Memories of living in Czechoslovakia in 1989 as events of the revolution unfolded.
I heard the words of my favourite song from the town radio as I was walking home from school along a very long queue that was twisting outside the shops on the street.
'Truth prevails. The truth is not disturbed by time or by money.
Truth prevails. If you don't betray the truth yourself.
Truth will always prevail, will prevail.' ('Pravda Víťazí, Tublatanka, 1989)
Truth prevails. I recalled our history lesson at school. The teacher gave us a lecture about the symbols of Czechoslovak Socialist Republic. Besides the national flag and the coat of arms the motto of our nation was 'Truth prevails'. I was asking myself why this rock band had chosen this very sentence as a title of their song. The band was called Tublatanka and they were very popular at my school. My mum, however, was rather unhappy that I was listening to their music. 'If they would keep singing songs like this they would soon be forbidden on the radio', she said. I didn't fully understand what she meant. In my 12-year-old mind, I believed that truth was objective and universal and that everyone was honest, and everyone was telling the truth. But my mum used to say: 'Everyone has their own truth'. She often reminded me to be very careful of what I said in public places where other people could hear me. She said that staying silent wasn't lying. 'Sometimes it is better to keep the truth for yourself', that was another favourite sentence of hers.
She didn't tell me that I couldn't speak out and express my thoughts at home. She encouraged me to think and ask questions about everything that I was learning at school. But she raised her finger and shushed me anytime I mentioned somebody's surname on the bus or in a shop. She strictly didn't let me tell any jokes. The jokes about the highest authorities, the police and the communists, were the most popular. And I understood that it was inappropriate to make such jokes in a public place.
It was very common that people behaved differently at home and at work, at school and especially at official meetings. There was a different language and rather theatrical way of talking at official occasions like school year opening and closing ceremonies and all the state holiday ceremonies. I was a pioneer and therefore I had to wear my pioneer uniform for all such occasions. And when I was wearing the uniform, I also felt strangely official. Somehow when I was wearing the uniform, I remembered to say only the right things.
It was Friday 17 November 1989 and it was cold. On Friday afternoons I liked learning English. English was my favourite language. I always wanted to learn it. At school I had to study Russian. It was mandatory for everyone to learn Russian. But I started to learn English in a small afternoon class. Only one lesson a week in a group of seven other children. English wasn't popular. It was the language of the enemies of Communism: America. So, there were no English books in the bookstores in Czechoslovakia. I was lucky though. My father used to travel abroad in the 1970s and he brought lots of English books home. I had plenty of reading material. And that's why I liked studying and reading English on Fridays when I didn't have to do homework for other school subjects.
Every evening at 7.30pm we watched the TV news. