a big apartment in Hradec. (S. V., born 1955, senior manager in the textile industry)

This narrator enjoyed all the benefits of the Communist Party membership: educational opportunity, career growth, above-average financial remuneration, and an apartment in a regional capital. In addition to that, this narrator also mentioned another level of benefits she regarded as important: acquaintances and social ties to people “sitting in the right places.”

Clientelism

Throughout the two decades of normalized, pre-1989 Czechoslovakia, there prevailed a certain ambiguity. People were encouraged to believe that they were all equal, that they all had the same duties, and that they could all expect the same benefits as their fellow citizens. However, at the same time, they knew this was not true. The Communist regime talked about equality but practiced selective distribution of privileges.[17]

Sociologist Ivo Možný sees an obvious problem in the division of society at the economic level, especially in the citizens’ unequal access to goods and services. He divides the distribution of goods into three basic levels. The lowest quality goods were freely accessible. Better quality goods were available to people through their social and family networks. But members of the nomenklatura and the Communist apparatus reserved scarce goods for themselves and their families, sometimes exchanging them for other goods and services.[18]

Before ever appearing on store shelves, goods passed through the hands of employees of the distribution networks (wholesalers, warehouses, and stores), who first supplied themselves and their relatives, and sometimes exchanged those goods for other goods or services. “Only what was left over made it to the shelves and counters, to create the third market, the only one that officially existed and was visible from the outside. The only one where the buyer didn’t care who the salesperson was, and vice versa. The only market where money counted just for itself.”[19]

People who worked in services (managers or salesclerks) had access to a valuable commodity: scarce goods or any other kind of valued goods they could make available to their acquaintances. Scarce goods included a wide range of things, not only items whose demand exceeded the supply (e.g., bicycles, cars, consumer electronics, or books) but also goods that appeared in stores only occasionally (e.g., tropical fruit). People had to queue up for them. Those who worked in services reaped the benefits of their position by making these goods available to a limited group of people. It might seem that one of the main advantages was monetary. However, in normalization times, money was not the main means of procuring goods and services; rather, it was barter: offering other goods or services.

Having access to resources and to people who control them was and still is called having connections, knowing the right people. Before the Velvet Revolution, a considerable portion of the Czechosloviakian population was preoccupied with this kind of networking. According to our findings, there were three main levels of important contacts for arranging meetings and making other contacts that could turn an “ordinary” customer into a sought-after “connection.”

The first level included the circle of people one got to know in institutions outside the workplace. Many employees during normalization were members of trade unions; they worked in various organizations of the National Front; they were members of national committees; they knew each other from meetings and other social events.

I was in various trade unions, and I don’t know what else. But I got where I did through hard work and nothing else. Maybe some had to join the Party, but not me … But, of course, I held various positions, like in the trade unions, the Union of Consumer Cooperatives, all right. And this was where it all started. The Union of Consumer Cooperatives, that was something like a small ministry, when you think about it. It was some sort of a center, and the management often spent time with us. (Svatava Žohová, born 1940, retail store manager).

A similar experience was related by a narrator who in the 1970s worked as a salesperson in a cooperative custom clothing store called Modĕva. Every month she participated in presentations of goods at warehouses, organized so that the salespeople could take part in the company strategy by directly choosing model items for their store. This proved to be a unique opportunity to establish new contacts and maintain old ones.

Well, here’s another interesting thing. We had these warehouses, and once a month they would showcase products. They had regular, monthly presentations, and a general one four times a year, and we could select the models we wanted to sell. That was nice, quite interesting work because we were also able to socialize a bit. We had coffee and sandwiches together. And that, I think, was rather nice. (Dagmar Holá, born 1950, worker in tailoring services, retail salesperson)

The second category of the network of relationships dated back to school. These relationships included merchants and salespeople who had graduated from the same school or majored in the same field. After graduation, alumni spread around the city, the district, or the region in stores doing similar kinds of work, and all this made for an advantage in trading services and favors.

A year after graduation, basically, what did we become? No matter what store I went in, there was someone I knew there. My classmates, you see. So that was an advantage … when a person was trying to find something. The girls would say, “Yes, we’ve got that,” and they would set it aside for us. (Jana Lässigová, born 1958, retail salesperson)

The third category of relational communities was defined locally, through the nearest neighborhood retail store. The salespeople knew one another. They lived and worked in the same street or in the same housing project. They got to know each other because they would come shopping from one another’s stores, and out of collegial spirit, the older workers would take the new employees around and introduce them in the other shops.

Well, those of us who lived around the same square here in Kladno, we all knew each other. There was a butcher shop, a drugstore, a spare parts place, and a grocery store all in the same street, and the same people came to shop there all the time. (Jiří Čáp, born 1949, automotive worker)

A similar experience was recounted by a woman who worked as a Tuzex[20] salesperson in Štĕpánská Street in Prague. (Tuzex offered mostly luxury goods from the West.)

Well, really, that was something like a social class in which people knew each other. I mean everybody was very friendly there, you know. We knew the greengrocer, the butcher, and the head clerk at the wine shop where we’d go for coffee and meals during lunch break. All that could be useful. (Milada Krásová, born 1949, salesperson)

These narrations imply that this collegial practice of barter did not apply when a stranger entered the store. Knowing a person was an essential prerequisite for getting a favor in return, buying goods from under the counter.

Bribes and Favors

During the last century, connections became an almost structural principle (and corruption too a shaping force) of social groups, which paralleled the official structures in Czech society. For many people, professional networks merged with groups of friends and often replaced them. The significance of parallel structures increases in proportion to one’s standing in the power hierarchy. The most frequent tool of corruption was a bribe, which was the only tool available to the lower strata of society. Retired people, trying to get services that they were entitled to, paid bribes in amounts as low as a few dozen crowns. Up the social ladder, the amounts increased. Admission committees were said to take several thousand crowns, while bribing a director of a housing association required tens of thousands. And while quite a few narrators did not consider this corruption normal from a moral standpoint, it did seem normal in terms of the functioning of the society at that time.

People understood that when there was something they couldn’t get, they would go to someone they knew who would take care of their problem. They didn’t go directly, but they’d ask around, “Hey, you don’t by any chance know somebody in a butcher shop, in Tuzex, or in a garage? I need this or that.” (Jana Novotná, born 1961, saleswoman in a car dealership)

If the amount of the bribe did not exceed 100 crowns, some people who accepted or offered it did not even consider it an act of corruption. They would sometimes shove a crumpled 100-crown banknote into the pocket of a mechanic’s overalls or a doctor’s lab coat, and call it a tip.

Well, tipping was not an insult if somebody had done something for me. For one thing, I was happy, so it was completely normal for me to give him maybe ten crowns as a tip. (Jiří Čáp, born 1949, automotive worker)

It is disputable whether a tip slipped to the property manager so that the landlord would send a plumber to fix a leaky faucet, or a hundred crowns tucked into a car mechanic’s pocket to induce him to service your car quicker than the originally estimated month, could be seen as corruption, or just as an illegal admixture of private enterprise to the nominal state ownership of all the means of production. No matter what the perception, people who paid bribes for services ensured that the cumbersome and inefficient state-run service sector worked as a relatively well-oiled machine. But it definitely was a case of corruption wherever people tried to gain an advantage over others by means of a bribe or a favor.

Sometimes, however, a would-be buyer did not have connections or could not pay a bribe—and had to bear the consequences, including endless lines.

At that time, you couldn’t buy anything. If you didn’t know anybody in the shop, you wouldn’t get what you needed. Really. Let me tell you about the refrigerator. It was a Hungarian refrigerator. For three days, we took shifts standing in line, morning, afternoon, and night. For three days, we waited in line! Well, finally, I got one. And it was the same thing with the washing machine, one of those “Romovkas,” a little one with a spin cycle. There were always queues unless you knew somebody. It was impossible! The same with everything else, television sets… (Eliška Prošková, born 1949, machinery worker)

Corruption flourished. People who were the best off were the greengrocers, butchers, and those who traded in scarce goods. If you wanted to get tomatoes or oranges, especially oranges, you had to know the salesperson really well. Then it was like, “Come on, come on, I’ve got two kilos of oranges to spare. I’m keeping them for you, but don’t tell anybody else, etc.” It was all in exchange for a favor or a bribe. (Milena Flodrová, born 1935, historian in museum)

The amount of the bribe depended on whether it was for a perishable item or for a durable product. At the butcher’s shop or at the fresh produce store, people would usually give ten crowns to the salesperson just for keeping the products in high demand “under the counter” for them.

Well, I might get a five-crown bribe as a greengrocer, but then that same day I’d use it at the butcher’s next door, or in a bookshop. That was how money circulated. (Milada Krásová, born 1949, salesperson)

Higher bribes were paid in Tuzex stores and Mototechna garages, which traded in cars and spare parts. In these stores, the usual bribe was as high as several hundred crowns.

Our Slávek was fifteen or sixteen years old, and he wanted a Simson motorcycle. He had earned the money for it by working during summer vacations. My brother knew somebody at Mototechna, he sent us a telegram that they had a Simson for Slávek to pick up on the condition that we give … you know, at that time, five hundred crowns, to that lady for keeping it for us. (Monika Benešová, born 1949, precision-engineering mechanic; dairy farmer)

You know people paid bribes. I wanted to buy some nice radio at Tuzex, with a gramophone and a tape recorder. Well, I went to take a look in that Tuzex. There was a bunch of people gaping at that stuff, because it was a miracle of technology. Well, so I brought two baskets of strawberries to the Tuzex salesperson, to give me a call when they got the radio, and then I gave him three hundred crowns. And it was the same with a color TV set with a remote control. I gave five hundred crowns to the manager so he’d keep the TV for me. This was how people could get things, quite ordinary things. (Stanislav Vokurka, born 1945, worker in the military aircraft industry)

Bribes were not the only illegal way to procure scarce goods. In the normalization era, salespeople commonly used a sophisticated system of favors. By exchanging goods, salespeople avoided standing in queues, which saved them time, as well as wear on their nerves. In fact, they had no time to shop, because the opening hours were more or less the same all over the country. But if a salesperson worked in a store that carried scarce and desirable goods, it was easy to offer favors.

To be honest, of course, there was a system of “under-the-counter goods” even in Opava. This always was, is, and will be. Nobody can prevent this, even if we have a big range of products nowadays. But, to be honest, those saleswomen kept it for their families and also for other saleswomen in all those shops. We didn’t have the opportunity to go shopping during working hours. There was no such opportunity for us, so you just always had somebody you knew in those other shops, and she would keep the stuff for you if you kept your stuff for her. (Marie Leksová, born 1943, saleswoman)

When I worked at Mototechna, it’s true, we went shopping through the back door. So when we wanted meat, we came to the back door of the butcher’s shop … , and we knew that the butcher had kept something for us and we kept something for him in return. … They’d always want an oil switch … , and so I call him, I’ve got it for you. And he’d say, I’ve got some pork chops for you. (Jana Novotná, born 1961, saleswoman in car dealership)

Since she never held any very important position, her opportunities were limited. First, she sold spare parts and then cars. She found it easier to exchange spare parts for favors, perhaps because they were small items. Tuzex saleswomen considered this system of exchanging favors as a way of providing for their own families.

Of course, there was a shortage of goods in those days. So when the greengrocers said, “Look, look, we have tangerines! You want some?,” and I’d say, “Well, yes, get us five kilos.” And we paid for it and divided it up with the other girls at work. But that was a small thing, I’d say, something … well I don’t know. For this favor we told him that next week we were expecting a delivery of blue jeans. He didn’t need those jeans as often as we needed the tangerines [laughs]. That was purely out of friendship, all that stuff. (Milada Krásová, born 1949, salesperson)

This narrator considered the system to be simultaneously abnormal and natural. She was also well aware of the advantages that the Communist regime gave her through her work in a luxury store.

When it came to enlarging one’s social network, store and warehouse managers and employees in some other lucrative professions definitely had greater opportunities than the intelligentsia. Engineers, scientists, teachers, librarians, livestock specialists, and so on claimed in the interviews that they were not involved in these networks of favors because they did not have anything to offer.

Still, other professions provided opportunities to offer an extensive range of favors, which, in addition to the traditional esteem they received, offered strong social capital. Physicians and dentists could replace cheap materials with better ones; judges could decide in favor of friends, family, and acquaintances; university administrators could influence admission procedures. Such services obviously cost more than jeans or tangerines. The return favor could be official permission to use a garden, garage, or hunting grounds, obtaining a building permit, a foreign currency voucher, or a secondary school diploma.

At that time, I had to complete my secondary education … I was already thirty five …, and I had a hard time studying and didn’t like it, but I’d been promoted to the position of a sales manager on the condition that I complete my secondary studies within five years. … But one of the teachers was really strict, and I failed the exam. … One day, the professor who had failed me on that exam came to our Mototechna garage saying he would like to buy a red Škoda car. At that time, we only had a few white cars in stock, but somewhere we had managed to get a red one. So then, I received a “very good” on my school-leaving certificate. (Jiří Čáp, born 1949, automotive worker)

As a sales manager, the same narrator has wider opportunities for corruption:

Those deer [pointing to the wall with an impressive collection of antlers] were also connected to the cars. Normally, there was no chance to go hunting… That deer in the middle, that 14-pointer, he’s from Doupov. A friend of mine [head of a hunting association] comes in and says: “Look, my wife saw that new Škoda car, the Favorit model, and she wants it. Come to my woods and shoot whatever you like. Just get me that car.” Well, there were those kinds of advantages. (Jiří Čáp, born 1949, automotive worker)

At a certain level on the pyramid of power, bribes and favors were unnecessary; a telephone call sufficed. Social relations opened up countless non-cash benefits to people at the top. Through their acquaintance with important people, narrators acquired theater tickets or established contacts with renowned medical facilities. Access to scarce goods or services determined social status. Much more important than having actual access to scarce goods was the ability to show it off. The narrators strove to win social prestige in their own circles, and this desire seemed even more important than acquiring economic capital. This sense of power was experienced not just by high-ranking officials but also, for example, by managers of a well-operated, one might perhaps even say “celebrity” retail store.

Let me tell you, some really famous people came through here. Actors like Bezouška, or Zíma, you know, Josef Zíma, the singer. He’d come to shop in my store. We’d always drink coffee together. They liked it here … Just like normal people. Bohdalová would come here too, and Zázvorková came in several times, like “Girls, I’m here, I’m here!” And I’d say: “Hey, Hanka, Zázvorková’s here. Go help her.” While we were drinking our coffee, Zázvorková told us about how they were filming Hospital [a popular TV series back then, Suburban Hospital]. Then when Petrovická came in with her mother, that was really something. She also didn’t put on any special airs. She was so friendly. She wrote her name in our guestbook to show she’d enjoyed shopping here. (Svatava Žohová, born 1940, retail shop manager)

The real socialism of the 1970s and 1980s allowed all kinds of things to flourish that it had been denounced in earlier, “unreal,” times. Corruption was perceived as a normal part of life. People easily forgot the slogans about equality of all (an idea that might have appealed to them right after the war and in the early 1950s). Now, they wanted to stand out as individuals: to occupy an important position, to know the right people, to have some influence. Being a big shot did not necessarily involve having possessions; in its way, real socialism limited or at least artfully concealed a big gap in wealth.

Under Communism, nobody was allowed to stick out too much. Unless they were the mayor or the manager of a business, everybody would be at the same level, or at best maybe a notch higher. When it was at the district level, they could be two notches higher. But it was impossible for anybody in our small village of Polná to be a millionaire. That would have been bad … (Jan Krátký, born 1943, electrical engineer)

Division based on wealth was yet to come, although its outlines had started gradually taking shape. To really take off, entrepreneurs needed a system different from the one in force before 1989.

Privatization and Pillage

“Don’t be afraid, and don’t steal,” was the advice given to the people by the first president of Czechoslovakia, Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk. In view of the transformation that has taken place, particularly in the Czech economy, today that guidance is parodied as “Don’t be afraid to steal some more.”

A 1988 article published in the samizdat daily, Listy, describes the ubiquity of corruption in Czechoslovakia of the late 1980s: “a byproduct of totalitarian power, [it] has grown to massive proportions and taken deep roots in the minds of people.”[21] The article blamed totalitarian power, blind to the state’s and the elite’s historical violation of the Eighth Commandment. During the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and especially at the time of its collapse in 1918, the unwritten rule of plebeian Czech democracy was that, if something belonged to the enemy, it was no sin to steal it.

After World War II, evoking collective guilt, the newly restored Czechoslovak state displaced and expelled the Germans and confiscated their property. However, in the immediate aftermath of the war, during the so-called wild evacuation, civilians had spontaneously seized German property without governmental authorization. Even in positions of high political power no one objected to the thefts. This attitude perpetuated a tradition that was carried on after 1948 by the Communists, who confiscated, nationalized, and collectivized without compensation the property of Czechs and Slovaks in one of the largest raids in the country’s history.

By omitting the historical context, the Listy article gave readers the false hope that corruption would cease to exist with the change of the political system. Indeed, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, many believed that or wanted to. Some politicians swore that democracy and a free market would solve the problem of corruption. People were deeply disappointed when they did not.

Moreover, the public never suspected that neoliberal capitalism had a dark side. Ordinary Czechoslovak citizens did not know much about capital, nor did they think much about the capital market or financial investments. Not only did they lack the requisite financial knowledge and skills, they had no savings or contacts with people who did own free capital.

As ordinary people reveled in public squares in their newly acquired freedom, entrepreneurs with the necessary connections were already poised at the start line, waiting to spring forward. These were the frontrunners with the right connections and a clear idea about the prize. The goal was to win and make it into the company of the rich and the powerful. The race was uneven from the start: while most Czechs did not even make it to the starting line, others were pushed off the track.

References to inequitable conditions, stealing, and corruption are a leitmotif of the recorded interviews.

Well, to put it bluntly … in the 1990s assets were simply pillaged. Especially managers simply divided up the properties and the buildings among themselves. That was definitely unfair. People just naively gave up their properties, while others unscrupulously acquired wealth. All these presidents and vice-presidents, in a word, the insiders, who understood how things worked … On the other hand, the people who worked in the cooperatives got nothing. … The interesting thing is that one of those guys who had tried to make me join the Communist Party is today one among those businessmen who, let me tell you, looted the company along with the others. But he isn’t a Communist any more. Now he’s a gentleman, a real gentleman. He just wears a different hat and keeps on going. And now he’s doing well again. He did well before, and now he’s doing … even better. But you need a thick skin for that… Well, all those expectations. People thought things would get better, but they’ve been disappointed, and now they say, “Good old Communists,” you know? I’ve found out that those who were in are in again. We’re frustrated. I thought it would be better for people, but it’s all gone with the dogs … (Bohumír Balajka, born 1947, cooperative farmer)

Developments after November 1989 unfortunately cannot be described as entirely positive because they have also brought along some measures which were not motivated by good intentions, but rather by self-serving schemes. That was also one of the features of the times, and it’s partly related to corruption. How citizens vote is once again determined by the power of money and contacts with powerful people. (Václav Janoščík, born 1950, lawyer)

The interviews betray disappointment over a lost opportunity, when everybody was ready to “tighten their belts” in the name of improving the economic situation of the country and establishing a better life for future generations. Indeed, the highest representatives of the land advocated frugality.

Well, then I realized, just as many others had, that all that belt tightening was only a smokescreen. While I was supposed to be cutting back, other people saw this as an opportunity to get their hands on property at any cost—through theft, through corruption.[22] (Jaroslav Vdovicyn, born 1934, worker in different professions)

Afterwards, when people had figured out that the “belt tightening” was meant only for some people, while others were exempt from it and even pardoned for irregular practices in acquiring property, they stopped believing the politicians’ promises, just as they did not believe those made under Communism. Very soon, society was once again divided between “us” and “them.”

Another problem, when we talk about economic crimes I dealt with as a policeman, was that after the 1989 revolution, politician Václav Klaus and the whole government, just like that, did away with the whole second chapter of the Criminal Code. That was [the chapter on] economic crimes. Under the pretext of eliminating obsolete socialist laws, they removed the sections which regulated economic crime. Obviously, these should have remained in force, or some other measures should have been adopted in their place. But this didn’t happen, and that was the problem of the wild privatization, when the existing legal provisions were abrogated. … Well, suddenly, we were faced with wild privatization, actual raids on state property. There were the scams with light fuel oil, then there were those suspicious privatization projects, Kladno and the Stehlík family, Kožený and his flotillas [major scandals connected to the privatization in the 1990s]. (Zlatko Dvořák, born 1946, policeman)

We have heard dozens of similar complaints about Czech privatization in our interviews. As a result of the many privatization scandals, people have forgotten about the enterprises that were privatized fair and square. Now, they are wary of slogans glorifying the uniqueness of Czech privatization. Their vigilance implies that the critics of privatization are using the setbacks to discredit the free-market economy.[23] People believe what they see, but they also believe what they hear on the news.

It was impossible for them not to hear Václav Havel’s words of warning, when he described the economic system of the late 1990s as “mafia capitalism,” or the assessment of the World Bank, which recommended that countries with predominantly state-owned enterprises should not privatize their national wealth in the Czech way. Even people outside the Czech Republic listened to reports on the successes and failures of Czech privatization. By illegally redirecting company assets or future business for their own gain, high-level managers and majority shareholders enriched the international dictionary of economic terms with a new meaning of the verb “to channel.” Neo-liberal guru Milton Friedman himself had to admit that even more important to a thriving economy than privatization is the rule of law.

True enough, the environment in post-Communist countries was atypical. It connected the (often merely formal) logic of the market with patterns of behavior established in the times of real socialism. From the very start, we were in for a corrupt environment, where the determining elements of economic success were not abilities and technologies but contacts with Party representatives and politicians who allocated state contracts and sold state property.

Well, looting took place day in, day out. It was actually a system which permeated the whole economic sphere. Basically, it consisted in using the resources of companies that had originally belonged to the state for private profit and enrichment, sometimes quite blatantly, because it was all covered up by their relationships with powerful people. (Václav Janoščík, born 1950, lawyer)

Freedom and free economic competition brought wealth and fame to many honest businesspeople, just as it had done to those who, after 1989, recovered through the restitution of family property that had been stolen by the previous regime and now manage it to their own and their neighbors’ benefit. But the “invisible hand of the market” could not keep many businesspeople from maximizing their profits. These people are a thorn in the side of honest citizens. As 2014 public opinion polls show, Czechs are not any more envious than other nations; they are just sensitive to how people acquire property.[24]

There suddenly started to be rich people, people with expensive cars, with villas and yachts, and I don’t know what else. We had been used to a kind of egalitarianism in property, where everybody had more or less the same. But suddenly we had a new class that liked to show off. And we had to get used to the fact that some people had a lot more than others. (Milan Pavlík, born 1948, car mechanic)

According to sociologists, most people are much more irritated by those rich slightly above average, by celebrities, and by politicians with their sponsors and mafia godfathers who show off their comfortable lives, than they are by the billionaires whose faces they do not even know because they are not involved in affairs or scandals. Those fellow Czechs who have been successful globally are even a source of pride for most of their compatriots.[25]

The tensions between the rich and the poor have further increased as a consequence of the 2008 economic crisis. Most Czechs think that the differences in income should be reduced.

They should regulate wages to some extent. I believed it would be better, as we had been promised. (Konrád Niesner, born 1941, electrician)

Social differences were mentioned with some bitterness; a number of our narrators pitied in particular children who were growing up in poverty.

When I hear children playing in the sandbox saying, “You’re welfare trash,” that’s bad, very bad. We didn’t hear things like that before. (Ludmila Čížová, born 1947, lathe operator)

Our narrators see the stratification of society as accelerating. People with medium and lower incomes are starting to see themselves as a majority, and they see upper classes as a closed circle of a select few.

Well, things have changed, so that now everybody can do what they want. The laws are not made for ordinary people. Those at the top do everything for themselves, and I can go vote for whomever I please, but I won’t be able to change anything. Everything is simply set up for those businesspeople, and nobody cares about us. (Jaroslava Krudencová, born 1952, worker in a data center)

I’m not happy about the current political situation. I know it’s impossible for everybody to be happy, but today’s ruling elite is doing everything possible to bring back the days of the First Republic. Those parvenus have enough money to buy the courts. Healthcare will be only for the rich, and the lower classes and retirees will be in for hard times under their rule. (Jan Krátký, born 1943, electrical engineer)

According to OECD statistics, the Czech Republic has the smallest gap between the rich and the poor among member nations.[26] But the statistics themselves cannot alleviate the feeling of frustration on the part of those who have again found themselves in the margins. In particular, in connection with people’s fears of unemployment, we come back to the first part of Masaryk’s adage: “Don’t be afraid.” Many narrators seemed to be afraid to express their opinions openly, especially if their positions at work were at stake.

Once again, everybody’s afraid today. People just grumble in the pub. It’s the same as it was under Communism. You’re afraid to open your mouth because today work is scarce, and if you open your mouth, you might as well get out, because there are three hundred other unemployed people waiting outside the gate. (Konrád Niesner, born 1941, electrician)

This is the kind of fear we acquire socially, not the atavistic fear that can in certain situations be helpful. The issue of fear is more complex than that of anger over theft. Narrators expressed many fears, and those fears were a bit different from what we had expected. People were often ashamed of their fears, just as they had been ashamed of them in the past.

It is a shame that people are starting to be afraid again, afraid of being frank. I say, we could afford to be frank during those first ten years after the revolution. Now, it seems to me we’re back in a situation where people would rather keep their mouths shut, and as I said, they put blinders on and keep going. They do their job because, now, if one doesn’t do their job a hundred percent… People are closing in on themselves again. (Ludmila Čížová, born 1947, lathe operator)

Although many people had naively supposed that fear would be a thing of the past, just like the Communist regime, it is rising back to the surface. It is a different kind of fear, but it still leads to the same result: it puts people in a passive role. As our interviews have shown, a civil society cannot thrive where fear prevails. It is easy to say, “don’t steal, don’t be afraid,” but it is very difficult to put this maxim into practice.

Conclusion

In November 1989, as a way of letting the communist elite know that their time was up, Czechoslovakians jingled their keys on town squares throughout the country. More than a quarter century has passed since that miraculous year. Today, more often than we might have expected, people say, “I didn’t jingle my keys to see things the way we have them now,” then wonder whether the current regime is better that the one pre-November 1989. Perhaps it is characteristic of Czech people to jingle their keys only to be disappointed with the next development in society.

In terms of political, economic, and social life, the socialist and capitalist regimes cannot be compared. Every individual has unique memories, priorities, and values. There are people who prefer freedom to any sort of state intervention, and alongside them, there are people who are willing to accept limitations on their personal freedom in exchange for guarantees of social security. Narrators do not view the period before November 1989 as an injustice perpetrated by the regime; rather, they perceive the past from a variety of perspectives. The same holds true for their evaluation of the transformation period.

Whereas in the normalization period, people tended to feel exploited politically, in the current regime, as many narrators see it, the pressure tends to be economic. This different kind of pressure on people makes it impossible to compare behaviors under each system or the functioning of the systems. The censorship of writers and the banning of rock bands by the former regime and unpaid overtime and illegitimate property seizures taking place under the present regime are like apples and oranges. Any examination that claims one system is better than the other is necessarily going to be ideologically biased and superficial. In the words of one of our narrators, the stereotypes just fade away over time:

The time before 1989 can’t be described simply in terms of shortage of bananas, jeans, this thing or that thing, or in terms of people stealing or skipping work, or leaving for their weekend houses on Fridays. Life has to be gathered up in all its nakedness and colorfulness to create a narrative you have just made possible for me to tell. Just like the time of transformation cannot be summed up in terms of all businesspeople acting as thieves, all people behaving like wolves toward each other … As they say, memory is not a blessing but a burden. One has to stop and say, “Good grief! I’ve been living on this planet for over seventy years, and now somebody’s going to tell me it was all for nothing, all in vain? That everything created during that time was wrong?” … Of course, this idea of recording life stories makes me feel rather strange. After all the years I’ve lived here, I sometimes feel like shrugging it off, and sometimes like cheering, “Hurray, I’m past all that now.” But things were the way they were, and I think I can say I’m happy I’ve lived my life the best I could. Of course, I remember it with a bit of nostalgia, especially since I watch what’s happening today kind of from the sidelines, and maybe ask myself where I made a mistake and why it’s happening. But, unfortunately, life is not a slate that you can wipe clean. (Petr Myška, born 1953, doctor)

Some narrators reflected even deeper on the meaning of change:

I frequently ask myself what’s better: were things better then, or now? My standard of living is, I don’t know, a hundred times better than it was back then, but am I happier? Is material wellbeing the same as happiness? Obviously, the older you are, the more you think about your health and the health of your family, about the people you love. … And even though I really don’t have any limitations in terms of health or money, I can’t escape questions like these. (Tomáš Potměšil, born 1949, employee in banking sector and financial adviser)

In Central and Eastern Europe, the year 1989 represented a shift not just in geopolitics and history but also in memory and ideological paradigm.[1] The demise of the official dominance of the Communist ideology opened up space for freedom and competition of various schools of thought. This competition eventually ended in the victory of ideologies long considered obsolete, especially primitive economic liberalism and forms of fascism. Another winning ideology was the idea of a return to the Czech past (and rejection of the Communist heritage) in the form of “returning” to Europe, where Czechs had traditionally belonged. As a driving force in many fields in the 1990s, this idea unified Czech citizens, who revived illusions of the radiant era of the First Czechoslovak Republic and its philosophical traditions.

It goes without saying that such returns to the past are impossible, and that becoming aware of this impossibility can be a painful experience. The Czech democratic and economic transformation has been no exception. Since the second half of the 1990s, society has increasingly succumbed to “foul moods” (a phrase coined by Václav Havel), as people have gradually sobered up from the expectation that transformation would go smoothly and that within twenty years of the collapse of the Iron Curtain, the Czech Republic’s economic indicators would be on par with those of Austria or even Switzerland. An ever growing number of Czechs have started to feel that their society is controlled by parvenus who have appropriated public property and started to play the role of the new elite, without proper respect for education, political tradition, rule of law, or natural and cultural heritage, and most importantly without responsibility to society. Many people perceive this new elite’s only accomplishments as widespread thievery, mafia-like clientelism, primitive materialism, and vulgarity. They are deeply disappointed by this caricature of Western values and blatant abandonment of democratic ideals.[2]

In coming to terms with Communism’s legacy, Czech society has occasionally downplayed some historical moments or achievements that Communists had used for propaganda purposes, for example, memories of the Great Depression, World War II, or state welfare institutions (which, however problematic in their functioning, did exist). Anyone who attempts to reexamine, or even openly defend, Communist interpretations is labeled by the mainstream Czech media (mostly by those on the right) as a sympathizer of the “old order,” as a “Communist,” and by extension as an enemy of democracy.

For years, this shortsighted witch-hunt not only legitimized the new situation but also help prolong it. In the ranks of the new democracy, it provided former Communist functionaries with a new enemy, incorporated the old regime’s bigwigs into the new elite, and diverted attention away from the illegal activities of embezzlers. The greatest danger of these judgments (presented as truth) is that they have prevented the free exchange of ideas and a much-needed discussion about the Czech Republic’s post-Communist challenges.

A number of critics of the socialist period have pointed out that the members of the generations who witnessed both 1968 and 1989 remember those times with nostalgia.[3] Some critics even suspect these people of longing for “the good old days,” for instance due to their support for the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia in the elections.[4] The term “nostalgia” is used to discredit the ideological and political views of the generations of witnesses. This type of judgment is typically by the conclusion that the nation’s coming to terms with its Communist past requires at the least that this generation withdraw from public life and let the new generation, which is untainted by the past, take over the reins.

A counterbalance to these rather drastic statements is psychological research showing that nostalgia is an inter-generational phenomenon.[5] Although the generations who have grown up or were even born into a free Czech Republic should not, in theory, be burdened by the Communist past, the opposite is true. For example, people who were born around 1968, and were in their twenties in 1989, are in the overwhelming majority staunch advocates of anti-Communist politics, because part of their story has to do with the end of Communism and the establishment of democracy and a market economy, processes in which they took over the positions of their grandparents and parents. Such generational positioning (against parents, the older generation, the authorities) is typical of great social shifts. Furthermore, according to some authors, these younger generations integrate anti-Communism into their narratives under the influence of intense propaganda and also because they have not suffered the consequences of the 2008 economic crisis as much as their peers did in other European countries (not to mention countries outside Europe).[6]

Ironically, despite their acceptance of the free market, Czechs aged between eighteen and thirty are considerably more skeptical about their future than young people in most other countries. Mainstream advertising that promotes wealth, career, social status, health, physical beauty, and sexual attractiveness cannot withstand the light of real life. Compared to their peers in the West, young Czechs are less optimistic and more worried about the future. They regard the economy, social inequality, and political instability as their country’s biggest problems, and as their own biggest personal problem their transition from school into regular jobs. More than half of them are afraid that they will not have enough money in their retirement and will have to work until they die. A full 51 percent of these Czechs believe that the state in which they live has already seen its better days, an opinion which in the rest of the developed world is held only by a third of young people.[7]

As in the generation of their fathers, i.e. our narrators, nostalgia for the period before November 1989 is not necessarily related to rightist or leftist leanings, as some scholars researching the transformation in Central and Eastern European countries seem to believe.[8] Despite having attained their desires after 1989 (e.g., personal freedom, abundance of consumer goods, freedom to travel, freedom to express their opinion), the people in the generations studied here idealize the Communist regime. What do these people lack today? This question has no straightforward answer but probably includes some ingredients missing in the recipe for “happiness” (or at least “contentment”), such as youth, good health, a secure job, housing, a decent and fair retirement pension, and family support.

Moreover, a number of narrators have misgivings about operating cell phones, tablets, and computers on which participation in everyday life increasingly depends. Many respondents experience lack of interest in their persons on the part of younger users of these devices, combined with a lack of respect for their life journeys on the part of society as a whole. These situations help explain feelings of nostalgia, which functions on an individual level as a source of “optimism through memory.”

As French historian Muriel Blaive said, it is necessary to talk about where and when and which particular memories prevail: “It is high time that people collectively stopped having to feel ashamed of their own histories and started feeling safe with the idea that even though they lived on the ‘wrong’ side of the Iron Curtain, their lives and the life of the entire nation had its meaning.”[9] This does not mean that the residents of former Communist countries should not be aware of the low points in their lives and perhaps of their own share in the success of the dictatorship; however, in addition to these critical evaluations, they are also entitled to draw some pride from their collective experience.[10]

Real socialism, although it was a modernizing project aiming to create a “new socialist person” (just as liberal capitalism emphasizes homo economicus), in its Czech embodiment it significantly contributed to the preservation of many petty bourgeois and middle-class values, partly celebrated and partly decried, deriving from the previous century and a half. These values include family and inter-generational communication, ethnic and national feeling, emphasis on the ethics of education and work, suburban pastimes, and mass political party membership. Today, many narrators are pained, or feel threatened, by the absence of these values in the neoliberal world.

The change in the regime brought many previously inconceivable benefits, freedoms, and opportunities. Yet it has become a national sport for Czechs to complain about “the way we have to live.” The media encourage this attitude by presenting stories designed to shock, create passionate debates, and polarize. In fact, however, as a nation, Czechs have been spared any real tragedies over the past few decades. Certainly, there have been personal sorrows, as anywhere in the world: we have problems at work; racial intolerance is resurging; our sluggish judicial system is incapable of eliminating corruption; property seizures have been given the green light, and so on.

And yet, despite all this, Czechs enjoy the benefits of living in a rich part of the world. To turn off the TV, to sit down in front of the globe, to spin it a little, and to think about their civilization may offer some perspective, especially when comparing the Czech Republic to countries farther down in the GDP rankings. And however much Czechs grumble, we do have the freedom we had so much desired. This freedom is easy to forget under the strain of everyday worries and decision-making. But as one of our narrators put it,

As a matter of fact, I would never have given you this interview under Communism, definitely not. I would have been afraid to open my mouth … (Jarmila Erbanová, born 1944, female, nurse)

Most narrators perceived the events set in motion in November 1989 as historically correct, notwithstanding a number of setbacks that accompanied natural developments thereafter. Czechs are still learning the basics of democracy. The scale tips heavily toward freedom and the sense of citizenship. The opportunity to make decisions for ourselves and to get involved in public matters (not just in politics) represents one of the most important achievements of 1989. And if in the future our country swings in a wrong direction, twenty-five years is not long enough for us to have forgotten how to get back home.

Appendix 1: Photographs by Jindřich Štreit

It is difficult to find the right words to describe the photographs in this book—because the meanings of photos, of pictures generally, can be almost infinite. We can think of the photos as a testimony to the time; we can treat them as a source of knowledge; or we can perceive them as “just” an art form. We hope that the photographs “speak” in a manner that is complementary to the oral histories, and thus extend the book by another dimension.

The photographer Jindřich Štreit was born in 1946 in Vsetín. He graduated from high school in Rýmařov and then studied at the department of art at the Pedagogical Faculty of Palacky University in Olomouc.

He was inspired to take photographs first by his father and then by Professor Bukovian, whom he met during his university studies. After completing his studies, he began teaching at a primary school in Rýmařov, and a year later he became the school’s principal. Since 1972, he has devoted himself to shooting mainly village life, portraits, and Roma life. From 1974 to 1977, he studied at the School of Creative Photography, and since 1974 he has been director of the gallery in Sovinec. There, he organized important exhibitions, concerts, and theater performances where artists (both Czech and Slovak) opposed to the official cultural policy had the opportunity to appear in public. He and his wife Agnes still arrange summer exhibitions at the Sovinec castle.

After the Velvet Revolution, Jindřich Štreit became an employee of the museum in Bruntál, and since 1994 has worked as a freelance photographer. Since 1991, he has worked on documentary projects in France, England, Brazil, Moldova, Austria, Germany, Japan, China, Hungary, Russia, and the Czech Republic. He teaches and heads some student projects at the Institute of Creative Photography, Silesian University in Opava. In 2009, he was appointed professor of fine arts.

We can all be photographed, but not everyone is a bearer of an idea that I want to put into the frame. I am searching for types of people who carry within them some mystery, something half-heavenly, half-earthly. It is hard to put into words; it is about human flow and expression that reflect what he or she has lived. Finding such faces is not easy. I meet many people, but only one among them conceals some mystery. It is to that one that I devote all my energy.[1]

Appendix 2: Our Narrators

Balajka, Bohumír (born 1947 in Prštné, county Zlín), cooperative farmer. Trained as a repairman of agricultural machines. He worked on postharvest production and as a warehouseman. Married, daughter, two sons.

Baloun, Václav (born 1946 in Prague), foreign trade worker. After high school he studied foreign trade at the University of Economics in Prague. Traveled abroad in 1966 (to France) and 1969 (to the US). Employed in the state enterprise “Made In Publicity” (a division of the Czech Press Agency), later a leader in the foreign trade enterprise Motokov. Frequently visited Bolivia (1979–1987). From 1993 to 1995 general manager of the Czech branch of Citroën, then became an independent entrepreneur. Married.

Bažant, Milan (born 1944 in Police nad Metují, county Náchod), manager in the optical industry. He studied at the University of Economics in Prague. During his career, he worked in several positions: turner, workshop standardizer, head of technical management, plant director, group finance director, CEO, and chairman of the board. Married, son and daughter.

Beluš, Jan (born 1948 in Karviná), trained as a miner; from 1966 to 1979 worked as a miner, from 1979 to 1991 as mine rescuer, now retired.

Benešová, Monika (born 1949 in Čáslav), mechanic, dairy farmer. Trained as a precision engineering mechanic in the state enterprise Tesla Kolín; worked there until 1975. From 1976 until 2007, she worked at the State Cooperative Farm in Čáslav as a dairy farmer. Today she is retired. Widow, two sons.

Benetka, Karel (born 1938 in Prague), technician, painter. Graduated from the Higher School of Electrical Engineering; from 1959 to 1974 worked as a technician in the electricity industry, fired because of attitudes in 1968. Took a paternity leave to take care of his daughter. Completed individual distance-learning program in visual art and became a visual artist and illustrator. Married, daughter.

Beníšková, Anneliese (born 1940 in Prostějov), agricultural worker. She studied at the Higher School of Agriculture in Kadaň. Throughout her life, she worked in agriculture (cattle breeder, head of farm, accountant). Since 1997, she has been mayor of Medonosy (county Mělník). Married, son and two daughters.

Blážová, Irena (born 1948 in Tábor), photographer. She trained in photography in České Budějovice and worked as a photographer from 1970 to 1991. Married, daughter, two sons.

Bloch, Michael (born 1944 in London), foreign trade worker. He studied at the Faculty of Engineering, Czech Technical University in Prague; worked in several enterprises (ČKD, Kovoslužby, Transakta), including several years abroad. Married, one daughter.

Buchwaldek, Boleslav (born 1943 in Nové Město and Metují, county Náchod), computer specialist. He studied at the Technical University in Ostrava. During his studies he worked part-time in the Ostrava coal mines. Between 1967 and 1990 he was employed in a computer company. After 1990, he became a vice-chairman of a regional trade union of miners. Married, two daughters.

Čajník, Jan (born 1954 in Prešov, eastern Slovakia, died 2014), soldier. Completed the Military High School of Tanks. Distance studies at the Military Academy in Brno. From 1973 until his retirement he worked in the General Staff of the Czechoslovak (Czech) Army in Prague in several positions (driving instructor, officer of the technical group, head of department in the office of army acquisitions, logistics specialist in the army information and services agency). Divorced, daughter, son.

Caletka, Jan (born 1950 in České Budějovice), bricklayer and amateur archaeologist. Married, three children.

Čáp, Jiří (born 1949 in Kolín), worker in various positions in the automotive industry. He was trained as an agricultural machinery repairman. Obtained a high school diploma necessary for the position of head of sales of new cars, 1984–86. During his career he held several positions: salesman of new cars, car mechanic, workshop foreman, head of sales of new cars, head of client services in the Mototechna company. After the Velvet Revolution, until 1995, he worked in the authorized dealerships of various car brands (Opel, Volkswagen, Audi). In 1995, he left the “world of cars” and started his own business in the field of forestry (mainly tree-growing). Married, two children.

Čejka, Petr (born 1941 in Mladá Boleslav), soldier. After middle school, he graduated from the Military High School. Since 1961 he served in the army as officer in several ranks and positions (chief of airborne training, chief of engineering, chemical instructor, senior cryptographer). He lectured at the Evening University of Marxism and Leninism. Divorced, two daughters.

Cepek, Josef (born 1936 in Činěves, county Nymburk). Trained in metallurgy in Kladno. After obligatory military service he stayed in the army and became a border guard in the Šumava mountains region. In 1965, became a policeman in Bruntál. Fired from the police corps in 1974 as a “right-wing revisionist.” He then worked in public city services in Bruntál. Retired in 1993. Married, two sons.

Čížová, Ludmila (born 1947 in Loučná nad Desnou, county Šumperk), lathe operator. Trained in the engineering industry (worker on a milling cutter). Completed distance massage course. She worked as a secretary, later as a watchperson in a warehouse. Active engagement in the Czechoslovak Red Cross. Divorced, two sons.

Czajkowski, Igor (born 1941 in Brno), music teacher. He studied at the Music Academy and later musicology at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University in Prague. He has taught at the People’s School of Music and Arts in Mikulov. Interested in band music (pop, swing). Twice married, three sons, two daughters.

D. M. (born 1937 in Ždár nad Sázavou), worker in the engineering industry. Trained as a turner, worked in a winch factory. Married, two daughters.

Dienstbier, Jiří (born 1937 in Kladno, died 2011 in Prague), journalist, dissident, and post-November 1989 politician. He studied journalism at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University in Prague, later a journalist and commentator. After 1969, worked in several professions (night watchman, book packer, metal cutter, stoker). He was a dissident (signatory and twice spokesman of Charter 77). First post-1989 Minister of Foreign Affairs of Czechoslovakia and Vice-Chairman of the Czechoslovak government. Married four times, three daughters, son.

Dosedělová, Eva (born 1960 in Prague), journalist and graphic artist. She studied at the High School of Graphic Arts, later pursued journalism at the Faculty of Journalism, Charles University in Prague. She worked in the publicity department in the enterprise Technoexport, then in the newspaper Večerní Praha. After 1989, she moved to the public relations business, working in the PR branch of the investment fund PPF. Divorced.

Dražský, Arnošt (born 1930 in Pilsen, died 2013), technical engineer. He trained as a wheelwright and coach worker, then he studied at the Higher School of Engineering via distance learning. He worked in the state enterprise Stavební stroje (Construction Machines) for his whole working career. He occupied several positions: worker, foreman, head of the production department, plant director. Married, daughter, son.

Ducko, Milan (born 1937 in Humenné, Eastern Slovakia), printing worker. He moved to Prague to study at the High School of Graphic Arts, did not finish his studies. Later trained as a printer and worked in Svoboda Publishing (since 1979 as foreman). Twice married, son and daughter.

Dvořák, Zlatko (born 1946 in Hercegovac, Croatia), policeman. After high school in Havířov he studied at the Higher School of Agriculture in Tišnov for two years. From 1967 till 2001, a member of National Security Corps and later Police of the Czech Republic. First service in Brno, moved to Bruntál in 1971. Retired in 2001. Twice married, four children.

Dvořáková, Eva (born 1932 in Břežánky, county Teplice), historian. She went to high school in Bílina (1950), then worked for a year in the Communist Party apparatus as a secretary. Between 1951 and 1956, she studied history at Lomonosov University in Moscow. Upon her return, she worked as a high school teacher in Zlín. In the 1960s, she was lecturer in contemporary history at the Party University of Politics in Prague. Fired after 1968, worked in several jobs (librarian, IT lecturer). After 1989, she worked as a museologist and historian in Kralupy nad Vltavou. Retired. Married, daughter and son.

Eksler, Jan (born 1948 in Boskovice, county Blansko), worker in the machinery industry. Trained as a turner at the Minerva company, where he worked his whole working life. Great soccer fan, amateur soccer player, and later administrator. Married, two daughters, one son.

Ekslerová, Alena (born 1952 in Ždárná, county Blansko), factory worker and cleaner. Trained as a turner at the Minerva company; she worked there for thirty years. After dismissal in the 1990s, she could not find a new job for years; now she works as a cleaner. Married, two daughters, one son.

Erbanová, Jarmila (born 1944 in Mělník), nurse. She studied via distance learning at the High School of Medicine in Prague (clinical biology) and later also in Brno (general nursing). Having completed her degree she worked as a secretary in a laboratory of the Research Institute of Crop Production. Later she worked as a nurse in the County Hospital of Mělník. After 1989, vice-mayor of Mělník. Married, son, daughter.

Filipová, Milena (born 1944 in Úpice, county Trutnov), art historian. She studied art education and Czech language and literature at the Faculty of Arts, Palacký University in Olomouc (MA) and later art history at the Masaryk University in Brno (PhD). After one year of teaching in a middle school she came to the County Museum of Šumperk, where her husband was director. She worked as curator, art historian, and exhibition consultant. She was also a tour guide at the castle of Velké Losiny, Úsov and Javorník. Married, son.

Flodrová, Milena (born 1935 in Hranice na Moravě, county Přerov), museum historian. She spent her childhood in Košice (Slovakia); because of the first dissolution of Czechoslovakia in 1939 the family had to move to Brno. She studied history and archiving at the Faculty of Arts, Masaryk University in Brno (MA in 1958). Between 1957 and 1991 she worked as curator and historian in the Moravian Land Museum in Brno. Married, daughter.

Fojtík, Karel (born 1939 in Hrádek u Slavičína, county Zlín), soldier. He studied at the High School of Military Aircraft in Kremnica (Slovakia), then at the Military Academy in Brno. From 1954 to 1995 he was a member of the Czechoslovak People’s Army (later Czech Army) Corps—intelligence service department; from 1999 he was a civil employee in the army. Married, two daughters.

Fučík, Libor (born 1960 in Brťoví, county Žďár nad Sázavou), livestock specialist. He studied at the University of Agriculture in Brno. He worked on a cooperative farm as a breeder. After 1993 he was the head of the privatized cooperative farm Prosetín. When his family moved to Prague, he became an insurance agent. Married, daughter, son.

H. D. (born 1946 in Prešov, Slovakia). She attended university in Bratislava (medicine); she became a pediatrician and later rehabilitation specialist (for family reasons) in Krompachy hospital. Retired in 2000 (following the privatization of her medical department). Married, two children. (Interview held in the personal collection of Jana Merjavá.)

H. J. (born 1947 in Krompachy, county Spišská Nová Ves, Slovakia). Certified engineer in technical cybernetics (University of Electrical Engineering in Bratislava). In the 1970s, started working as a programmer and analyst in the electrical engineering industry in Krompachy. In the 1990s, became a member of the company management; after privatization he worked in the education sector, now retired. Married, two children. (Interview held in the personal collection of Jana Merjavá.)

H. L. (born 1949 in Lhota u Přelouče, county Pardubice), handyman. Trained as a locksmith in the national enterprise Tesla. Worked in several professions (mechanic, handyman, plumber, janitor). Divorced, two sons.

Habrovec, Zdeněk (born 1944 in Heršpice, county Vyškov), worker in engineering. He attended high school and was trained in tool making. Worked as clerk, staff worker, and later department leader in a tractor plant. Before retirement, he was a controller in an arms manufacturing company. Married, two sons.

Havrda, Jan (born 1946 in Prague), fireman. Did not finish high school; at seventeen, he became a fireman and in 1989 and later squad commander. Retired since 2008. Married, son, daughter.

Hille, Jaroslav (born 1937 in Velké Žernoseky, county Litoměřice), glass worker. Attended high school and later trained as a forester. Worked in a sawmill, then in the national enterprise Tona (tool production), and later became an employee in Poděbrady Glassworks (worker, foreman). After forty years, he sustained a serious work injury which resulted in his retirement on a disability pension. Married, one daughter.

Holá, Dagmar (born 1950 in Prague), worker in tailoring, retail salesperson. She was trained as cutter for custom-made underwear and clothes, and begun to work in the state clothing cooperative Moděva. She worked there throughout her working career (Moděva still exists), first taking measurements for custom-made suits for five years, then as a saleswoman. Married, two children.

Honzík, Milan (born 1938 in Mělník), lower-level executive in a chemical enterprise. Trained as a chemical specialist for production of artificial fibers; later, did distance study at the Higher School of Engineering. He was a manager in the national enterprise Spolana Neratovice in (foreman, head of department). Married, son, daughter.

Horáček, Jiří (born 1949 in Šternberk, county Olomouc), fireman. He started to study at the University of Chemical Technology in Pardubice, but did not finish. He continued in his studies at the Technical University in Ostrava (1974, engineer in industrial fire security). After his studies, worked as a fireman in several positions (fireman, squad commander, and district commander in Bruntál, Olomouc). Retired in 2001. Married.

Hrdina, Jan (born 1943 in Žďár nad Sázavou), construction engineer. He studied at the Higher School of Engineering. Twice he satisfied the admission requirements for the Czech Technical University in Prague but was not accepted for political reasons. Until 1991, worked in the national enterprise Žďas (designer head of technical and production sector, director for technique and production). Distance study program at the Technical University in Brno. Married, two sons.

Hrstková, Eva (born 1937 in Týniště nad Orlicí, county Rychnov nad Kněžnou), secondary school teacher. Studied at the Faculty of Pedagogy in Ústí nad Labem (mathematics—art education). She worked as a teacher between 1956 and 2006. She is still running art education courses for children. Married, daughter, son.

Hrubeš, Jan (born 1947 in Karlovec, county Bruntál), policeman. Trained as a plumber; worked in several professions until 1971. From 1971 to 2002, a member of the National Security Corps and later the Police of the Czech Republic in several positions. Married, son and daughter.

Hruška, Bohumil (born 1952 in České Budějovice), fireman. He completed studies at the Higher School of Transportation. Between 1974 and 1981, held several jobs (driving instructor, driver). From 1981 to 1993, an active fireman (squad commander, platoon commander, and finally city fire department commander). Since 1993, he has been a so-called “dry fireman” (i.e., non-active staff member). Married.

Hudec, František (born 1938 in Prague), researcher and manager. He studied at the Czech Technical University in Prague, Poděbrady campus. He worked in the Research Institute of Communication Technology in Prague (specialist in radio technology); in 1963, moved to Příbram and was employed in the Central Administration of Research and Mining of Uranium (later known as the ZAT national enterprise). He was a leader of the research and development group, and from 1996 to 2001, the CEO. Married, daughter.

Hyský, Vladimír (born 1943 in Kladno), administrative assistant in a rolling mill. He studied at the University of Economics in Prague. Employed in the economics department in the national enterprise VTŽ in Chomutov (metal industry). Married, son.

Jakeš, Miloš (born 1922 in České Chalupy, county Český Krumlov). Education in Tomáš Baťa School in Zlín, graduated from Higher School of Electrotechnics in Zlín. Communist Party member from 1945, politician—apparatus member, member of the Party Politburo; between 1987 and 1989, he was General Secretary of the Communist Party.

Janoščík, Václav (born 1950 in Chomutov). Studied law at Charles University in Prague (MA). From the 1970s, worked as a technical employee and later head of the legal and records department in the state enterprise Ohře basin in Chomutov. Married, son, daughter.

Jelínek, Václav (born 1939 in Jindřichův Hradec), electrical engineering researcher and head of a company. He studied at the University of Chemical Technologies in Pardubice. He worked as researcher in a chemical laboratory in the enterprise Tesla Přelouč, later in several leading positions (production director in Tesla Přelouč, plant director in Tesla Hradec Králové, CEO in Unitexpert in Přelouč, CEO in Chema, vice-director in Kiekert CS in Přelouč). Retired in 2004; still active as a consultant in chemical, electrochemical, and automotive industries. Married, daughter.

Jiránek, Miroslav (born 1951 in Kolín), painter. He studied at the School of Applied Arts in Prague, specializing in advertising graphics and posters under Professor Eugen Weidlich. He worked approximately ten years in this field—mainly in poster design, illustration, and typography. Since 1990, he has devoted his time almost exclusively to freelance painting. Married, daughter.

K. A. (born 1940), worker in the electrical industry. Trained as a car mechanic, was employed as a worker in the SEZ enterprise (electrical engineering industry) in several positions. Married, four children. (Interview held in the personal collection of Jana Merjavá.)

Kalous, Jaroslav (born 1932 in Prostějov). He studied at the Antonín Zápotocký Military Academy in Brno. Military technical engineer, fired for political reasons in 1974; then (until 1991) he worked in the machinery industry (Žďárské strojírny in Brno). From 1994, he was a staff member of the Military Academy in Brno; retired in 2003. Married, children.

Kisza, Herbert (born 1943 in Český Těšín), academic painter. He studied at the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague. He taught art education and later became a freelance artist (painter, printmaker, and sculptor). Divorced, daughter, two sons.

Klausová, Zdenka (born 1941 in Myslív, county Klatovy), textile worker. She was trained as a textile worker; worked in the textile industry her whole life. Widow, two daughters.

Knytlová, Zdeňka (born 1938 in Libchyně, county Náchod), cannery worker. She was trained as a cannery worker, and in 1953 was employed in the national enterprise Fruta, where she stayed throughout her career. She served several terms as mayor in her hometown. Married, son, two daughters.

Konečný, Josef (born 1950 in Šitbořice u Klobouk, county Břeclav), machinery worker. He was trained as a mechanic; worked in the machinery industry (První brněnská strojírna) until the privatization and reorganization of the enterprise in 1991. He continued working in its successor enterprise (1993–2004) until its bankruptcy. Today, he is a worker in the company TOS Brno-Kuřim (machine industry). Married, two children.

Kotrlá, Iva (born 1947 in Tasovice, county Znojmo). She studied at the Faculty of Pedagogy at the Masaryk University in Brno, but interrupted her studies for political reasons (1970). Writer, active in Catholic dissent, signatory of Charter 77. Married, six children.

Kovaříková, Marie (born 1953 in Slavičín, county Zlín), metalworker-miller. She was trained as a metal machinist and then worked in the national enterprise Vlárské strojírny in Slavičín. She co-founded a regional branch of the Voluntary Firewomen’s Corps. Member of the Women’s Union. Married, daughter, son.

Krátký, Jan (born 1943 in Polná, county of Jihlava), electrical engineer. He was trained as an electrician and worked in several professions in different enterprises, several times working abroad. Married, daughter, two sons.

Králová, Marcela (born 1949 in Prague), university scholar and writer. She studied Romance languages at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University in Prague. In 1969, she emigrated from Czechoslovakia to Italy, where she worked in different jobs (saleswoman, secretary) and studied at the University of Rome. Interested in clinical psychology and parapsychology, she had her own practice in Florence and in Vienna.

Krásová, Milada (born 1949 in Prague), salesperson. She was trained as a salesperson; after her apprenticeship, she worked for approximately five years as a salesperson in the toyshop Hamiro in the center of Prague. She then spent ten years caring for children. After that, she started to work in Tuzex, a state network of shops specializing in Western luxury goods. Shortly before the Velvet Revolution, she changed jobs and began to work in the Dům módy shop (luxury clothing) as a salesperson. After 1989, she also worked for the Benetton clothing chain. Married, son, daughter.

Křepelka, Josef (born 1947 in Reşiţa, Romania), worker in many occupations. He was trained as a car mechanic, worked in several enterprises. Married, two daughters.

Krudencová, Jaroslava (born 1952 in Smiřice nad Labem, county Hradec Králové), worker in a data center, now a glass worker. From the age of sixteen she worked in a computer center. Divorced, two daughters.

Kubátová, Miroslava (born 1946 in Havlíčkův Brod), nursery teacher. She studied at the Higher School of Pedagogy in Litomyšl (specializing in early childhood education). She worked in several nursery schools; for most of her career, she stayed in Česká Bělá. Married, two daughters.

Kvasnička, Oldřich (born 1967 in Liberec), high school and university education. In 1989, student at the Faculty of Pedagogy in Ústí nad Labem. After 1989, worked as a teacher of applied psychology.

Lässigová, Jana (born 1958 in České Budějovice), retail salesperson. She was trained as a grocery saleswoman. After that she began to work for the grocery chain Pramen, where she stayed throughout most of her career (working in various shops in České Budějovice). After the Velvet Revolution, she worked for the supermarket chain Globus. Today she is retired. Son, daughter.

Leksová, Marie (born 1943 in Opava), saleswoman. She trained for two years as a saleswoman; worked in a textile shop for seven years until her retirement (saleswoman, store vice-manager, and store manager). Married, two sons.

Lindroos, Hilkka (born 1940 in a small village in Finland), a Finnish citizen living in Prague from 1965, Finnish language and culture lecturer at Charles University in Prague. Married a Czech. (Interview held in the personal collection of Tereza Mašková.)

Luksch, Jan (born 1926 in Nedabyle, county České Budějovice), engraver. Trained as a goldsmith, until 1986 worked as an engraver in a national enterprise. Married.

M. L. (born 1932 in Brno—Žabovřesky), medical doctor. She studied at the Faculty of Medicine, Masaryk University in Brno. Specialist in child neurology, now retired. Married, son, daughter.

Malý, Václav (born 1950 in Prague), Roman Catholic priest and dissident. He studied at Cyril–Methodius Faculty of Theology in Litoměřice; in 1976, he was ordained a priest. Signatory and spokesman of Charter 77, co-founder of the Committee for the Defense of the Unjustly Persecuted (VONS), active in Catholic dissent. Imprisoned. Worked as a stoker and agricultural worker. In 1989, he co-founded the Civic Forum (OF) and became its first spokesman. Auxiliary Bishop in Prague.

Man, Josef (born 1954 in Uherské Hradiště), soldier, after 1989 in various jobs. He studied at the Higher School of Auto Engineering, School of Engineering, and later at the Military Political Academy in Bratislava. He served as an officer in several technical and supply positions, later as a political commissar. In 1991, he left the army with the rank of major. He then worked in several professions (flower arranger, salesman of used cars, construction worker, masseur in a spa, swimming pool and stadium administrator, sales representative). Divorced, daughter, son.

Mertlík, Jan (born 1949 in Prague), architect. Before 1989, worked in the Middle East. Married, two children.

Mesteková, Ludmila (born 1952 in Prague). She studied at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University in Prague (1977, MA in Czech language and literature and pedagogy); later worked as a librarian and editor. Now retired. Divorced, daughter.

Mlezivová, Marie (born 1927 in Egreš, Eastern Slovakia), construction worker. After middle school (from age fourteen) she worked on the family farm. From 1953 to 1992, she worked in the national enterprise Armabeton (metal construction industry). Twice married, two daughters, son.

Mückeová, Viluše (born 1928 in Svítkov, county Pardubice), butcher. She studied at Antonín Švehla’s People’s Agricultural and Housekeepers School in Peklo nad Zdobnicí (eastern Bohemia). At the age of eighteen, she left home and started to work as a butcher in Žatec (western Bohemia). In 1953, moved to Pardubice, where she worked in several butcher shops (butcher, manager) until her retirement. Widow, two sons.

Myška, Petr (born 1953 in Prague), physician. He studied at the Faculty of Medicine, Charles University in Prague. Early in his career, worked as a doctor in Eastern Bohemia; later moved to Prague, where he still works. Since 1984, he has worked in Motol Hospital in Prague as a hearing impairment specialist. Married, two children.

Neuwirthová, Anna (born 1942 somewhere in Ostrava region), worker in many occupations. After middle school, she started to work in the state enterprise Koh-i-noor in Bílovec (metal industry) and later in the state enterprise Vagónka in Studénka (transport industry). From 1976 to 1990, a cook in a school cafeteria; since 1990, she has owned her own restaurant. Married, son, daughter.

Niesner, Konrád (born 1941 in Skalice, county Frýdek-Místek). Trained as an electrician, from 1957 to 1996 he worked in the metallurgical industry (Nová huť and later Mittal Steel in Ostrava); now retired. Married, three sons.

Novák, Albín (born 1951 in Handlová, county Prievidza, Slovakia), fireman. He spent his childhood in several places in rural Slovakia; in 1961, the family moved to Prague because of his father’s new job (official at the Ministry of Mining). He did not complete medical school; he worked in several professions (worker in rolling mills, digger on archeological excavations, miner); since 1978 he has worked as a fireman. Widowed.

Novotná, Jana (born 1961 in Kladno), saleswoman in the automotive industry. She was trained as a car salesperson. She worked in various positions in the automotive industry—saleswoman of new cars, employee of the billing department (always within the Mototechna company). After the Velvet Revolution, she worked as a saleswoman in a grocery store for two years and then returned to the field of motor vehicle spare parts, where she still works. She lives with a partner, two children.

O. O. (born 1948 in Brno), tram driver. She was trained as a waitress. For more than forty years (since 1968), she has worked in the Public Transport Enterprise in Brno in several positions (conductor, tram driver, driver in tram depot). Twice divorced, two sons.

Ostmeyer, Jürgen (born 1945 in Düsseldorf, Federal Republic of Germany). A citizen of the Federal Republic of Germany, interested in Czech folk music, in 1969 he came to study Czech and German language and literature at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University in Prague. Worker and later translator; married a Czech woman and stayed in Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic). (Interview held in the personal collection of Tereza Mašková.)

Pardonová, Blanka (born 1942 in Prague), chemical engineer in the beer industry. She studied at the University of Chemical Technologies in Prague (specialization in chemistry). After 1968, she resigned as a Communist Party member. She worked in the Department of Microbiology, Research Institute of Brewing and Malt, and in the 1990s in the Department of Microbiology and Technology in the Staropramen Brewery in Prague. Divorced, two daughters.

Pavezová, Jaroslava (born 1951 in Třebíč), cook. She was trained as a cook in the national enterprise Restaurace a jídelny in Třebíč. For thirty-two years, she cooked in a public bistro and also held a part-time job on a dairy farm. Today she works in a private hotel. Widow, two sons, daughter.

Pavlík, Milan (born 1948 in Olomouc), car mechanic. Having completed high school and obligatory military service, he worked as a car mechanic (in the meantime he completed distance study at the High School of Engineering). He held several positions (car mechanic, food warehouse manager, manager of training); he is still working actively in retirement. Twice married, two daughters.

Pečená, Dana (born 1956 in Prague), court typist. After completing high school, she worked in administration; in 2010 she obtained an MA from the Faculty of Humanities, Charles University in Prague (oral history, contemporary history). Single.

Peřina, Jan (born 1936 in Městec Králové, coutry Nymburk), university professor in optics. Born to a farming family, for political reasons he trained as an electrician in the national enterprise ČKD in Prague where he then worked. Did distance study at the Higher School of Electronics in Prague; then was admitted to the Faculty of Natural Sciences in Olomouc (precision mechanics and optics). Assistantship, researcher in 1964, PhD in 1984. In 1990, appointed to a professorship in electrical and quantum optics. Married, daughter, son.

Peterková, Marie (born 1932 in Prague), typographer. She was trained as a typographer and worked in her profession for twenty-five years. Then she became a proofreader. Twice married, son.

Plaček, Bohumír (born 1933 in Pilsen), cryptologist. He studied at the Faculty of Natural Sciences, Charles University in Prague, specializing in physics. Assistantship at the Czech Technical University; in 1950s research fellowship in Moscow (nuclear physics). He became a cryptologist. In the 1970s and 1980s, worked as a Czechoslovak government IT consultant and foreign trade specialist. In 1984, he emigrated with his whole family to the Netherlands but came back after 1989. Twice married, children.

Plachá, Marie (born 1953 in Počátky, county Pelhřimov), worker in many occupations. After middle school she worked as a butcher. Later held several positions (retail saleswoman, laundry worker, saleswoman in a bakery); today she works as a postwoman. Married, two sons.

Potměšil, Tomáš (born 1949 in Prague). He studied at the University of Economics in Prague; in the 1970s and 1980s, employed by the Czechoslovak National Bank, and in the 1990s and 2000s, worked as a banking advisor for the Czech Republic government. Later, he was a financial consultant, now a freelancer. Divorced, daughter, son.

Prošková, Eliška (born 1949 in Pacov, county Pelhřimov), engineering worker. She was trained in agriculture and worked on a state farm; for most of her career she worked as a manual worker in the national enterprise Motorpal in Jihlava (metalworking industry). Widow, son, two daughters.

Quastová, Julie (born 1945 in Prague), leather worker. She was trained as a leather worker; after 1989 she completed an MA in pedagogy (distance learning). She worked as a leather worker for twenty-one years, later became a forewoman. Twice married, widow, two daughters.

Raszka, Karel (born 1940 in Nýdek, county Frýdek-Místek). He studied at the Technical University in Ostrava, specializing in mining engineering. From 1962, he was a mining engineer; he retired in 1986 for medical reasons. Married, children.

Ráž, Jan (born 1955 in Prague), fireman. He studied at the Higher School of Electrical Engineering in Prague. After finishing his studies, he joined fire and rescue corps in Prague where he held several positions (fireman, electrical specialist, squad commander, platoon commander, operations officer). Today he works in the private sector as a watchman on a centralized electronic security monitoring service. Married for the second time, two sons, two granddaughters.

Ruml, Jiří (born 1925 in Pilsen), Czechoslovak journalist, active Communist Party member in the 1950s and 1960s. He was expelled from the Communist Party in 1969. During the 1970s and 1980s, he was an active dissident (signatory of Charter 77), and in 1990–92 member of the Czechoslovak Parliament.

Růžička, Jiří (born 1948 in Prague), secondary school teacher and after 1990 high school principal. He was trained as a mechanic at the rubber company Mitas in Pardubice, and completed high school in Prague (distance study) while working there. Admitted to Charles University; he became a teacher in a school for disabled students. In 1978, he moved to the Jan Kepler High School in Prague, and in 1990 he became its principal. Married, two sons.

Růžičková, Alena (born 1936 in Hradec Králové), manual worker. Because her father had left the Communist Party in 1948, she could not be a nurse, and instead trained as an electrician. She worked in several enterprises and professions. During her retirement she worked for two years as a saleswoman in a second-hand clothing shop. Divorced, daughter, son.

Š. A. (born 1955 in Prague), employee and entrepreneur in the restaurant business. He was trained as a waiter; he worked in several pubs and restaurants in Prague. From the late 1980s to 1991 he worked as a porter in the five-star Hotel Intercontinental in Prague. He left and became an entrepreneur in hospitality for ten years. Today he is an employee in a restaurant again. Several times divorced, now married, son, two daughters.

Samec, Ivo (born 1950 in Tábor), university teacher and Communist Party official before the Velvet Revolution. He attended high school in Český Krumlov, and from 1968 to 1972 studied Czech language and history at the Faculty of Pedagogy in České Budějovice. From 1976 to 1990, he worked there as assistant and later assistant professor and head of department. In 1991, he became a middle school teacher in Nové Hrady, later at the High School of Sports in České Budějovice. Married.

Schneiderová, Gertruda (born 1935 in Lenora, county Prachatice), textile worker. As an ethnic German, because of her poor knowledge of Czech, she could not attend high school. From the age of sixteen, she worked as a seamstress in several textile plants (Šumavan, Bonex), later in the packaging industry (Obaly). Married, son.

Schöbel, Walter (born 1930 in Smržovka, county Jablonec nad Nisou), glass worker. He was born to a Czech-German family. He interrupted his studies at the Higher School of Art in 1945 because of insufficient knowledge of the Czech language, and later trained as a glassworker. From the 1950s until 1989, he worked in the glass industry in Jablonec nad Nisou in several positions (last as foreman). Retired. Married, two children.

Šebek, Jaromír (born 1950 in Prague), electrician. He was trained as an electrician at the state enterprise Spolana Neratovice (chemical industry), where he worked in the boiler room and in high voltage maintenance service. After the Velvet Revolution he left Spolana after twenty-one years, and worked for two years in Germany as a plasterer, then came back to Spolana. Married, two sons.

Sedláček, Jaroslav (born 1937 in Milenov, county Přerov), executive in a spa. He was trained as a milling cutter in the national enterprise TOS in Olomouc. He graduated from the Higher School of Engineering and later the Technical University in Brno. He worked in Sigma Hranice (pump production) for twenty-six years in several positions (the highest one as production director). He had to leave the company for medical reasons. From 1985 he worked in spa management in Teplice nad Bečvou (from 1993 director, now retired). Divorced, daughter, son.

S. V. (born 1955 in Opava), senior manager and after 1989 entrepreneur in the textile industry. After training as a textile worker she studied at the Higher School of Textile Industry in Prostějov and later at the University of Economics in Prague (industrial economics). After her studies she worked in several textile plants in leading positions. After 1989, she founded her own textile company. Married, daughter.

Seková, Věra (born 1943 in Prague), dermatologist. She studied at the Faculty of Medicine in Prague. She then worked in several hospitals (Mladá Boleslav, Kralupy nad Vltavou) and from 1974 she worked in a medical center in Prague. Today she is retired but still runs a medical practice. Married, two children.

Šimek, Pavel (born 1948 in Prague), foreign trade worker. He studied at the Higher School of Economics (foreign trade branch). Then he began to work in the foreign trade enterprise Motokov (specializing in trade with Africa and the Middle East). He undertook a long period of work in Libya. Before 1989, he changed jobs and worked in the foreign trade enterprise Omnipol (until 1996). Married, daughter.

Smetana, Václav (born 1934 in Prague). Disabled person since 1947 (injury caused by an accident during holiday work). He studied at the Faculty of Medicine, Charles University in Prague. From 1962, he served as a doctor in several hospitals; in the 1980s, he became a respected and well-known orthopedist. He has been active in the Czechoslovak and Czech Paralympic sports movement.

Souček, Josef (born 1940 in Náchod), policeman and university teacher. He was trained as a mechanic and worked in OEZ Letohrad. After obligatory military service he became a member of the National Security Corps. He graduated from the Higher School of National Security Corps, later from the Faculty of Law, Charles University in Prague (specializing in criminal law). From the 1970s, he was at the University of the National Security Corps in Prague (transformed into the Police Academy after 1990), where he taught until 2010. Two times divorced, children.

Špičáková, Vojtěcha (born 1928 in Prague), doctor and neonatologist. She studied at the Faculty of Medicine, Charles University in Prague. For several decades she was head of the neonatal unit at the Motol Hospital in Prague. Married (husband Václav is also a doctor and university professor), children.

Špičková, Victoria (born 1947 in Windsor, Great Britain), journalist and English lecturer. She is a British citizen who settled in Prague in 1973. Daughter of British Labour Party politician Michael Foot (1913–2010). In Czechoslovakia, she started to teach English. Married, two children. (Interview held in the personal collection of Tereza Mašková.)

Starý, Vladimír (born 1933 in Prague). He studied at the Military Technical Academy in Brno; worked at the Air Military Technical Institute, was fired after 1968. He then worked in different jobs (waiter at a hotel, technical employee in the Prague subway); after 1989 he returned to the army, and retired in the mid-1990s. Married several times, children.

Štěpánek, Milan (born 1966 in Náchod), policeman and police trade unionist. He studied at the Higher School of Chemical Engineering in Pardubice; he decided to join the National Security Corps. After shortened obligatory military service he studied at the Higher School of the National Security Corps in Prague. He served in Prague for one year and in 1988 he moved to Náchod, where he stayed as an investigator until 2005. In 2005, he was elected to one of the top police trade union positions. Divorced, son, daughter.

Štěrba, Jiří (born 1944 in Kladno), technical college teacher. He studied at the Higher School of Construction Engineering in Kadaň, where he then stayed to teach technical courses. In the late 1980s, he studied (via distance learning) psychology at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University in Prague. In the 1990s, he changed jobs several times (director of a youth home, psychologist, director of a pedagogical and psychological consulting office). Married, two sons, daughter.

Štráchalová, Blanka (born 1944 in Prague), kindergarten teacher. She studied at the Faculty of Pedagogy, Charles University in Prague (specializing in pedagogy and nursery school teaching). She also studied art at the People’s School of Art in Mělník. For thirty-five years she has worked in a nursery. Keen illustrator of children’s books. Married, son.

Suchá, Gerta (born 1936 in Frýdek-Místek), laboratory technician. After middle school she trained as a laboratory technician in Ostrava, then worked in a hospital in Ostrava-Fifejdy in several laboratories. In 1966, she moved with her second husband to Prague, where she worked in several hospital laboratories. Finally, she was employed for forty-two years in the pulmonary unit at the medical clinic in Prague. She retired in 2008. Twice married, son, daughter.

Svatek, Ladislav (born 1948 in Prague), driver and employee of a cooperative farm. He was trained as a mechanic; worked as a driver in the national enterprise Montované stavby (construction industry), later moved to a cooperative farm. Married, two sons.

Tóthová, Eva (born 1946 in Drnovice, county Vyškov), dentist. After high school she studied dentistry at university. After her wedding (1969), she moved with her husband to Eastern Slovakia; in 1971, they settled back in Moravia. Since 1969, she has been working as a dentist, and in 1993 she opened her own private dental practice. Widow, daughter, son.

Twrdková, Dagmar (born 1950 in Horní Suchá, county Karviná), saleswoman and worker in several occupations. She was trained as a waitress, worked in miners’ cafeterias (1973–77), later she changed profession to work in gasworks (1977–84). In the late 1980s, she did not work outside the home for medical reasons. From 1989 to 1999, she worked in the water treatment department at a coal pit in Karviná. Twice married, two children.

U. M. (born 1946 in Slovinky, Eastern Slovakia), mine employee. He studied at the Higher School of Agriculture and completed several specialization courses. He worked as a cattle breeder, economist, warehouseman, and finally counter man in a betting shop. Married, two children. (Interview held in the personal collection of Jana Merjavá.)

V. S. (born 1934 in Pardubice), textile worker. After middle school, she started working in the national enterprise Pragoděv (pressing clothes) where she stayed until her retirement. Until the age of twenty-five she was active in her plant trade union committee. Twice married, now widowed, three sons.

Vacek, Oldřich (born 1946 in Prague). He graduated from the Higher School of Economics (specializing in foreign business). From 1964, he was employed in the state foreign trade enterprise Kovo. Distance study and graduation from Charles University in Prague, Faculty of Law (MA). In December 1989, he was elected general director of the Kovo Trade Company; until 2010, director and co-owner of the company. Now retired. Married, two daughters.

Vachková, Marie (born 1954 in Kralovice, county Pilsen), German language teacher. She studied German and Swedish at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University in Prague. She worked as lecturer in a language school, translator, and lecturer at her alma mater. PhD in 1996. Married, two sons, daughter.

Vaněk, Vladimír (born 1951 in Liberec), worker in the technical division of the Ministry of Interior, after 1989, IT expert and tax adviser. He studied at the Czech Technical University in Prague. As an electrical engineer, he worked at the Research Institute in the Federal Ministry of Interior as a State Security Corps member, but was fired in the early 1990s. He then held several jobs; today he works as a lecturer and tax consultant. Married, son, daughter.

Vápeník, Jaromír (born 1964 in in Vyškov near Postoloprty, county Slaný), seaman, municipal politician after 1989. He trained in the Czechoslovak Ocean Shipping company as a seaman and worked in that position until 1991. He then was a waiter until 2003. From 2004 to 2008, he was active in municipal politics. Since 2008, he has been working as a sales director in a catering company. Married, son, daughter. (Interview held in the personal collection of Lenka Krátká.)

Vdovicyn, Jaroslav (born 1934 in Kouřim, county Kolín), worker in different professions. He attended the Higher School of Engineering, but did not graduate. He worked in several manual professions until the late 1950s. Between 1958 and 1968, he worked in the chemical industry (Spolana and Lachem Neratovice); later, he was employed in agriculture (until 1984). Then he worked as a bus driver, van driver, and handyman in a hospital. Retired. Married.

Vejskal, Jaroslav (born 1955 in Nepomuk, county Klatovy), musical instrument repairman. He attended the Higher School of Economics in Western Bohemia; after obligatory military service he moved to Ostrava where he worked as a repairman of musical instruments. In the late 1970s, he emigrated to Austria and later moved to the US. There he held several jobs. In 1989, he obtained US citizenship, but in 1998, he moved back to the Czech Republic. Married, daughter.

Vejskal, Václav (born 1944 in Štipoklasy, county Klatovy), miner. He trained for three years as a miner, then he worked for ten years in a pit (also as foreman). Because of a work injury, he was transferred to a ground position. He left this field in 1970 and moved to agricultural jobs. Married for the second time, two children.

Vlčková, Zdenka (born 1949 in Nový Malín, county Šumperk), shop assistant. After three years’ training, she became a book saleswoman, a position she held until her retirement. Between 1979 and 1992, she was manager of a bookstore. Married, daughter, son.

Vokurka, Stanislav (born 1945 in Prague), worker in the military aircraft industry. After his training at the High School of Aircraft Repair Engineering in Prague he worked in the development department of Vojenské letecké opravny in Prague (military repair plants); foreman. Married, daughter, son.

Wolfová, Eva (born 1948 in Prague), museum curator and after 1989 director. She studied at the Higher School of Art and Design in Prague (designing toys and puppets); later she studied art history and ethnography at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University in Prague. She worked in several jobs (designer, librarian, and archivist). From 1991 to 2008, she was managing director of the Památník národního písemnictví (Museum of Czech Literature). Married, son.

Wollerová, Jaroslava (born 1947 in Domažlice), secondary school teacher and regional politician. She studied at the Faculty of Arts, Palacký University in Olomouc (MA in history and Czech language) and at the Faculty of Pedagogy in Ústí nad Labem (MA in Czech language and history). She worked as a teacher in several schools. Between 1990 and 1998, she was mayor of Domažlice; today she again works in a school. Single.

X. J. (born 1962, somewhere in Northern Bohemia). Graduate of the Higher School of Mining (field: miner–chemist). Since 1985, he has worked as a firefighter. Divorced after twenty-four years of marriage, three sons.

Ž. J. (born 1945 in Hybe pod Tatrami, Eastern Slovakia), worker in the metallurgical industry. He trained as a blacksmith and aircraft repairman. He worked as leader of the Civic Defense Department in the national enterprise Kovohutě (metallurgical industry). Twice married, two children. (Interview held in the personal collection of Jana Merjavá.)

Ž. M. (born 1947 in Jablonové, Eastern Slovakia), rehabilitation nurse. After high school, she continued to study rehabilitation. She worked as a nurse throughout her whole career. Married for the second time (first husband died in an accident), two children. (Interview held in the personal collection of Jana Merjavá.)

Zahrádka, Miroslav (born 1931 in Kralupy nad Vltavou, county Mělník), university teacher. He studied at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University in Prague (MA in Russian and Czech). Since 1961, he has worked as a university lecturer at Palacký University in Olomouc. Married, two daughters.

Zajícová, Ludmila (born 1923 in Prague), teacher in a primary school. When she was in primary school, her family moved to Slovakia because of her father’s job. They came back in the late 1930s. Then she attended high school. During World War II, she was a forced laborer in Germany (Junkers aircraft factory). After the war, she started to teach and study at university. After 1989 she travelled frequently. Widow, daughter, son.

Žohová, Svatava (born 1940 in county Mělník), retail shop manager. She completed a two-year agricultural economics apprenticeship and then worked at a breeding station for five years. After her wedding, the family moved to Prague and she stayed at home for six years to take care of her children. Later on, she began to work as a saleswoman in the grocery chain Včela in Prague. She had to complete her degree at the Higher School of Business to receive a specialization as a salesperson. She worked for Včela in several positions—salesperson, shift supervisor, foreman—almost her entire career. After the Velvet Revolution she still worked as a salesperson in various shops until the age of sixty-five. Now she is retired. Married, children.

Notes

Introduction

1. Although we are fully aware that while until the dissolution of Czechoslovakia in 1992, there existed a common state of two nations, Czechs and Slovaks, our work is focused mainly on mapping the point of view of the Czech part of the population of that state, i.e., Czech society. Therefore, when describing contemporary events or attitudes of Czechs, we primarily use the adjective Czech. If we use the adjective Czechoslovak, the information is closely bound to the importance of Czechoslovakia as a state.

2. Milan Otáhal, Opozice, moc a společnost. Příspěvek k dějinám “normalizace” (Prague: Maxdorf, 1994); Jiří Suk, Labyrintem revoluce. Aktéři, zápletky a křižovatky jedné politické krize (Prague: Prostor, 2003); Lubomír Kopeček, Éra nevinnosti. Česká politika 1989–1997 (Brno: Barrister and Principal 2010); Adéla Gjuričová et al., Rozděleni minulostí. Vytváření politických identit v české republice po roce 1989 (Prague: Knihovna Václava Havla, 2011). For an attempt to compare the “big” historical events including individual perspectives within the Central European area, see, e.g., Kenney Padraic, A Carnival of Revolution: Central Europe 1989 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002).

3. We use the expression “ordinary people” to define those Czechoslovak citizens who had no apparent political ambitions and played no role in the Party apparatus in the former Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, as well as people who were not involved in the opposition movement. These groups have occasionally been referred to as the “silent majority.” It was essentially a homogenous group also because of the economic stratification of society, as the state artificially kept wages at a similar level across various professional groups. According to the Gauss curve, which we have borrowed from the exact sciences, 98% of the population of Czechoslovakia (or later the Czech Republic) falls into this group. Our main focus is neither Communist Party functionaries at any given level (they made up less than 1% of the population) nor active opponents of the regime—dissidents (whose numbers were measured in per mils rather than in per cents). We take note of these two groups only in the context of the background phenomena to explain the behavior of the population and how it distanced itself from both groups.

4. Alexei Yurchak, Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More. The Last Soviet Generation (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press 2006), 8.

5. Pavel Kolář, “Dějiny, které bolí,” Literární noviny 19:7 (2008): 6.

6. Michal Pullmann, Konec experimentu. Přestavba a pád komunismu v Československu (Prague: Scriptorium, 2011), 15.

7. Michal Pullmann, “Sociální dějiny a totalitněhistorické vyprávění,” Soudobé dějiny 15:3–4 (2008): 703–717.

8. We understand the term “transformation” as the period following the Velvet Revolution of 1989. In that year, there occurred events and processes that have effected the transition of Czechoslovakia (and later of the Czech Republic) to a pluralistic and democratic political system, as well as the renewal of civil society and market economy and integration into international, specifically Euro-Atlantic, structures.

9. Ladislav Holý, Malý český člověk a skvělý český národ. Národní identita a postkomunistická transformace společnosti (Prague: SLON, 1997); Peter Heumos, “Vyhrňme si rukávy, než se kola zastaví!” Dělníci a státní socialismus v Československu 1945–1968 (Prague: Ústav pro soudobé dějiny AV ČR, 2006); Anne E. Gorsuch and Diane Koenker, Turizm: The Russian and East European Tourist under Capitalism and Socialism (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2006); James Herbert Krapfl, Revolution with a Human Face: Politics, Culture and Community in Czechoslovakia 1989–1992 (Berkeley, CA: Kallingram, 2009); Paulina Bren, The Greengrocer and His TV. The Culture of Communism after 1968 Prague Spring (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2010); Jonathan Bolton, World of Dissent. Charter 77, The Plastic People of the Universe, and Czech Culture under Communism (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2012).

10. “Novoroční projev prezidenta ČSSR Václava Havla” [New Year Speech by President of Czechoslovakia Václav Havel], Prague, January 1, 1990, http://vaclavhavel.cz/showtrans.php?cat=projevy&val=327_projevy.html&typ=HTML.

11. See, e.g., Lenka Kalinová, Společenské proměny v čase socialistického experimentu. K dějinám české společnosti 1945–1969 (Prague: Academia, 2007). See also Pullmann, Konec experimentu; Martin Sabrow, “Socialismus jako myšlenkový svět. Komunistická diktatura v kulturně historické perspektivě,” Soudobé dějiny 19:2 (2012): 196–208; and Lenka Kalinová, Konec nadějím a nová očekávání. Dějinám české společnosti 1969–1993 (Prague: Academia, 2012).

12. Dieter Segert, “Státní socialismus nebyl jen politický a mocenský vztah. Poznámky k teoretickému deficitu konceptu totalitarismu,” Soudobé dějiny 17:4 (2009): 699–708.

13. Miroslav Vaněk, Veřejné mínění o socialismu před 17. listopadem 1989: Analýza výsledků výzkumu veřejného mínění prováděných ÚVVM od roku 1972 do roku 1989 (Prague: Maxdorf, 1994).

14. The survey was carried out from 4 to 11 February 2013 among the Czech population aged over 15 on a sample of 1060 respondents. See Martin Ďurďovič, “Občané o fungování politického systému” [Citizens and the Political System Running], February 2013, Press Release, Center for Public Opinion Research (March 2013), http://cvvm.soc.cas.cz/media/com_form2content/documents/c1/a6970/f3/pd130312.pdf.

15. This poll has been conducted repeatedly since 1991 and directly compares the current situation with the situation before the Velvet Revolution in 1989. The last survey of this type was conducted by the Center for Public Opinion Research in February 2014.

16. Jan Červenka, “Hodnocení změny systému v roce 1989 v středoevropském srovnání” [Evaluation of change of political system in 1989 in Central European comparison], in the Center for Public Opinion Research, Press Release (March 2014), http://cvvm.soc.cas.cz/media/com_form2content/documents/c1/a7198/f3/pd140318.pdf.

17. This was the model of socialism in force from April 1968 until the invasion of the Warsaw Pact armies on 21 August 1968. This model abandoned censorship, introduced some opportunities for market relationships and for a limited amount of private property, and brought a number of freedoms, such as those of speech and assembly.

18. At this point, it is worth noting that people understood the concept of capitalism mostly as a horrible system such as it was interpreted for them by Communist propaganda.

19. Vaněk, Veřejné mínění o socialismu před 17. listopadem 1989.

20. In this respect, it is self-evident that complete objectivity of any particular research can be guaranteed neither by more agencies nor by their openness to the public. Scholars, as well as persons surveyed often challenge the published results of the agencies involved, from both “the right” and “the left,” depending on how expedient or potentially harmful they find the data. The dissatisfaction of the politicians, of course, does not prove that the results had been “politically manipulated”; it can suggest rather the contrary: a job well done.

21. Mamta Murthi and Erwin R. Tiongson, “Attitude to Equality: The Socialist Legacy: Revisited,” Policy Research Working Paper Series 4529 (New York: World Bank, 2008). www-wds.worldbank.org/servlet/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2008/02/25/000158349_20080225085947/Rendered/PDF/wps4529.pdf. For results of an international comparative project by PewResearch Center from 2009 (The Pulse of Europe 2009: 20 Years After the Fall of the Berlin Wall) see “End of Communism Cheered but Now with More Reservations,” in PewResearch Global Attitudes Project. www.pewglobal.org/2009/11/02/end-of-communism-cheered-but-now-with-more-reservations/ (29 April 2013); OECD statistics, http://stats.oecd.org/.

22. Allesandro Portelli, The Death of Luigi Trastulli and Other Stories: Form and Meaning in Oral History (New York: State University of New York Press, 1991); Luisa Passerini, Fascism in Popular Memory: The Cultural Experience of the Turin Working Class (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987).

23. Quoted in Miroslav Vaněk, Around the Globe. Rethinking Oral History with its Protagonists (Prague: Karolinum, 2013), 77–78.

24. Anna Green, “Can Memory Be Collective?” in Donald A. Ritchie, ed., The Oxford Handbook Of Oral History (Oxford University Press, 2011), 96–111; Paula Hamilton and Linda Shopes, “Building Partnership Between Oral History and Memory Studies,” in Paula Hamilton and Linda Shopes, eds., Oral History and Public Memories (Philadelphia: Temple University Press (2008), vii–xvii.

25. Vaněk, Around the Globe, 128.

26. For readers who would like to familiarize themselves with the recordings of the interviews, they are all preserved both in audio format and in transcript in the collections of the Center for Oral History—Institute for Contemporary History, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Vlašská 9, Prague 1, and in the digital archive of the Center for Oral History. Our primary sources are the results of research projects supported by the Grant Agency of the Czech Republic: “A survey of Czech society in the period of normalization. Biographical stories of blue-collar workers and intellectuals” (2006–2008), which contains 128 interviews, and “Czech society during the period of normalization and transformation: biographical narratives (2011–2015),” which contains 131 interviews with narrators born between 1935 and 1955 with some possible overlaps in the two extreme limits.

27. This was the grant project: “Cultural and social aspects of young people in the 1980s in Czechoslovakia” (2002–2004) and the project “Social and cultural aspects of the existence and development of independent music genres and trends in the Czech Republic from the 1960s to 1989).” Within these two projects about 100 interviews were conducted, mainly with members of the younger generation (people born mostly between 1950 and 1965).

28. This was the grant project “Social Aspects of Cottagers as Subculture in Everyday Life Studies during the So-called Normalization Era” (2007–2009). Within this project about 30 interviews were conducted with cottage community members.

29. As a number of specialized studies show, nostalgia takes many forms, it carries a number of meanings, and cannot be separated from the period political and social context. It certainly is not a phenomenon specific only to the former Eastern bloc after the fall of the Iron Curtain, as it is possible to encounter it in a range of other countries (including the US). On the contrary, scholars believe that nostalgia is a phenomenon symptomatic of the development of modern societies of the so-called West, as well as the former East, through which they come to terms with changed life frameworks and in this way define their identities. See, e.g., Maria Todorova and Zsuzsa Gille, Post-Communist Nostalgia (Oxford/New York: Berghahn Books, 2010). See also Barbara Shircliffe, “We Got the Best of That World. A Case Study for the Study of Nostalgia in the Oral History of School Segregation,” The Oral History Review 28:2 (2001): 59–84.

30. Françoise Mayer, Les Tchèques et leur communisme (Paris: EHESS, 2004).

31. Timothy Garton Ash, History of the Present: Essays, Sketches, and Dispatches from Europe in the 1990s (New York: Random House, 2000).

32. Ladislav Holý, Malý český člověk a skvělý český národ (Prague: SLON, 1997).

33. Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, Humanistic Ideals (Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 1971).

34. During the twenty years of its existence (1918–1939), the young Czechoslovak Republic had to come to terms in particular with its dependence on the favor of the Allied powers (especially France and Great Britain); moreover, it was essentially dependent on economic ties with other countries (importing raw materials and exporting industrial products) and often had to face ethnic conflicts in its multi-national state, occasional manifestations of political “partisanship” and local outpourings of lower-class intolerance, narrow-mindedness and primitivism. Despite these shortcomings, the era of the First Republic (1918–1938) is evaluated positively. Zdeněk Kárník, České země v éře první republiky (1918–1939). 3 vols. (Prague: Libri 2000–2003).

35. “Tomáš G. Masaryk odstoupil,” Venkov 30:292 (December 15, 1935): 1.

36. Karel Kaplan, Kořeny československé reformy. Vols 3–4 (Brno: Doplněk, 2002), 93.

37. Kalinová, Společenské proměny v čase socialistického experimentu; Karel Kaplan, Kronika komunistického Československa. 6 vols. (Brno: Barrister and Principal, 2005–2011); Vladimír Macura, Šťastný věk a jiné studie a socialistické kultuře (Prague: Academia, 2009); Jiří Knapík and Martin Franc, Průvodce kulturním děním a životním stylem v českých zemích 1948–1967 (Prague: Academia, 2011).

38. Richard Vinen, A History in Fragments: Europe in the Twentieth Century (London: Abacus, 2002 [2000]), 411.

39. Holý, Malý český člověk a skvělý český národ; Ernst Gellner, Národy a nacionalismus (Prague: Hříbal, 1993); Miroslav Hroch, Na prahu národní existence (Prague: Mladá fronta, 1999); Jiří Kořalka, Češi v Habsburské Říši a v Evropě 1815–1914: sociálněhistorické souvislosti vytváření novodobého národa a národnostní otázky v českých zemích (Prague: Argo, 1996).

40. Vinen, A History in Fragments.

41. Tony Judt, Postwar. A History of Europe since 1945 (New York: Penguin Press, 2005).

42. Milan Šimečka, Obnovení pořádku: příspěvek o typologii reálného socialismu (Prague: Lidové noviny, 1990 [1979]); Milan Šimečka, Konec nehybnosti (Prague: Lidové noviny, 1990); Milan Šimečka, Kruhová obrana (Prague: AF, 2011 [1985]).

43. Paulina Bren, The Greengrocer and His TV. The Culture of Communism after the 1968 Prague Spring (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press 2010), 148–150.

44. Pullmann, Konec experimentu; Milan Otáhal, Opozice, moc a společnost 1969–1989 (Prague: Maxdorf, 1994); Milan Otáhal, Opoziční proudy v české společnosti 1969–1989 (Prague: Ústav pro soudobé dějiny AV ČR 2011); Jiří Suk, Labyrintem revoluce. Aktéři, zápletky a křižovatky jedné politické krize/od listopadu 1989 do června 1990 (Prague: Prostor, 2003).

45. Miroslav Vaněk, Nedalo se tady dýchat: Ekologie v českých zemích v letech 1968 až 1989 (Prague: Maxdorf, 1996); Milan Otáhal and Miroslav Vaněk, Sto studentských revolucí: Studenti v období pádu komunismu životopisná vyprávění (Prague: Lidové noviny, 1999); Miroslav Vaněk et al., Ostrůvky svobody: Kulturní a občanské aktivity mladé generace v 80. letech v Československu (Prague: Votobia—Ústav pro soudobé dějiny AV ČR, 2002). For a discussion of the gradual transformation of the relationship between the regime and its citizens on the example of the Soviet Union, including generational aspects, see Yurchak, Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More.

46. Adéla Gjuričová and Michal Kopeček, eds., Kapitoly z dějin české demokracie po roce 1989 (Prague/Litomyšl: Paseka, 2008); Lubomír Kopeček, Éra nevinnosti. Česká politika 1989–1997 (Brno: Barrister and Principal, 2010); Adéla Gjuričová et al., Rozdělení minulostí.

Chapter 1

1. Wilhelm Weischedel, Skeptische Ethik (Frankfurt am Main: Buchclub ExLibris, 1976). Naturally, we are also aware of other concepts that raise serious doubts about the possibility of free choice in the event that we must choose between very limited alternatives, no matter whether it be consumer goods or political parties in democratic elections.

2. Erich Fromm, Escape from Freedom (New York: Farrar and Rinehart, 1941).

3. “Závěrečná zpráva z výzkumu č. 88-4: Názory našich občanov na vedúcu úlohu strany” [Opinions of Our Citizens to the Leading Role of the Communist Party], Institute for Public Opinion Research, Federal Statistical Office (1988), http://archiv3.soc.cas.cz/download/1219/1988_4.PDF.

4. See, e.g., Vladimír Macura, Šťastný věk (Prague: Academia, 1992). This work has been translated into English by Hana Píchová and Craig Crevens and was published as The Mystifications of a Nation. “The Potato Bug” and Other Essays on Czech Culture (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2010).

5. The young respondents, aged 15 to 21, ranked their values as follows: 1. Living in peace; 2. Having a good life partner; 3. Living in security; 4. Having a good job; 5. Having and raising children; 6. Having good friends. See “Závěrečná zpráva z výzkumu č. 80-1: Mládež ČSSR a její světonázorová orientace ve vztahu k některým hodnotám” [Youth of Czechoslovakia and Its Ideological Orientation in Relation to Certain Values], Institute for Public Opinion Research, Federal Statistical Office (1980), http://archiv3.soc.cas.cz/download/1049/80-1.PDF.

6. Respondents were asked a set of eighteen questions to compare their life today and before November 1989. The opportunity to live in freedom was chosen as a positive value by 62% in 1996; by 54% in 1998; by 59% in 2002; by 57% in 2005; by 63% in 2007; and by 72% in 2009. We need another survey to confirm this trend (an increase by 10 percentage points), but the Centre for Public Opinion Research has not conducted any since 2010. See Naděžda Horáková, “Porovnání současných poměrů se situací před listopadem 1989” [Comparison of Current Conditions with the Situation before 1989], Press Release, Center for Public Opinion Research (April 2005), http://cvvm.soc.cas.cz/media/com_form2content/documents/c1/a3192/f3/100462s_pd50401.pdf. See also Paulina Tabery, “Srovnání dnešního života a života před listopadem 1989” [Comparison of the Present Life and the Life Before 1989], Press Release, Centre for Public Opinion Research (November 2009), http://cvvm.soc.cas.cz/media/com_form2content/documents/c1/a3688/f3/100964s_pd91103b.pdf.

7. Ibid.

8. Zygmunt Bauman, Freedom (Milton Keynes: Open University Press, 1988), 9 (emphasis in original).

9. Miloš Marko, Stranickost socialistické žurnalistiky (Prague: Novinář, 1980), 10.

10. According to sociological research on the stereotypes of the Czech national character conducted in 1992, the positive characteristics of Czechs are hard-working (17%), skillful (8%), and had a sense of humor (8%); but the negative national features prevail: envy (28%), cunning (15%), egoism (11%), and laziness (8%). Ladislav Holý, The Little Czech and the Great Czech Nation: National Identity and the Post-Communist Social Transformation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 75.

11. Ibid., 62.

12. Given the prevailing concept of nationhood, based on the “common people” and rather anti-military in nature, the cult of martyrs, victims, and “spiritual warriors” (people from the intellectual and cultural spheres) is probably much more deeply rooted in Czech tradition.

13. Jiří Kocián, Milan Otáhal, and Miroslav Vaněk, Historie prožité minulosti. K šedesátinám Oldřicha Tůmy (Prague: Ústav pro soudobé dějiny AV ČR, 2010), 18.

14. Erich Fromm, To Have or to Be? (London/New York: Continuum, 1976), 89.

15. Holý, Malý český člověk a skvělý český národ, 62.

16. The argumentation advanced by the official Czechoslovak propaganda, including such tactics as the use of “spontaneous” testimonies of returning emigrants meant to discourage citizens from emigrating to the West, has been described by Bren, The Greengrocer and His TV, 183–187.

17. In 1968–1969, approximately 8,000 people left Czechoslovakia or did not return from abroad. By 1989, this number had grown by roughly another 150,000.

18. The British philosopher John Stuart Mill understood freedom of speech as comprising several aspects: besides the right to convey information and express ideas, it is also the right to search for them, to accept them, and to disseminate them. See John Stuart Mill, On Liberty (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1865), 7.

19. See Petition of Charter 77 of 1979, available in English at https://chnm.gmu.edu/1989/archive/files/declaration-of-charter-77_4346bae392.pdf. An English translation of “A Few Setences” is available at http://icv.vlada.cz/assets/udalosti/NekolikVet_pdf_en.pdf.

20. The manifesto “Dva tisíce slov které patří dělníkům, zemědělcům, úředníkům, umělcům a všem” [Two Thousands Words that Belong to Workers, Farmers, Officials, Scientists, Artists, and Everybody] was a manifesto written by Ludvík Vaculík calling for civic activity and was one of the most important documents of the Prague Spring.

21. In 1966, the Central Management of Press Supervision was replaced by the Central Publishing Administration, which sanctioned censorship with a special law (No. 81/1966 Coll.).

22. Zuzana Profantová, ed., Hodnota zmeny—zmena hodnoty. Demarkačný rok 1989 (Bratislava: Ústav etnologie SAV—Národopisná společnost, 2009), 136.

23. For a discussion of the development of linguistic forms (and arguably a “linguistic turn”) in the era of “real existing,” or late, socialism, see Alexei Yurchak, Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More. The Last Soviet Generation (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006), 36–76.

24. For more on the culture of listening to foreign (“Western”) media in the USSR of the same period, see ibid., 175–190.

25. When asked, “How often do you listen to foreign radio stations?,” the respondents in 1982 and 1985 surveys answered as follows: in 1982, once a day—approximately 9% of the population (i.e., 1.36 million); in 1985, 10% (1.17 million); in 1982, one to three times a week 15% (1.73 million); in 1985 13% (1.52 million); in 1982, less than once a week—12% (1.38 million); in 1985, 10% (1.17 million). In 1982, 64% of the respondents (7.4 million) never listened to foreign radio; in 1985, 67% (7.813 million). See “Závěrečná zpráva z výzkumu č. 85-4: Názory československých občanů na některé stránky ideologického působení západní televize a rozhlasových stanic” [Opinions of Czechoslovak Citizens on Some Aspects of Ideological Influence of Western Television and Radio], Institute for Public Opinion Research, Federal Statistical Office (1986), http://archiv3.soc.cas.cz/download/1045/85-4.PDF: 30.

26. To 25% of those interviewed, domestic media seemed more comprehensible; to 4% of them, the Western media made more sense; and 25% thought both were about equally comprehensible. However, 46% could not or did not want to answer the question. As for content, 19% of the population considered Czechoslovak media to be better; 9% thought it was the foreign media; 20% sometimes domestic and sometimes foreign; and 52% were not able to answer. Similar results were obtained concerning persuasiveness. On the topic of truthfulness, the positive evaluation of Czechoslovak news media dropped from 19% in 1982 down to 17% in 1985, but otherwise the results were similar. “Závěrečná zpráva z výzkumu č. 85-4.”

27. Miroslav Vaněk, Nedalo se tady dýchat: Ekologie v českých zemích v letech 1968 až 1989 (Prague: Maxdorf, 1996).

28. “Víra v Boha a názory na církve v české společnosti” [Faith in God and Opinions on Church in the Czech Society], Center for Empirical Research (2007), www.stem.cz/clanek/1262.

29. About 5% of Czechs regularly attend Catholic mass; most of them live in the dioceses of Olomouc and Brno in Southern Moravia. Practicing Protestants constitute approximately 1% of the population. The vast majority of the traditional Jewish community, which, before the Nazi occupation, amounted to approximately 100,000 people, was murdered during the Holocaust. Currently, some 3,000 people are officially registered as members of the Jewish religious community. Islam was officially recognized in the Czech Republic as a religion in 2004; this community has about 1,000 members. See “Zprávy o úrovni náboženské svobody v České republice” [Reports on the Level of Religious Freedom in the Czech Republic], Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic (2009), http://www.mkcr.cz/scripts/detail.php?id=366. The Battle of White Mountain (1620) was one of the first conflicts in the Thirty Years War (1618–1648) between the Catholic League and Protestant Union in Europe. In this battle the Czech anti-Habsburg revolt (lead by the Protestants) was defeated, and this event was interpreted by Czech (nationalist) historiography as the beginning of the “Dark Ages” which lasted to the end of the Habsburg Empire in 1918.

30. According to many sociologists, however, these statistics are not entirely conclusive. One sociologist, Zdeněk Nešpor, says that statistics can demonstrate only formal declaration of belonging to particular denominations but not whether and in what way the respondents are actually religious. What is significant for Czech society (and not just in our times) is a certain distancing from, or dislike of, churches. In this connection, some sociologists think that if the question about belief were formulated in a slightly different way (e.g., “Is there any supernatural power that influences people’s lives?”), Czech society might suddenly not be so different from the European average, unlike the results measuring the traditional church-oriented religiosity. “Češi, národ ateistů?” [Czechs, a Nation of Atheists?], Česká televize (August 26, 2008), www.ceskatelevize.cz/ct24/exkluzivne-na-ct24/osobnosti-na-ct24/26459-cesi-narod-ateistu/.

31. Ibid.

32. Ibid.

33. Ibid.

34. Dana Moree, Učitelé na vlnách transformace. Kultura školy před rokem 1989 a po něm (Prague: Karolinum, 2013), 78.

35. Ibid.

36. At the institutional level, religious freedom is protected by the provisions of Articles 15 and 16 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms:

Article 15. (1) The freedom of thought, conscience, and religious conviction is guaranteed. Everyone has the right to change his or her religion or faith or to have no religious conviction. (2) The freedom of scholarly research and of artistic creation is guaranteed. (3) No one may be compelled to perform military service if such is contrary to his conscience or religious conviction. Detailed provisions shall be laid down in law.

Article 16. (1) Everyone has the right freely to manifest his or her religion or faith, either alone or in community with others, in private or public, through worship, teaching, practice, or observance. (2) Churches and religious societies govern their own affairs; in particular, they establish their own bodies and appoint their clergy, as well as found religious orders and other church institutions, independently of state authorities. (3) The conditions under which religious instruction may be given at state schools shall be set by law. (4) The exercise of these rights may be limited by law in the case of measures necessary in a democratic society for the protection of public safety and order, health and morals, or the rights and freedoms of others.

The provisions of the Charter are implemented by the law, especially Law No. 3/2002 Coll., on freedom of religion and the status of churches and religious societies.

37. In 1991, almost 4.5 million Czech citizens claimed to be religious. Since that time, their numbers have been declining: in 2001, the same answer was given by 3.3 million people, and in 2011 only by about 1.5 million Czechs. See “Věřících hlásících se k církvím výrazně ubylo” [The Faithful Recognizing the Churches Decreased Significantly], Czech Statistical Office (2013), https://www.czso.cz/csu/czso/0b005170c8. The largest decrease was recorded in the Roman Catholic Church: between 1991 and 2001, it lost a million self-proclaimed members. Two more of the largest churches each lost some 10,000 members (the Czechoslovak Hussite Church lost about 80,000). The Evangelical Church of the Czech Brethren today has about 50,000 practicing members; the Czechoslovak Hussite Church, about 40,000; the Orthodox Church, about 27,000; other smaller churches have about 10,000 members each. In 2011, more than 3 million out of the total of 9 million Czechs over the age of fifteen claimed to be atheists, and 4 million gave no answer. See “Obyvatelstvo ve věku 15 a více let podle náboženské víry, věku, pohlaví a nejvyššího ukončeného vzdělání” [Population Aged 15 and Over by Religious beliefs, Age, Gender and Education], Czech Statistical Office (2011), table 605, http://vdb.czso.cz/sldbvo/#!stranka=podle-tematu&tu=30629&th=&v=&vo=null&vseuzemi=null&void=.

38. Yurchak, Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More, 296–298.

39. “Přestaňme se zbožňováním peněz, odsoudil papež globální ekonomiku” [Let’s Cease Adoration of Money, the Pope Condemned the Global Economy], Novinky.cz (September 22, 2013), www.novinky.cz/zahranicni/evropa/314002-prestanme-se-zboznovanim-penez-odsoudil-papez-globalni-ekonomiku.html.

Chapter 2

1. Law No. 94/1963 Coll., on the family of 4 December 1963. The Law on the family had been continually updated and expanded (the last change on the social-legal protection of children by Law No. 401/2012 Coll.). In 2014, it was replaced by the second part of the new Civil Code.

2. About 90% of the respondents consistently assign to the family value (having a partner and children) the highest priority, both before and after the Velvet Revolution. See Gabriela Šamanová, “Rodinné hodnoty a postoje k manželství” [Family Values and Attitudes to Marriage], Press Release, Centre for Public Opinion Research, December 19, 2011, http://cvvm.soc.cas.cz/media/com_form2content/documents/c1/a6655/f3/ov111219a.pdf; “Závěrečná zpráva z výzkumu č. 74–3: Aktuální problémy života občanů” [Current Problems of Citizens’ Lives,” Institute for Public Opinion Research, Federal Statistical Office (1974), http://archiv3.soc.cas.cz/download/1151/74-3_%C4%8C%C3%A1st1.pdf.

3. In comparable studies dealing with family and family values, the interviewees were asked to rank the following values in the order of importance: having a steady partner; having children; achieving success at work; getting married; achieving the highest level of education; pursuing one’s hobbies; and having an interesting social life. See “Závěrečná zpráva z výzkumu č. 74-3: Aktuální problémy života občanů”. In 2005, family values ranked at the top among almost two-thirds of the interviewees: 22% said having a permanent partner was the most important; 22%—having children; 13%—getting married. Success at work was the primary goal for 17% of the respondents; the highest possible education for 18%; hobbies for 5%; an interesting social life for 4%. Naděžda Horáková, “Co je pro nás v životě důležité?” [What Is Important for Us in Our Life?], Press Release, Center for Public Opinion Research (February 2005), http://cvvm.soc.cas.cz/media/com_form2content/documents/c3/a3943/f11/100045s_horakova-hodnoty.pdf. Those interviewed in 1974 had similar preferences. See “Závěrečná zpráva z výzkumu č. 74-3: Aktuální problémy života občanů.”

4. Despite the fact that a vast majority of the narrators in our sample belong to the generation born between 1930 and 1950, for partial comparison we have also used interviews recorded with older and younger narrators.

5. Ferdinand Mount, The Subversive Family: An Alternative History of Love and Marriage (London: Free Press, 1982).

6. Evelyne Sullerot, Le Grand Remue-ménage, crise de la famille (Paris: Fayard, 1997).

7. “Sňatečnost” [The Marriage Rate], Demografie (Information Portal for Demography). www.demografie.info/?cz_snatecnosthistorie.

8. After normalization had begun, the number of new marriages amounted to 91,000 in 1970; then in 1975 it was 97,000; in 1980, there was a short decline to 78,000; in 1985 the number of new marriages rose again to 80,000; in 1990, there was a second and final record high of 91,000 marriages. Then the curve of marriages registered started to drop rapidly: in 1995 to 55 thousand; in 1999 to 53 thousand; in 2001 to 52 thousand; and in 2011 to 45 thousand. “Obyvatelstvo” [Population], Czech Statistical Office (2001). https://www.czso.cz/csu/czso/obyvatelstvo_hu.

9. Petra Schindler-Wisten, “Kdo neokrádá stát, okrádá rodinu—Rodina v komunistickém Československu,” in Miroslav Vaněk, ed., Obyčejní lidé …?! Pohled do života tzv. mlčící většiny. Životopisná vyprávění příslušníků dělnických profesí a inteligence (Prague: Academia, 2009).

10. Ibid., 257.

11. Compulsory draft varies from country to country in terms of the length of the military service. Military service in Czechoslovakia before 1989 lasted 24 months; for university graduates who took special military courses during their studies, it was only 12 months. Soldiers with families had to serve only five months. After the Velvet Revolution, military service was gradually shortened, and since 1 January 2005, the army has been fully professional.

12. According to section 7 of Law 265/1949 Coll., “religious marriage ceremonies are permitted. However, they can be performed only after the proclamation of marriage under this law.”

13. Ivo Možný, Rodina a společnost (Prague: SLON, 2006), 225.

14. In 1970, there were 21,566 divorces in the Czech Republic; in 1980, the number rose to 27,000; in 2011, to more than 28,000. It should, however, be kept in mind that the number of marriages dropped by half in comparison with the time before 1989; cf. Mount, The Subversive Family. See futher “Rozvodovost” [The Divorce Rate], Czech Statistical Office (2010; 2013), https://www.czso.cz/csu/czso/obyvatelstvo_hu.

15. Dana Hamplová (ed.), Děti na psí knížku? (Prague: Sociologický ústav AV ČR, 2007), 49–58.

16. Ibid.

17. See, e.g., Marcel Sauer, “Generace pracujících studentů,” Lidové noviny (May 25, 2013). See also Michaela Šmídová, Martin Vávra, and Tomáš Čížek, “Hodnotové orientace vysokoškolských studentů na třech typech fakult” [Value Orientation of University Students at Three Types of Faculties], Center for Study of Higher Education (2010), www.csvs.cz/aula/clanky/2010-2_clanek_hodnoty.pdf.

18. Jan Keller, Nedomyšlená společnost (Brno: Doplněk, 1992), 45.

19. Ladislav Rabušic and Jiřina Kocourková, Sňatek a rodina: zájem soukromý nebo veřejný? (Prague: SLON, 2006), 158.

20. “6-1a Základní údaje o narozených a ukazatele porodnosti v letech 1950–2003” [Basic Data on Births and Fertility Indicators in 1950–2003], Czech Statistical Office (2004), https://www.czso.cz/csu/czso/obyvatelstvo_hu

21. The amount of state aid was 30,000 crowns, representing approximately 1.5 times the annual income at the time. The loan could be utilized either to purchase an apartment (1% interest) or to furnish it (2.5% interest). The maturity was ten years, and if a child was born during that time, it was extended by another year. Also, if the first child lived to be a year old, the amount to be repaid was decreased by 2,000 crowns; for each additional child the reduction was 4,000 crowns. An estimated three quarters of new families met these eligibility requirements and took out a newlywed loan.

22. In the 1970s, more than 80,000 apartments a year were finished; in 1975, the number reached a record high of almost 100,000. The intensity of apartment construction significantly exceeded the levels recorded in most other European countries. Although it was an extremely successful period for the Czech economy, the relatively high construction rate was not accompanied by a sufficient regeneration of the existing housing stock. After 1980, the number of flats on which construction was begun and completed started to decline considerably. In 1981–1985 the number of completed flats was 61,108; in 1986–1990 it dropped further to 49,289. “Bytová výstavba v územích České republiky v letech 1997–2011” [Housing Construction in the Czech Republic in Years 1997–2011], Czech Statistical Office (2013), https://www.czso.cz/csu/czso/bvz_cr

23. “6-1a Základní údaje o narozených a ukazatele porodnosti v letech 1950–2003.”

24. This trend is confirmed also by Czech historian Václav Průcha who says that there is evidence of only minimal increases in living standards in the 1980s. See Václav Průcha et al., Hospodářské a sociální dějiny Československa 1918–1992, Období 1945–1992 (Brno: Supplement 2009), 689–690.

25. For instance, Paulina Bren considers the “ordinary” Czechoslovak woman literally the symbol of the period of normalization. See Paulina Bren, The Greengrocer and His TV. The Culture of Communism after the 1968 Prague Spring (Ithaca, NY/London: Cornell University Press, 2010), 159–176.

26. For more on the issue of abortion, see, e.g., Květa Jechová, “Cesta k emancipaci. Postavení ženy v české společnosti 20. století. Pokus o vymezení problému,” in Oldřich Tůma and Tomáš Vilímek, eds., Pět studií k dějinám české společnosti po roce 1945 (Prague: Ústav pro soudobé dějiny AV ČR, 2008), 120–122.

27. Libuše Háková, “Ženy v sociální struktuře naší společnosti,” in Pavel Machonin, ed., Sociální struktura socialistické společnosti. Sociologické problémy soudobé československé společnosti (Prague: Svoboda, 1967), 554.

28. According to the 1961 census, more than 50% of the total number of married women were employed; in the 1970s, it was almost 70%.

29. Jiřina Máchová, Spor o rodinu (Prague: Mladá fronta, 1970), 99.

30. Maternity (or parental) benefits vary around the world. The longest maternity leave is in Scandinavia (1 year), the shortest is traditionally in the United States (12 weeks). The 28 weeks of maternity leave in the Czech Republic is above the average length. There are also differences in maternity benefits: while in Scandinavia, France, the Netherlands, Spain, and Germany, the mother receives the same amount as her previous income, in the Czech Republic, it is 70% of the assessment base; in the United States and Australia there are no maternity benefits. Besides the maternity benefits, for children between the ages of 2 and 4, mothers or fathers receive a “parental allowance,” which is a state benefit. In this regard, the Czech Republic is at the forefront among European Union and Orgsanisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries; parents were already receiving a parental allowance before 1989 in the form of family allowances. See “Mateřská v Česku v porovnání se světem” [Parental Allowance in The Czech Republic in Comparison with the World], Finance (October 26, 2010), www.finance.cz/zpravy/finance/285297-materska-v-cesku-v-porovnani-se-svetem/.

31. See Lenka Kalinová, Společenské proměny v čase socialistického experimentu. K dějinám české společnosti 1945–1969 (Prague: Academia, 2007).

32. At the same time mothers taking care of more than one child where one was younger than two received the allowance of 500 crowns a month. In 1982, this allowance was increased to 600 crowns; starting in 1987, to 800 crowns. Its payment was extended to three years. See, e.g., Kalinová, Společenské proměny v čase socialistického experimentu.

33. Sullerot, Le Grand Remue-ménage, crise de la famille.

34. Milan Šimečka, Obnovení pořádku (London: Rozmluvy, 1984), 148–150.

35. The existence of this phenomenon is evidenced by contemporary public opinion polls; a 1983 study clearly shows the trend of hiding personal views in public. When asked if they talked about their opinions, 13% answered “never” and 34%, “selectively”: they talked about some things, and always kept others to themselves. “Závěrečná zpráva č. 83-7: Některé otázky světonázorové problematiky československé mládeže” [Some Questions about Ideological Issues of Czechoslovak Youth], Center for Public Opinion Research, Federal Statistical Office (1983), 49, http://archiv3.soc.cas.cz/download/1191/83-7_%C4%8C%C3%A1st1.pdf.

36. Some authors, such as Alexei Yurchak, argue that the use of a “double language” was a common (and, given the historical context, logical) aspect of the reality of late (really existing) socialism. See Alexei Yurchak, Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006), 77–125.

37. The Pioneer Organization of the Socialist Union of Youth was the mainstream organization for Czechoslovak children and youth in the 1970s and 1980s. Among other things, it was supposed to facilitate the Communist Party’s influence on schoolchildren. It was established in January 1970, when the recently banned youth organizations (e.g., the Scout organization called Junák), which had been renewed in March 1968, were incorporated into it. After the Velvet Revolution, in January 1990, the organization ceased to exist.

38. Anonymus Pragensis, “Sociopatologie československé společnosti,” Listy 5 (September 1988): 50.

39. Sullerot, Le Grand Remue-ménage, crise de la famille.

40. Interview with Jindřich Š. (born 1970; psychiatrist) transcribed by Miroslav Vaněk, July 2012.

41. Interview with Sáva Horn (born 1979, IT manager) transcribed by Miroslav Vaněk, July 2012.

42. This attitude on the part of citizens was in a certain respects presupposed and, to some extent, even quietly tolerated by the leadership of the Party and the state; it was criticized as well as popularized in both pro-regime and “anti-regime” (Western) media, and was the butt of popular jokes. For the Soviet case, see also Yurchak, Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More, 273–275.

Chapter 3

1. Bedřich W. Loewenstein, My a ti druzí. Dějiny, psychologie, antropologie (Brno: Supplement, 1997), 62.

2. Ibid., 66–67.

3. See Larry Wolff, Inventing Eastern Europe. The Map of Civilization on the Mind of the Enlightenment (Stanford: Stanford University Press 1994), 3–16.

4. For an overview of the concepts of European borders and the general concept of Europe, see, e.g., Norman Davis, Europe: A History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996).

5. On the development of the term and conception of Central Europe, see further, e.g., Maria Todorova, Imagining the Balkans (New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 140–160.

6. See further on the concept of orientalism Edward W. Said, Orientalism (London: Penguin, 1977).

7. “Závěrečná zpráva č. 80-2: Názory občanů na otázky války a míru a brannou výchovu” [Public Opinion on the Questions of War and Peace, and Military Training], Institute for Public Opinion Research, Federal Statistical Office (1980), http://archiv3.soc.cas.cz/download/1180/80-2.PDF.

8. The 1979 survey on the level of economic development of Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (Comecon) countries resulted in the following ranking: 1. Soviet Union; 2. German Democratic Republic; 3. Czechoslovakia; 4. Hungary; 5. Poland; 6. Romania; 7. Bulgaria; 8. Cuba; 9. Mongolia; 10. Vietnam. See “Závěrečná zpráva č. 79-1: Názory občanů na hospodářskou integraci socialistických zemí a na některé stránky vývoje světového hospodářství” [Public Opinion on the Economic Integration of Socialist Countries and on Certain Aspects of Development of the World Economy], Institute for Public Opinion Research, Federal Statistical Office (1979), http://archiv3.soc.cas.cz/download/956/79-1.PDF. Five years later, in 1984, countries were ranked as follows in terms of economic development: 1. German Democratic Republic; 2.–3. Soviet Union/Czechoslovakia; 4. Hungary; 5.–6. Bulgaria/Poland; 7. Romania; 8. Cuba; 9. Mongolia; 10. Vietnam. See “Závěrečná zpráva č. 84-3: Názory na ekonomickou integraci socialistických zemí” [Public Opinion on Economic Integration of Socialist Countries,” Institute for Public Opinion Research, Federal Statistical Office (1984), http://archiv3.soc.cas.cz/download/1197/84-3.PDF.

9. Iva Chudilová, “Cizinci v České republice,” Naše společnost 1:1–2 (2003): 13–18.

10. Markéta Škodová, “Vztah Čechů k vybraným národnostem” [Czech Attitudes toward Select Nationalities], Press Release, Center for Public Opinion Research (January 2009), http://cvvm.soc.cas.cz/media/com_form2content/documents/c1/a3584/f3/100860s_ov90123.pdf.

11. The countries most frequently visited by the interviewees before the Velvet Revolution are West Germany, Austria, and the culturally attractive France, followed by Italy, Greece, and the Scandinavian countries: Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Finland. The least accessible countries were Great Britain and the United States.

12. Čedok, or ČEskoslovenská DOpravní Kancelář, was a state-owned travel agency, founded in 1920, which specialized in organizing foreign trips and tours for Czechoslovak citizens as well as foreigners’ visits to Czechoslovakia. The agency was privatized in the 1990s and it remains in operation. Before 1989, having an acquaintance in Čedok was a great advantage because one could be put on the list for the rare tours abroad, including to the West, and get help obtaining visas, foreign currency, etc.

13. Jan Červenka, “Hodnocení členství v EU a postoj k euru ve středoevropském srovnání—léto 2013” [The Evaluations of EU Membership and Attitudes toward the Euro in Central European Countries—Summer 2013], Press Release, Center for Public Opinion Research (October 2013), http://cvvm.soc.cas.cz/media/com_form2content/documents/c1/a7097/f3/pm131009.pdf.

14. Zdeněk Nešpor, Reemigranti a sociálně sdílené hodnoty. Prolegomena ke studiu českých reemigračních procesů 20. století se zvláštním zřetelem k západní reemigraci 90. let (Prague: Sociologický ústav AV ČR, 2002).

Chapter 4

1. The decade following the rise of the Czechoslovak state (including the period of World War II and the First Slovak Republic) were an undeniable asset in terms of education in Slovakia which experienced a much more dynamic development in the education sector than the Czech lands did. As a result, Slovaks managed not only to escape the de facto Magyarization, but also to emancipate themselves, giving a final shape to their social structure and becoming a modern European nation.

2. According to 1984 statistical surveys, the salaries of workers with university education were particularly low, whereas the ratio between secondary and primary school graduates was similar to that in many other countries. The ratio between salaries of people with primary and higher education was 100:123 in Czechoslovakia; 100:121 in Great Britain; and 100:140 in the United States. The ratio between university graduates and those with primary education was 100:156 in Czechoslovakia; 100:200 in Hungary; and 100:268 in the United States. See Lenka Kalinová, Společenské proměny v čase socialistického experimentu. K dějinám české společnosti 1945–1969 (Prague: Academia, 2007), 150–151.

3. This trend is evidenced by an increase in the number of secondary school students in Czechoslovakia in the second half of the twentieth century: in 1953–1954 there were 120,818 secondary school students; in 1960–1961—336,309 students; and in 1988–1989—536,168 students. In the age group between 15 and 64, 63% of Czechs had upper secondary education in 1988, whereas in the United States it was 46%; in Switzerland 52%; in France 33%; and in Great Britain 24%. See Jan Průcha, “Proměny a vývoj školství v Československu 1948–1989,” in Slovníková příručka k československým dějinám 1948–1989 (Prague: Ústav pro soudobé dějiny AV ČR, 2006), www.usd.cas.cz/UserFiles/File/Publikace/Prirucka48_89.pdf.

4. “Závěrečná zpráva z výzkumu č. 73-4: Mládež a společnost” [Youth and Society], Institute for Public Opinion Research, Federal Statistical Office (1973), http://archiv3.soc.cas.cz/download/1129/73-4_%C4%8C%C3%A1st1.pdf.

5. Ivo Možný, Česká společnost. Nejdůležitější fakta o kvalitě našeho života (Prague: Portál, 2002), 73–76.

6. Dana Moree, Učitelé na vlnách transformace. Kultura školy před rokem 1989 a po něm (Prague: Karolinum, 2013), 131–132.

7. The negative effects of the effort to reform education, influenced partly by the debasement of the ideals of education, its schematization and economization, have been loudly decried by Austrian philosopher and university teacher Konrad Paul Liessmann. Konrad Paul Liessmann, Theorie der Unbildung: Die Irrtümer der Wissensgesellschaft (Vienna: Paul Zsolnay Verlag, 2006). On a more practical level, Czech anthropologist Dana Moree has found traces of this phenomenon in the course of her research on contemporary primary education. See Moree, Učitelé na vlnách transformace.

8. “Expenditure on education as % of GDP or public expenditure,” Eurostat (September, 5 2015), http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/data/database?node_code=educ_figdp.

9. Jan Červenka, “Hierarchie životních cílů/Hierarchy of Lifestyles,” Press Release, Center for Public Opinion Research (December 2009), http://cvvm.soc.cas.cz/media/com_form2content/documents/c1/a3704/f3/100980s_ov91211.pdf.

10. Moree, Učitelé na vlnách transformace.

11. University instructor and primary school teacher have long ranked among the five most prestigious jobs (alongside doctor, scientist, and recently also nurse). See Milan Tuček, “Prestiž povolání—červen 2013” [Prestigious Occupations—July 2013], Press Release, Center for Public Opinion Research (September 2013), http://cvvm.soc.cas.cz/media/com_form2content/documents/c1/a7054/f3/eu130903.pdf.

12. For example in 1984, education was the worst paid sector (85.4% below the average). In that same year, workers in education, culture, and health earned the monthly equivalent of approximately 150 USD, which was more than a third less than the salary of workers in mining, metallurgy, and energy industries. See Lenka Kalinová, Společenské proměny v čase socialistického experimentu, 150–152. Internationally, according to the OECD, the annual salary of a Czech secondary school teacher in 1998 was approx. 9,000 USD, which placed them almost at the very bottom among the countries included in the comparison (1. Switzerland—42,500 USD; 2. Germany—37,500 USD; 12. USA—24,000 USD). See Možný, Česká společnost, 83. Currently, the average salary of primary and secondary school teachers is between 1,100 and 1,450 USD per month

13. Markéta Březinová, “Školy se řítí do záhuby, myslí si kantoři. Naději na zlepšení nevidí” [Schools Are Rushing to Destruction, Teachers Think. They do not See Any Hope for Improvement], iDnes.cz (September 22, 2013), http://zpravy.idnes.cz/skoly-se-riti-do-zahuby-0v2-/domaci.aspx?c=A130921_105727_domaci_maq.

14. Jakub Rákosník et al., Sociální stát v Československu (Prague: Auditorium, 2012), 338.

15. Jakub Jareš et al., Náměstí Krasnoarmějců 2. Učitelé a studenti FF UK v období normalizace (Prague: Togga, 2012), 303.

16. Faced with an growing demand for college education in postwar Czechoslovakia and in order to distribute the working force within each sector of the centrally planned economy, state and Communist Party representatives decided to set enrollment quotas for a particular school or discipline for a limited period (usually the academic year). These quotas to a great extent regulated socio-occupational and educational mobility. However, they also opened the door to potential corruption.

17. For example, in the 1987–1988 school year, there were 41,196 university applicants in all disciplines (academic, technical, economical, agricultural, artistic), of whom only 22,482 were admitted. Academic disciplines were among the most sought after (17,617 applicants, 7,938 admitted). See Lenka Kalinová, Konec nadějím a nová očekávání. K dějinám české společnosti 1969–1993 (Prague: Academia 2012), 239.

18. The so-called educational screenings (already used after 1948 and again after 1968/1969), from the Communist and state-leadership point of view, were meant to “cleanse” the universities overtly from so-called “eternal students” failing to satisfy their graduation requirements, but mainly to eliminate real or suspected opponents of the regime. Although instigated “from above,” the screenings created the impression that this was a purely internal matter taking place as part of normal university administration. For more on the screenings, see, e.g., Jareš et al., Náměstí Krasnoarmějců 2., 303.

19. Petr Matějů, “Kdo získal a kdo ztratil v socialistické redistribuci—čtyřicet let vývoje vzdělanostních nerovností v Československu,” Sociologický časopis 27:1 (1991): 18.

20. Ironically, one of the Charter 77 signatories, Martin Palouš, obtained his degree in philosophy from the Faculty of Arts at Charles University in Prague in June 1977. Among other dissidents and Charter 77 signatories, the son of Alfréd Kocáb, Michael, graduated in 1979 from the Prague Conservatory; the daughter of Zdeněk Mlynář, Milena, earned her degree in history and theory of art at the Faculty of Arts at Charles University in 1983; the older daughter of Jiří Dienstbier, Monika, managed to get permission to stay abroad long-term and study at the University of Vienna in the 1980s; his son, Jiří Dienstbier, Jr., was admitted as a student to the Mechanical Engineering Faculty at the Czech Technical University in Prague. Similarly, Dienstbier’s high school classmate, son of the dissident Václav Benda, Marek, was admitted to the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics at Charles University.

21. See Moree, Učitelé na vlnách transformace, 160.

22. Rákosník et al., Sociální stát v Československu, 347.

23. World Bank, “Government expenditure on education, total (% of GDP)” (September 6, 2015), http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SE.XPD.TOTL.GD.ZS/countries.

24. According to the 2011 census, among some 9 million Czechs above the age of fifteen, about 42,000 have not completed basic education; about 3 million have secondary education without high school diploma (including professional training); 2.4 million have a full secondary school education with high school diploma; and 1.1 million have a university diploma.

Chapter 5

1. See, e.g., Naděžda Čadová, “Postoje českých občanů k zaměstnání” [Attitudes of Czech Citizens towards Employment], Press Release, Center for Public Opinion Research. (October 2006), http://cvvm.soc.cas.cz/media/com_form2content/documents/c1/a3330/f3/100603s_eu61020.pdf.

2. The value of work occupied the third place in the surveys of 1971 (after family and friendship) and 1973 (after health), and public opinion surveys in the 1980s showed the same results. “Závěrečná zpráva z výzkumu č. 73-9: Práce a naši občané” [Work and Our Citizens], Institute for Public Opinion Research, Federal Statistical Office (1974), http://archiv3.soc.cas.cz/download/959/73-9.PDF. The value of work occupied the third place in the 1973 poll, just after family and friendship and health; in 1971, it moved up to the second position, just after health (85 points in ten pre-selected categories)—where employment scored 53 points, while “living in harmony with my family” came in the third place, with 47 points; in the fourth place, with 39, points was “living my life in peace and security.”

3. In its results our approach is very close to that of the “new labor history” represented among others by Edward P. Thompson, who was later followed by the British school of oral history, led by Paul Thompson. See E. P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class (London: Victor Gollancz, 1963) and Paul Thompson, The Edwardians: The Remaking of British Society (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1975). For a recent discussion in Czech historiography, see Michal Pullmann and Jakub Rákosník, “Dělnická třída v kontextu současné historiografie,” Dějiny–teorie–kritika 4 (2008): 271–288.

4. Lenka Kalinová, Společenské proměny v čase socialistického experimentu. K dějinám české společnosti 1945–1969 (Prague: Academia, 2007).

5. All citizens have the right to work and to remuneration for the work performed according to quantity, quality, and social significance. See Czechoslovak Constitution of 1960, Art 1, title 2.

6. Ibid., Art 19.

7. Penalizing parasitism was not an invention of Communist law; similar measures had already been in place in the nineteenth century. The provisions of section 1 of the Imperial Code 89/1885 on sweatshops and juvenile correctional institutions punished vagrancy. Even during the Protectorate (1939–1945) citizens were required to have a job, and a similar law was enforced by the Košice Government Programme in 1945–1948, i.e. before the Communist takeover in February 1948. Starting in 1957, the authorities started prosecuting as parasites all those who, to quote the letter of the law, “systematically avoided ‘honest work’ and let themselves be supported by someone else or obtained the means of subsistence in some other ‘dishonest’ manner” (s 203 of the Communist Penal Code). Those who wanted to live independently of the state-instituted work requirement and who did not have the proper stamp confirming their official employment, were also to be punished. The original sentence for parasitism was two years’ imprisonment, but in 1965 the sentence was raised to three years. Parasitism was not decriminalized until the mid-1990s.

8. Interview with Pavel Vrána (born in 1950) transcribed by Miroslav Vaněk, July 2012.

9. For more on this topic in the wider context of social and cultural history, see, e.g., Paulina Bren, “Tuzex and the Hustler: Living It Up in Czechoslovakia,” in Paulina Bren and Mary Neuburger, eds., Communism Unwrapped. Consumption in Cold War Eastern Europe (Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 2012): 27–48.

10. Interview with Pavel Horňák (born 1951, moneychanger, officially employed as car-park attendant) transcribed by Miroslav Vaněk, July 2012.

11. “Retro,” Česká televize (October 25, 2010), www.ceskatelevize.cz/ivysilani/10176269182-retro/209411000360032/titulky/.

12. The two crimes were: speculation (Article 117, paragraph 1 of the Criminal Code) and threatening the foreign exchange economy (Article 146, paragraph 2 of the Criminal Code). The issue of moneychangers and illegal trade in foreign currencies found its way into Czechoslovak popular literature and film in the late 1980s, even before the fall of the Communist regime. For example, the popular film Bony a klid (Vouchers and Calm, 1987), directed by Vít Olmer, public release of which was banned, was first distributed unofficially only on VHS tapes, and only under pressure from the public was it allowed to be screened in cinemas. Similarly, Pavel Frýbort’s popular novel, Vekslák (Prague: Mladá fronta, 1988) was originally published in a limited print run, and was very scarce on the book market. Thus, readers fortunate enough to own it, would lend it to others, and it passed literally from hand to hand.

13. “Závěrečná zpráva z výzkumu č. 73-9: Práce a naši občané” [Work and Our Citizens], Institute for Public Opinion Research, Federal Statistical Office (1974), http://archiv3.soc.cas.cz/download/959/73-9.PDF; “Závěrečná zpráva z výzkumu č. 87-7: Názory ekonomicky aktivních občanů na rezervy v československé ekonomice” [Opinions of Economically Active Citizens on the Reserves in the Czechoslovak Economy], Institute for Public opinion Research, Federal Statistical Office (1988), http://archiv3.soc.cas.cz/download/1216/1987_7.PDF.

14. “Závěrečná zpráva z výzkumu č. 87-7.”

15. “Závěrečná zpráva z výzkumu č. 73-13: Využívání pracovní doby” [Use of Work Time], Institute for Public opinion Research, Federal Statistical Office (1973). http://archiv3.soc.cas.cz/download/966/73-13.PDF.

16. Ibid., 34.

17. Ibid., 41.

18. Marcel Sauer, “Generace pracujících studentů,” Lidové noviny (May 25, 2013). See also Michaela Šmídová, Martin Vávra, and Tomáš Čížek, “Hodnotové orientace vysokoškolských studentů na třech typech fakult” [Value Orientation of University Students on Three Types of Faculties], Center for Study of Higher Education (2010). http://www.csvs.cz/aula/clanky/2010-2_clanek_hodnoty.pdf.

19. Ibid.

20. In 1973, 68% of the respondents were satisfied with their income while 32% were dissatisfied; in 1978, the ratio was 63:37, and in 1982, 59:41. The downward curve of satisfaction can be attributed to the increased expectations in standards of living. “Závěrečná zpráva z výzkumu č. 82-2: Názory občanů na práci a zaměstnání” [Opinions of Citizens on Work and Employment], Institute for Public Opinion Research, Federal Statistical Office (1983), http://archiv3.soc.cas.cz/download/1070/82-2.PDF.

21. Lenka Kalinová, Konec nadějím a nová očekávání. Dějinám české společnosti 1969–1993 (Prague: Academia 2012), 286.

22. For example, according to 1984 statistics, the average monthly salary in Czechoslovakia by category of employment was 3,087 crowns for blue-collar workers; 4,174 crowns for workers in mining, metallurgy, and energetics; 3,170 crowns for farm workers; 3,177 crowns for construction workers; 2,564 crowns for service-sector workers; 3,349 for white-collar workers; 3,708 crowns for technicians; 3,216 crowns in management and administration; 3,011 crowns in the education, culture, and healthcare sectors; and 4,052 crowns for scientist, researchers, and product developers. See ibid, 153. To give a clearer idea, the regime’s official (and considerably inflated) exchange rate between Czechoslovak crown and US dollar was in 1984 about 14.9 to 1. On the black market, where the exchange rate was much closer to the real value, the crown was sold at an exchange rate of about 30:1. See Václav Průcha et al., Hospodářské a sociální dějiny Československa 1918–1992. Období 1945–1992 (Brno: Supplement, 2009), 827–832.

23. Interview with Jaroslava Beranová (born 1956, primary school teacher) transcribed by Miroslav Vaněk, 2002. Beranová graduated from the Faculty of Education at the University of Western Bohemia. She worked as a teacher (mathematics, chemistry) in small towns in West Bohemia. Married, two daughters.

24. “Závěrečná zpráva z výzkumu č. 75-2: Názory na hospodářskou situaci” [Opinions on the Economic Situation], Institute for Public Opinion Research, Federal Statistical Office (1975), http://archiv3.soc.cas.cz/download/969/75-2.PDF.

25. Naděžda Čadová, “Nezaměstnanost z pohledu veřejného mínění” [Unemployment from the Public Opinion Perspective], Press Release, Center for Public Opinion Research (October 2006), http://cvvm.soc.cas.cz/media/com_form2content/documents/c1/a3325/f3/100598s_eu61006.pdf; Gabriela Šamanová, “Česká veřejnost o nezaměstnanosti—červen 2011” [The Czech Society on Unemployment—June 2011], Press Release, Center for Public Opinion Research (July 2011), http://cvvm.soc.cas.cz/media/com_form2content/documents/c1/a3890/f3/101168s_eu110701.pdf.

26. The remainder of the respondents thought the conditions were the same (19%), or failed to answer because they had no interest in the matter (26%).

27. The research also shows that 20% of the respondents rated the situation as neither better nor worse, and the rest failed to respond. See Naděžda Horáková, “Porovnání současných poměrů se situací před listopadem 1989” [Comparison of Current Conditions with the Situation before 1989], Press Release, Center for Public Opinion Research (April 2005), http://cvvm.soc.cas.cz/media/com_form2content/documents/c1/a3192/f3/100462s_pd50401.pdf; Klára Procházková, “Srovnání poměrů dnes a před rokem 1989” [Comparison of Conditions Today and before 1989], Press Release, Center for Public Opinion Research (November 2006), http://cvvm.soc.cas.cz/media/com_form2content/documents/c1/a3341/f3/100614s_pd61109.pdf.

28. “Obavy z chudoby a stáří vedou Čechy do ordinací psychiatrů” [Worries about Poverty and Old Age Bringing Czechs into Offices of Psychiatrists], Novinky.cz (September 17, 2011), www.novinky.cz/domaci/244912-obavy-z-chudoby-a-stari-vedou-cechy-do-ordinaci-psychiatru.html. This can be partly explained by the growing reputation of psychiatrists, the decrease of fear and shame in patients consulting them, and the fact that psychiatric care is covered by state health insurance.

29. There are no statistics on suicide caused by the loss of employment, but from the media we increasingly learn about tragic solutions to situations beyond people’s control. See, e.g., “Propuštěný učitel se oběsil přímo ve škole v Ostravě-Vítkovicích” [Fired Teacher Hanged Himself in His School], Novinky.cz (June 1, 2012), www.novinky.cz/krimi/269317-propusteny-ucitel-se-obesil-primo-ve-skole-v-ostrave-vitkovicich.html.

30. Jiří Vavroň, “Lidé by si teď hlavně měli udržet práci, apelují odborníci” [Hold on To Your Jobs, Experts Appeal], Novinky.cz (June 1, 2012) www.novinky.cz/ekonomika/274461-lide-by-si-ted-hlavne-meli-udrzet-praci-apeluji-odbornici.html.

Chapter 6

1. Here the amount of free time also includes people’s work in their own plots and gardens. See “Závěrečná zpráva z výzkumu č. 74-2: Způsob života a vzdělání” [Way of Life and Education], Institute for Public Opinion Research, Federal Statistical Office (1974), http://archiv3.soc.cas.cz/download/1149/74-2_%C4%8C%C3%A1st1.pdf; “Závěrečná zpráva z výzkumu č. 74-3: Aktuální problémy života občanů” [Current Problems in Citizens’ Lives], Institute for Public Opinion Research, Federal Statistical Office (1974), http://archiv3.soc.cas.cz/download/1151/74-3_%C4%8C%C3%A1st1.pdf.

2. Gabriela Šamanová, “Volný čas” [Leisure Time], Press Release, Center for Public Opinion Research (January 2010), http://cvvm.soc.cas.cz/media/com_form2content/documents/c1/a3718/f3/100994s_OZ100114.pdf.

3. See “Závěrečná zpráva z výzkumu č. 74-2” and “Závěrečná zpráva z výzkumu č. 74-3.”

4. Šamanová, “Volný čas.”

5. See “Závěrečná zpráva z výzkumu č. 74-2” and “Závěrečná zpráva z výzkumu č. 74-3.”

6. According to a 2009 survey, more than a third of Czech respondents go to a cinema or theatre at least once a year; a third go to a gallery or an art exhibition; less than a third go to a popular music concert; and almost a fifth go to a classical music concert. See Šamanová, “Volný čas.”

7. See, e.g., Milan Otáhal, Opozice, moc a společnost. Příspěvek k dějinám “normalizace” (Prague: Maxdorf, 1994); Lenka Kalinová, Konec nadějím a nová očekávání. Dějinám české společnosti 1969–1993 (Prague: Academia, 2012).

8. In the mid-1960s, Czechoslovakia had about 14 million inhabitants and about 400,000 cars; in 1989, the ratio was 15 million people and 2.3 million cars; in 2000, in the Czech Republic only, there were 10 million people and 3.5 million cars; and in 2012, as many as 4.6 million cars for 10 million people. Ivo Možný, Česká společnost. Nejdůležitější fakta o kvalitě našeho života (Prague: Portál, 2002).

9. A notable exception was some narrators with a talent for telling stories and often with public-speaking experience. These narrators were able to illustrate their stories with many anecdotes, digressions, and side-stories, including some about their leisure activities.

10. For Czech historiography of leisure and free time, see Martin Franc and Jiří Knapík, Volný čas v českých zemích 1957–1967 (Prague: Academia, 2013).

11. Among TV series popular before the Velvet Revolution, that have significantly contributed to shaping the collective memory (and still do as re-runs), we should mention the TV comedy series Chalupáři (1975) which portrays life in the country through the eyes of a retired man who has moved from a city to a village. A similar post-1989 production is the TV series Okresní přebor (2010) which is about a sports league season of a village soccer team.

12. According to the data of the Czech Statistical Office, in 1948, consumption was 76 liters per capita; in the early 1970s, it was already 160 liters per capita; and since then, it has remained around 140–160 liters per capita annually (with a peak in 2005—163.5 liters). See “Trendy ve spotřebě potravin v České republice” [Trends in Foods Consumption in the Czech Republic], Czech Statistical Office (2011), https://www.czso.cz/csu/czso/trendy_ve_spotrebe_potravin20110216.

13. In 1958, cinema attendance was 148.5 million; in 1990 it was only 51 million; in 2001 only 10 million; and in 2012, 11 million. See Možný, Česká společnost. The symbolic intersection of the downward curve of cinema attendance and the soaring curve of TV viewership on the eve of the Prague Spring in 1968 further illustrates the profound changes in life in Czechoslovak society.

14. After 1989, there was a significant decline in magazine readership and a pursuing of hobbies. See Šamanová, “Volný čas.”

15. In the Czech context, the word chata (cottage) is used for a small recreational home, originally rather simple and inhabited only in summer. By contrast, a chalupa (holiday home) was originally a farmhouse, which when it no longer served its original purpose, was remodelled for the purposes of recreation, and could be inhabited throughout the year. An allotment garden is a small plot of land in a communal area, used by individual tenants or owners to grow fruit and vegetables but also for recreation.

16. For a history of second homes in the Russian, Soviet, and post-Soviet context, see Stephen Lovell, Summerfolk: A History of the Dacha, 1710–2000 (Ithaca, NY/London: Cornell University Press 2003).

17. Petra Schnidler-Wisten, Společenské aspekty chalupářské subkultury v období tzv. normalizace (PhD Dissertation, Faculty of Humanities, Charles University, Prague, 2010), 49. According to the data, in the early 1990s, 12% (or even 13.5%) of households owned a holiday home: we consider that these figures are not only exaggerated but in fact doubled. Based on available data of the Czech Statistical Office (4,051,582 households in the Czech Republic in 1991) and based on the data from Petra Schindler-Wisten (in 1930, the number of recreational buildings in the Czech lands was 22,964; in 1945 it was already 40,174; 62,487 in 1955; 108,925 in 1965; 156,402 in 1971; 224,992 in 1980; and 267,632 in 1991), we came to the conclusion that after the Velvet Revolution (in 1991, specifically) between 6% and 7% of Czech households owned a recreation property.

18. See, e.g., Oto Ulč, “Some Aspects of Czechoslovak Society Since 1968,” Social Forces: Special Issue 57:2 (December 1978): 419–435. See also also Otáhal, Opozice, moc a společnost 1969–1989; Kalinová, Konec nadějím a nová očekávání. These studies and the standpoints they represent have been influential, as they have been taken up by a number of international scholars. See, e.g., Paulina Bren, “Weekend Getaways: The Chata, the Tramp and the Politics of Private Life in Post-1968 Czechoslovakia,” in David Crowley and Susan E. Reid, eds., Socialist Spaces. Sites of Everyday Life in the Eastern Bloc (Oxford/New York: Berg 2002), 123–140.

19. Paradoxically, many Czech critics of the “silent majority” of Czech “normalization,” with its alleged leanings toward consumerism and a petty-bourgeois lifestyle, either themselves owned recreational homes or were frequent guests in those of their dissident friends. A symbol of such meetings was the country home at Hrádeček near Trutnov, which belonged to Václav and Olga Havel.

20. For the Russian case during the Soviet era, see, e.g., Stephen Lovell, “Soviet Exurbia: Dachas in Postwar Russia,” in David Crowley and Susan E. Reid, eds., Socialist Spaces. Sites of Everyday Life in the Eastern Bloc (Oxford/New York: Berg, 2002), 105–122.

21. Communist state and Communist Party powers intervened in the construction and maintenance of second houses throughout the period 1948–1989, partly through ideology and partly through legislation. For example, after 1948, renting houses for accommodation verged on being illegal, thus virtually wiping out the tradition of the so-called summer quarters. Similarly, from the early 1970s on, the interventionist regime significantly restricted the construction of new cottages in the wild, except for those built in approved cottage settlements, a restriction which thus led indirectly to the remodeling and adaptation of existing farmhouses into recreational buildings.

22. Already in the Austro-Hungarian period, many wealthier members of the middle class started to build wooden cottages in areas with natural attractions, near larger cities, or converted farmhouses into recreational buildings. Less affluent people started garden allotments on rented land near their hometowns. Younger people enjoyed spending time outdoors, whether as part of the scout movement or backpacking with friends, which was the specifically Czech version of a romantically conceived American Wild West. These camping activities and the free hiking trips of scouts and backpackers became a thorn in the side not only of many local residents but also of the police and the administration under all pre-Velvet Revolution governments.

23. Mediterranean countries also have a long tradition of summer homes; unlike Czech country homes, these are, however, only summer dwellings.

24. Some of the world’s greatest lovers of country homes are the Scandinavians, mainly Swedes and Norwegians. Unlike Czech cottages and country homes, their homes are located up to ten times farther away from their permanent residences, which significantly reduces the chance of their being used on weekends. Compared to their Czech counterparts, they are rather austere and simple in their amenities.

25. The Czechoslovak Union of Gardeners and Fruit Growers was established in 1957 as the single representative national organization which subsumed previously existing cultivation, breeding, and beautification societies, clubs, and associations. After the federalization of Czechoslovakia in 1968, the Union was divided into the Czech and Slovak sections. The Czech Union of Gardeners was transformed into a civic association and it maintained its continuity after 1989; currently, it has nearly 170,000 members in 3,000 general and 17 specialized organizations, which makes it the largest non-political grouping in the Czech Republic.

26. In its emphasis on crofting, Czech gardening is similar to the Russian dacha phenomenon, with the obvious exception of the luxurious dachas belonging to the Russian elites and country residencies of the former Soviet nomenclature.

27. Schnidler-Wisten, Společenské aspekty chalupářské subkultury.

28. Ibid.

29. Czech Statistical Office data from 2011 indicates that 168,723 uninhabited houses were serving for recreation; with a total number of 4,104,635 households, it means that 4% of households owned a holiday home. See “Neobydlené domy s byty podle druhu a důvodu neobydlenosti a byty v neobydlených domech podle velikostních skupin obcí a krajů” [Unoccupied Houses with Apartments by Type and Reason for not being Occupied, by Size of the Municipality and Region], Czech Statistical Office (2012), http://vdb.czso.cz/sldbvo/#!stranka=podle-tematu&tu=30722&th=&vseuzemi=null&v=&vo=null&void.

30. Czech Statistical Office data from 2011 indicates that 35,480 Czechs live in their cottages and country homes permanently. “Domy a obydlí mimo bytový fond podle obydlenosti počtu bytů a obvykle bydlících osob podle druhu domu” [Houses and Homes Outside the Housing Stock according to Population in Flats and Usually Living People, according to Type of Building], Czech Statistical Office (2012), http://vdb.czso.cz/sldbvo/#!stranka=podle-tematu&tu=30722&th=&vseuzemi=null&v=&vo=null&void.

31. According to the official statistics, in 1981, 171.9 million people participated in domestic tourism and 9.3 million people in foreign tourism. See Antonín Franke, Rukověť cestovního ruchu (Prague: Merkur, 1984), 48, 69.

32. These memories are in line with the mass use of charter flights by travel agencies and also with the sharp increase in low-cost airlines after 2000.

33. After a considerable rise in the 1950s (in 1961, life expectancy was 67.5 for men and 73.4 for women), it remained the same for the next thirty years, due to the polluted environment and to the increase in cancer and other diseases. After 1990, with the development of new medical technologies and increased health and lifestyle awareness, life expectancy started to go up again, as it had done in the West two decades earlier; today it is 72 for men and 79 for women. See Jana Langhamrová, “Střední délka života v České republice a v zemích EU” [Life Expectancy in the Czech Republic and EU Countries], Department of Demography and Informatics, University of Economics in Prague, http://kdem.vse.cz/resources/relik10/PDFstudenti/Langhamrova.pdf. Despite this rise, life expectancy in the countries of the former Eastern bloc lags behind the more developed parts of Europe by four to five years.

Chapter 7

1. Ladislav Holý, Malý český člověk a skvělý český národ (Prague: SLON, 1997).

2. “Závěrečná zpráva z výzkumu č. 88-4: Názory našich občanov na vedúcu úlohu strany” [Opinions of Our Citizens to the Leading Role of the Communist Party], Institute for Public Opinion Research, Federal Statistical Office (1988), http://archiv3.soc.cas.cz/download/1219/1988_4.PDF.

3. Ibid., 30.

4. Ibid., 31.

5. Martin Durdovič, “Spokojenost se stavem ve vybraných oblastech veřejného života” [Satisfaction with the Situation in Selected Areas of Public Life], Press Release, Center for Public Opinion Research (February 2013), 3, http://cvvm.soc.cas.cz/media/com_form2content/documents/c1/a6957/f3/ps130220.pdf.

6. Our project description, “We are interested in your life before November 1989 and after,” may have influenced people’s responses. If we had put emphasis on ethnicity or gender, we may have heard differently constructed stories.

7. In January 1968, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia had 1,690,977 members in a population of 15 million; after the purges related to their opposition to the invasion by the Warsaw Pact Armies, more than 330,000 members were expelled from the Communist Party. In October 1970, the Communist Party had 1,217,246 members. By 1989, this number had increased to some 1.5 million members. See Jiří Maňák, Čistky v Komunistické straně Československa 1969–1970 (Prague: Institute for Contemporary History AV Č, 1997), 57–58.

8. In 1970, Šimečka was forced to leave the academy and work menial jobs. In 1981, as a result of a secret police raid, he was charged with alleged sedition (Criminal Code, section 98, paragraphs 1 and 2 lit. a and b) and taken into custody, where he spent one year.

9. Milan Šimečka, Obnovení pořádku (London: Rozmluvy, 1984), 34.

10. Ibid., 34–35.

11. Law on the Time of Non-freedom No. 480/1991 Coll; Act on the Illegality of the Communist Regime and on Resistance Against It, No. 198/1993 Coll.

12. Maňák, Čistky v Komunistické straně Československa 1969–1970, 9.

13. We have here a mode of “narration as self-justification” (Rechtfertigungsgeschichte), as described by Albrecht Lehmann. See Albrecht Lehmann, “Rechtfertigungsgeschichten: über eine Funktion des Erzählen eigener Erlebnisse im Alltag,” Fabula 22 (1980): 56–69. Lehman uses the term to describe life stories of individuals who as part of their self-reflection and self-interpretation perceive their memories as painful, unpleasant, and embarrassing, and thus feel the necessity to offer their listeners an acceptable version.

14. Miroslav Vaněk, ed., Mocní a bezmocní? Politické elity a dissent v období tzv. normalizace. Interpretační studie živopisných interview (Prague: Prostor, 2006).

15. Miroslav Vaněk and Pavel Urbášek, eds., Vítězové? Poražení? Politické elity a disent v období tzv. normalizace. Životopisná interview (Prague: Prostor, 2005), 644.

16. If historian Paulina Bren speaks of “privatized citizenship” when describing the political and social life of ordinary people in normalized Czechoslovakia, then we ask in what ways their situation differs from the period of transformation after 1989 and whether the concept of “privatized public engagement” can be applied to the examination of the history of Czech society after 1989, as well. For more on the concept of “privatized citizenship,” coined by Lauren Berlant (who used it to describe American society in the Reagan era), see Paulina Bren, The Greengrocer and His TV. The Culture of Communism after the 1968 Prague Spring (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2010): 148–150.

17. Ivo Možný, Proč tak snadno … Některé rodinné důvody sametové revoluce (Prague: SLON, 1999), 65–66.

18. Ibid., 66–67.

19. Ibid., 67.

20. For more details about Tuzex, see note 10 in Chapter 5.

21. Anonymus Pragensis, “Sociopatologie československé společnosti,” Listy 5 (September 1988): 53–54.

22. Criminal Code, Act No. 140/1961, Part Two, Special Part, Chapter Two: Economic Crimes.

23. Marek Loužek, “Buďme hrdí na kupónovou privatizaci” [Let’s Be Proud of Voucher Privatization], Centrum pro ekonomiku a politiku (March 1, 2003), http://cepin.cz/cze/prednaska.php?ID=492.

24. “Bohatí jsou moc bohatí, ale závistiví nejsme, myslí si většina Čechů” [Rich People are too Rich, but we are not Envious, Thinks the Majority of Czechs], Novinky.cz (January 11, 2014), www.novinky.cz/ekonomika/324210-bohati-jsou-moc-bohati-ale-zavistivi-nejsme-mysli-si-vetsina-cechu.html.

25. Ibid.

26. “V Česku jsou nejnižší rozdíly mezi bohatými a chudými” [The Czech Republic has the Lowest Gap Between the Rich and the Poor], Finance (June 11, 2013), www.finance.cz/zpravy/finance/391079-v-cesku-jsou-nejnizsi-rozdily-mezi-bohatymi-a-chudymi/.

Conclusion

1. This compulsive need for discussion, for catharsis, and for “understanding the past” in the former Eastern bloc, and the resulting idealization of the West characterized by “lightness of being,” future-oriented gaze, and quintessential “Europeanness,” is precisely what some scholars perceive as the main difference between East and West. See Maria Todorova and Zsusza Gille, Post-Communist Nostalgia (New York: Berghahn Books, 2010).

2. For a model summary of examples of the difference between theory and practice in the transition in the former post-Communist countries, see, e.g., Manduhai Buyandelgeriyn, “Post-Post-Transition Theories: Walking on Multiple Paths,” Annual Review of Anthropology, 37 (2008): 235–250.

3. See further, e.g., Jiří Koubek and Martin Polášek, Antikomunismus nekonečný příběh české politiky? (Prague: Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, 2013), http://fesprag.ecn.cz/img_upload/3403f47f1c75ee9d75621c7be5f8ebdd/antikomunismus_nekonecny_pribeh_ceske_politiky.pdf.

4. On ways of “dealing with the Communist past,” see, e.g., Martin Polášek et al., Mezi masovou a kartelovou stranou: možnosti teorie při výkladu vývoje ČSSD a KSČM v letech 2000-2010 (Praha: SLON, 2012).

5. These theses were empirically confirmed on British and American high school students. See Constantine Sidikides et al., “Nostalgia: Past, Present and Future,” in Current Directions in Psychological Science, 17:5 (October 2008): 304–306.

6. See, e.g., Zbyněk Vlasák, “Bourání stereotypů bude bolet, říká sociální historik Michal Pullmann” [Abolishing Stereotypes Will Hurt, Said Historian Michal Pullmann], Novinky.cz (September 29, 2011), www.novinky.cz/kultura/salon/245658-bourani-stereotypu-bude-bolet-rika-socialni-historik-michal-pullmann.html.

7. This follows from the study Global Millennial Survey conducted in 2013 by the Penn, Schoen & Berland Associates at the request of Telefónica and the British daily Financial Times. The basis for the study was a survey in which 12,171 respondents aged between 18 and 30, from 27 countries on four continents (500 of them Czech) were polled. See “Co si o své budoucnosti myslí mladí Češi?” [What Do Young Czechs Think about Their Future?], Telefónica. https://www.o2.cz/_pub/2d/6f/6d/315101_799105_Telefonica_Global_Millennial_Survey.pdf

8. See, e.g., James Mark, The Unfinished Revolution. Making Sense of the Communist Past in Central-Eastern Europe (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2011).

9. Muriel Blaive, “Nestydět se za své dějiny” [To Not Be Ashamed of One’s Own History], Britské listy (February 20, 2014), www.blisty.cz/art/72224.html.

10. Ibid.

Appendix 1

1. “Jindřich Štreit, fotograf,” Týdeník Rozhlas 37 (2012), http://www.radioservis-as.cz/archiv12/37_12/37_titul.htm.

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THE OXFORD ORAL HISTORY SERIES

J. Todd Moye (University of North Texas)

Donald A. Ritchie,

Kathryn Nasstrom (University of San Francisco)

Senior Advisor

Robert Perks (The British Library),

Series Editors

Approaching an Auschwitz Survivor: Holocaust Testimony and Its Transformations  Edited by Jürgen Matthäus

Singing Out: An Oral History of America’s Folk Music Revivals David K. Dunaway and Molly Beer

Freedom Flyers: The Tuskegee Airmen of World War II  J. Todd Moye

Launching the War on Poverty: An Oral History, Second Edition Michael L. Gillette

The Firm: The Inside Story of the Stasi  Gary Bruce

The Wonder of Their Voices: The 1946 Holocaust Interviews of David Boder Alan Rosen

They Say in Harlan County: An Oral History Alessandro Portelli

The Oxford Handbook of Oral History  Edited by Donald A. Ritchie

Habits of Change: An Oral History of American Nuns  Carole Garibaldi Rogers

Soviet Baby Boomers: An Oral History of Russia’s Cold War Generation Donald J. Raleigh

Bodies of Evidence: The Practice of Queer Oral History  Edited by Nan Alamilla Boyd and Horacio N. Roque Ramírez

Lady Bird Johnson: An Oral History  Michael L. Gillette

Dedicated to God: An Oral History of Cloistered Nuns  Abbie Reese

Listening on the Edge: Oral History in the Aftermath of Crisis Edited by Mark Cave and Stephen M. Sloan

Chinese Comfort Women: Testimonies from Imperial Japan’s Sex Slaves Peipei Qiu, with Su Zhiliang and Chen Lifei

Doing Oral History, Third Edition  Donald A. Ritchie

A Guide to Oral History and the Law, Second Edition  John A. Neuenschwander

Index

affirmative action, 108, 109–10

allotment gardens, 156–57, 158, 160, 234n15

apartments, 183, 184, 227n22

avoidance, 20

baby boom/baby boomers, 52, 151

Balajka, Bohumír, 155, 193–94, 207

Baloun, Václav, 207

Battle of White Mountain (1620), 224n29

Bauman, Zygmunt, 19

Bažant, Milan, 35, 207

“belt tightening,” 194

Beluš, Jan, 12, 108, 155, 207

Benešová, Monika, 189, 207

Benetka, Karel, 23, 207

Beníšková, Anneliese

biography of, 207

on discrimination in education, 107

on free time, 145

on managing work and family, 54

on marriage, 48

on teachers, 102

on Western estates, 85–86

birth control, 47

birth rate, 46–47, 52

black market, 11, 123–24

black sheep, 63

Blaive, Muriel, 203

Blážová, Irena, 54, 162, 207

Bloch, Michael, 27, 207

blue-collar workers, as Communist Party members, 175

Bony a klid, 232n12

bribery, 113–14, 188–90

Buchwaldek, Boleslav, 59–60, 207

Čajník, Jan, 69, 97, 111, 132, 207

Caletka, Jan, 137, 148, 176, 177, 208

Čáp, Jiří, 187, 188, 191, 208

Čapek, Karel, 117

capitalism. See also division of Czech society; privatization

comparing socialism and, 199–200, 222n6

cynicism regarding, 192–97

difficulties of transformation to, 200–201

disadvantages of, 29, 136

employment under socialism versus, 142–44

people’s understanding of, 220n18

shock of, 137–42

worries stemming from, 202

car ownership, 164–65, 191, 234n8

Čedok, 24, 229n12

Čejka, Petr, 102, 208

celebrities, 192

censorship, 30–35, 199, 223n21

Central Management of Press Supervision, 31

Cepek, Josef, 15, 208

Chalupáři, 234n11

Charter 77, 31, 33, 231n20

Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms, 224–25n36

Chernobyl accident, 34

childcare, 53, 55–57, 227n32

children

education of, 58–62

holidays of, 161–63

civic organizations, 154

Civil Code, 106

Čížová, Ludmila, 38, 196, 197, 208

clientelism, 185–87

Communist Party membership, 137, 172–85, 236n7

Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia, 173

Communist regime. See also division of Czech society; socialism

alienation of, from citizens, 13

clientelism under, 185–87

collapse of, 1, 13–14

conditions under, 10–11

Czech public opinion on, 4–5

employment under, 120–23

institution of, 9–10

legacy of, 201–3

meaning of freedom and peace under, 17, 19–20

power of, challenged, 11–12

rejection of, 169

ruled criminal and contemptible, 173

travel under, 165–67

weakens family, 46

connections, 186–92

consumer goods, 28–29, 75, 79–80, 82–83, 185–92

consumerism, 42, 51

contraception, 47

corruption, 41, 113–14, 188–95

country homes, 22, 156–61, 234nn15, 17, 235nn16, 21–24, 29, 236n30

Cuba, 79

Czajkowski, Igor, 125–26, 208

Czechoslovak Union of Gardeners and Fruit Growers, 235n25

Czech Republic

conditions in, 203–4

history of, 8–14

identity of citizens, 20–21

public opinion in, 4

scholarship on, 1–3

stereotypes of citizens, 223n10

Western endorsements of, 83–84

Westernization of, 73

Czech Union of Gardeners and Fruit Growers, 235n25

Dienstbier, Jiří, 122–23, 208

discrimination, in education, 106–13

division of Czech society, 169–71

assumptions versus reality, 171–72

bribes and favors, 188–92

clientelism, 185–87

non-Communists versus Communists, 172–85

privatization, 192–97

divorce, 50–52, 226n14

Dosedělová, Eva, 78, 110, 179, 182, 208

Dražský, Arnošt, 180–81, 208

dress code, 19

“dual” education, 58–63, 228n35

Ducháček, General, 102

Ducko, Milan, 154, 180, 208

Dvořák, Zlatko, 174, 194–95, 208

Dvořáková, Eva, 55–56, 66, 76–77, 82–83, 208–9

East Germany, 79

economic crimes, 194–95

economic freedom, 40–42

economic transformation, 85–86

education. See also schools

as central in life stories, 92–94

and Communist Party membership, 182, 184

democratization of, 90–91, 112

discrimination in, 106–13

and disenfranchisement with capitalism, 141–42

effects of, 99–100

employment and, 98–99

during First Republic and World War II, 95–96

gap in, 91–92, 115

history of Czech, 89–91, 115

increase in secondary school students, 229n3

memories of schoolwork and classmates, 96–98

of narrators’ children, 113–15

salary and, 229n2

and self-development, 152

in Slovakia, 229n1

state versus family, 58–63, 228n35

statistics on attainment, 231n24

teacher’s role in, 100–105

in urban versus rural areas, 94–95

value of, 115–16

educational screenings, 230n18

efficiency, 124–29

Eksler, Jan, 133, 183–84, 209

Ekslerová, Alena, 53, 56, 131, 156, 209

emigration, 25–26, 71, 223n16

employment. See also free time; moonlighting

and Communist Party membership, 175, 181–84

education and, 91, 98–99, 114

and efficiency of socialism, 124–29

with foreign employers, 84–85

leisure time and shaping of future, 152

pride in, 129–32

right to work and worker responsibilities, 119–24

and shock of market economy, 137–42

under socialism versus capitalism, 142–44

social networks and, 133–37

understanding meaning of, 118–19

vacation and, 163

value of, 117–18, 231n2

of women, 53–54

envy, 135–36

Erbanová, Jarmila, 45, 164, 204, 209

European Union, 80, 87–88

“Evaluation of the Results Achieved through the Building of Socialism in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic,” 16–17

family.See also free time

black sheep, skeletons in the closet, and secrets in, 62–63

changes undergone by, 67–68

closing off of, 57–58

and Communist Party membership, 179–80

decline of traditional, 43–44

and education of children, 58–62

and formation of image of foreigners, 73

as foundation of state and enemy of state ideologies, 45–46

marriage and, 46–52

and maternity leave, 55–57

memories of emigrant, 71

narrators’ discussion of, 44–45, 118

theft of state property and providing for, 63–67

vacation with, 162–63

values regarding, 225n2

visits to, 156, 162

and women’s liberation, 52–54

farming, 155

fathers, loss of authority of, 61

favors, 190–92

fear, 197

Filipová, Milena, 159, 209

Fisherová, Daniela, 11

Flodrová, Milena, 170, 177, 189, 209

Fojtík, Karel, 93, 98, 209

foreign currency exchange, 123–24

foreign currency vouchers, 23–24

foreign employment, 84–85

foreigners and foreign countries

Czech society’s preferences towards, 71

dealing with “friendly” East, 76–81

formation of ideas about, 73–76

identity and concept of, 69–71

interactions with West, 81–86

memories regarding, 71–73

perception of, 86–89

foreign languages, 75–76, 90

foreign radio programs, 32–33, 223–24n25

foreign relations, 87

Francis, Pope, 42

freedom. See also rights

and allures of West, 27–30

comparison of current and past, 15

in Czech Republic, 204

division of Czechs on issue of, 19–20

economic, 40–42

of information and speech, 30–35, 223n18

narrators’ discussion of, 17–18

of religion, 35–40, 224–25n36

surveys and public opinion on, 16–17

of travel, 23–27

views on, 16

Western Europeans on, in Czechoslovakia, 22–23

Western versus Czech, 86

free time, 145–46, 167–68

narrators’ discussion of, 146–49

past versus present, 149–55

at summer homes and gardens, 156–61

travel and, 161–67

on weekends, 155–56

Friedman, Milton, 16, 195

“friendly” East, 76–81

friendship, 133–34, 154, 155

Fromm, Erich, 21

frugality, 194

Frýbort, Pavel, 232n12

Fučík, Libor

on agricultural cooperative farm headquarters, 74

biography of, 209

on Communist Party membership, 174, 178

on Czech entry into European Union, 87

on interactions with foreigners, 72

on religious education, 37–38

on rural education, 95

gardens, 156–57, 158, 160, 234n15

German Democratic Republic, 79

German language, 75

Grele, Ronald J., 6

group activities, 150–51

group travel, 163–64

Habrovec, Zdeněk, 79, 209

Halík, Tomáš, 36

Hamplová, Dana, 51

happiness, 40–42, 200

Havel, Václav, 3

Havrda, Jan

biography of, 210

on Communist Party membership, 178, 179, 183

education of, 94

on education of son, 113

on travel ban, 23

heroes, 21–22

Hille, Jaroslav, 34, 119, 130, 160, 210

history

approaches to, 2–3

of Czech Republic, 8–14

sources for studying, 5–7

Holá, Dagmar, 187, 210

holidays, 161–67

Holý, Ladislav, 20

home construction, 152–53, 159, 227n22

Honzík, Milan, 40, 60, 107, 150, 158, 210

Horáček, Jiří, 183, 210

housing

apartments, 183, 184, 227n22

home construction, 152–53, 159, 227n22

intergenerational, 49–50

second homes, 22, 156–61, 234nn15, 17, 235nn16, 21–24, 29, 236n30

Hrdina, Jan, 32, 155, 210

Hrstková, Eva, 121, 136, 210

Hrubeš, Jan, 122, 210

Hruška, Bohumil, 29, 210

Hudec, František, 164–65, 210

Husák, Gustáv, 52

hydrology, 83

Hyský, Vladimír, 84, 128, 163, 182, 210

ideologies

of Communist Party members, 178–79

family and, 45–46

shift in, 200

immigrant labor, 80–81

individualism, 44

information, right to unbiased, 30–35

Jakeš, Miloš, 10, 210

Janoščík, Václav

biography of, 210

on corruption under capitalism, 194, 195

on Czech hydrology, 83

on foreign media, 32

on free time, 152

on theft of state property, 65

Jelínek, Václav, 103, 136, 141, 151, 211

Jiránek, Miroslav, 40, 170, 211

job satisfaction, 125

job security, 137

journalism, 30–35

Kalous, Jaroslav, 14, 211

Karásek, Svatopluk, 36

Kisza, Herbert, 24, 120, 152, 211

Klausová, Zdenka, 159, 211

Knytlová, Zdeňka, 55, 66, 128, 131, 211

Kohák, Erazim, 36

Kolář, Pavel, 2

Konečný, Josef, 124, 164, 175, 211

Kotrlá, Iva, 12, 211

Kovaříková, Marie, 43, 154, 211

Králová, Marcela, 49, 119, 211

Krásová, Milada, 187, 189, 190, 211

Krátký, Jan, 100, 166, 192, 196–97, 211

Křepelka, Josef, 126, 133–34, 212

Krudencová, Jaroslava, 34, 103, 120, 135, 196, 212

Kubátová, Miroslava, 105, 106, 158, 212

Kvasnička, Oldřich, 37, 212

Lässigová, Jana, 187, 212

legacy, 141

leisure. See free time

Leksová, Marie, 165, 190, 212

life expectancy, 236n33

light, 27–28

Lindroos, Hilkka, 22–23, 41, 212

little Czechs, 20–22

Loewenstein, Bedřich, 69

Luksch, Jan, 77, 212

Malý, Václav, 122, 212

Man, Josef, 99–100, 142, 212

manual workers, as Communist Party members, 175

market economy. See capitalism

Marko, Miloš, 19

marriage, 46–52, 151, 226nn8, 12, 14

Marx, Karl, 16

Masaryk, Tomáš Garrigue, 8–9, 193, 197

Matějů, Petr, 111–12

maternity leave, 53, 55–57, 227n30

media. See also foreign radio programs

and formation of image of foreigners, 73–74

and freedom of speech and right to unbiased information, 30–35

public opinion on, 224n26

memory. See also division of Czech society

free time and conscious (re)construction of, 148

influence of collective, 72, 170–71

joint creation of, 3

limits of, 6–7

plurality of, 130

subjective, 6

Mertlík, Jan, 160, 212

Mesteková, Ludmila, 12–13, 24–25, 89, 94, 101, 212

Mikoláš, Robert, 19

military service, 99, 110–11, 226n11

Mill, John Stuart, 223n18

Mitscherlich, Alex, 61

Mlezivová, Marie, 81, 139, 212

money, family discussion of, 63

moneychangers, 123–24, 232n12

moonlighting, 54, 152, 182

Mototechna garages, 189

Možný, Ivo, 185

Mückeová, Viluše, 28, 212

Myška, Petr, 141, 199–200, 213

Nassová, Anna, 135

National Front government, 9

networking, 186–92

Neuwirthová, Anna, 127, 213

newlywed loan, 52, 226–27n21

Niesner, Konrád

biography of, 213

on Communist Party membership, 175, 176

on freedom, 15

on friendship with coworkers, 133

on income gap, 196

on moonlighting, 152

on national hatred following Communist revolution, 96

on pride in work, 131

on privatization, 197

on unemployment, 139

Nietzsche, Friedrich, 16

normalization, 12–13

child benefits during, 55

Communist Party membership during, 176

foreign media during, 32

pro-natal measures under, 52

religious freedom during, 39–40

North Atlantic Treaty Organization, 80

nostalgia, 7, 202–3, 221n29

Novák, Albín, 29, 174, 213

Novotná, Jana, 188, 190, 213

nurseries, 53, 55–56

Okresní přebor, 234n11

oral histories, 5–7

Ostmeyer, Jürgen, 22, 213

parasitism, 120–23, 231–32n7

Pardonová, Blanka, 65, 213

participatory dictatorships, 3–4

Pavezová, Jaroslava, 141, 213

Pavlík, Milan, 74, 79, 87, 136, 196, 213

peace

and Communist Party membership, 180

countries threatening, 70–71

freedom and, 17

Pečená, Dana, 157, 213

Perina, Jan, 95, 109, 213

Peterková, Marie, 66, 214

pillage, 192–94

Pioneer Organization of the Socialist Union of Youth, 228n37

pioneer organizations, 162

Pithart, Petr, 21

Plaček, Bohumír, 184, 214

Plachá, Marie, 98, 134, 150, 214

Poland, 80

political involvement, 128–29

population wave, 52

Portelli, Alessandro, 6–7

Potměšil, Tomáš, 18, 82, 200, 214

pregnancy, 47, 48

pride, in work, 129–32

privatization. See capitalism

privatized citizenship, 13

productivity, 124–29

Prošková, Eliška, 93, 138, 151, 188–89, 214

Pullman, Michal, 3

Quastová, Julie, 47, 50, 103, 119, 125, 214

radio, 32–33, 223–24n25

Radio Free Europe, 32–33

Raszka, Karel, 7, 75, 94, 214

Ráž, Jan, 75, 214

religion

freedom of, 35–40, 224–25n36

statistics on, 224nn29, 30, 225n37

retirement, 154–55

rights. See also freedom

freedom through, 16, 17, 19

to work, 119–24

Roma, 112

Ruml, Jiří, 9, 214

Russian language, 75–76, 90

Růžička, Jiří, 72, 104–5, 132, 174, 214

Růžičková, Alena, 51, 75, 113–14, 137, 153, 214

salaries, 135–36, 229n2, 230n12, 232–33n20, 22

Samec, Ivo, 49, 157–58, 214–15

Schindler-Wisten, Petra, 160

Schneiderová, Gertruda, 28, 29, 139, 215

Schöbel, Walter, 177, 215

schools. See also education

connections through, 187

enrollment quotas for, 230n16

religion in, 37–38

Šebek, Jaromir, 32–33, 92, 215

second homes, 22, 156–61, 234nn15, 17, 235nn16, 21–24, 29, 236n30

Sedláček, Jaroslav

biography of, 215

on black sheep family members, 63

on Communist Party membership, 181

on Czech media, 35

on image of West, 74

on privacy and strategy of silence, 59

on social gap, 41

Seková, Věra, 147–48, 162, 215

self-enrichment, through theft of state property, 63–67

services, access to, 185–92

shopping, 127, 187, 190

Šimečka, Milan, 58, 172–73, 236n8

Šimek, Pavel, 26, 215

Slánský, Rudolf, 10

Slovakia, education in, 229n1

Smetana, Václav

on affirmative action and discrimination at universities, 109–10

biography of, 215

on childhood free time, 149

education of, 96

on emigration, 25

on family discussion of politics, 18

on father’s foreign travel, 73

on mandatory political involvement, 129

social engineering, 111–12

social gap, 41–42, 141

socialism. See also Communist regime; division of Czech society

from April to August 1968, 220n17

belief in, 137–41

comparing capitalism and, 199–200

efficiency of, 124–29

employment under capitalism versus, 142–44

memories of experiences under, 170

social media, 134

social networks, in work, 133–37

Souček, Josef, 111, 121–22, 162, 215

Soviet Union

collapse of, 13–14

conditions following collapse of, 1

Czech public opinion on, 4–5

occupation by, 11–12

perception of, 86–87

travel to, 76–81

speech, freedom of, 30–35, 223n18

Špičáková, Vojtěcha, 176, 215

Spickova, Victoria, 42, 215–16

Stalinist political trials, 10

Starý, Vladimír, 13, 216

state property, theft of, 63–67

Štĕpán, Miroslav, 179

Štěpánek, Milan, 83, 216

Štěrba, Jiří

on adult studies, 99

biography of, 216

on marriage, 47

on media, 31, 33

on theft of state property, 64, 65

Štráchalová, Blanka, 25, 216

Štreit, Jindřich, 205

subjective memory, 6

Suchá, Gerta, 178, 216

summer camp, 162, 163

summer homes, 22, 156–61, 234nn15, 17, 235nn16, 21–24, 29, 236n30

survival, 20

Svatek, Ladislav, 78–79, 179–80, 216

Švejk, Josef, 20

teachers

prestige of, 230n11

religiosity of, 37

role of, in education, 100–105

salaries of, 230n12

technology, 153–54, 203. See also car ownership; television

television, 150, 153, 234n11

theft, of state property, 63–67

tipping, 188

totalitarian history narratives, 2–4

Tóthová, Eva, 55, 60, 62, 66, 216

trade unions, 163–64, 186

travel

freedom of, 23–27

to “friendly East,” 76–81

obstacles to, 29–30

as recreation, 161–67

during retirement, 155

travel permits, 23, 24

Tůma, Oldřich, 21

Tuzex, 123, 187, 189

Twrdková, Dagmar, 66–67, 216

unemployment, 121–23, 138–40. See also parasitism

unheroic survival, 20

university system, 91, 108–10

vacation, 161–67

Vacek, Oldřich, 11, 76, 78, 80, 87, 216

Vachková, Marie, 57–58, 216–17

Valoun, Václav, 27

Vaněk, Vladimír, 30–31, 84–85, 141–42, 217

Vápeník, Jaromír, 107, 217

Vdovicyn, Jaroslav, 194, 217

Vejskal, Jaroslav, 71, 217

Vejskal, Václav, 86, 117, 127, 137, 142, 217

Vekslák (Frýbort), 232n12

Velvet Revolution (1989), 13, 105

Vlčková, Zdenka, 71–72, 217

Vokurka, Stanislav, 67, 189, 217

Warsaw Pact Armies, occupation by, 11, 72, 179

water management, 83

wealth, 41–42

weekends, 155–61

West

allures of, 27–30

Communist propaganda against, 25–26

influence of, on Czech Republic, 73

interactions with, 81–86

seen as exotic, 74

social barriers in, 83

Western Europeans, 22–23

Wolfová, Eva, 147, 217

Wollerová, Jaroslava, 27–28, 104, 217

women

free time of, 147

independence of, 52–54

and maternity leave, 53, 55–57, 227n30

respect for, in workplace, 131

Women’s Association, 154

work. See employment

world peace, countries threatening, 70–71

World War II, Czechoslovak resistance during, 9

Yugoslavia, 79, 165

Zahrádka, Miroslav, 77, 218

Zajícová, Ludmila, 48, 59, 218

Zíma, Josef, 192

Žohová, Svatava, 186, 192, 218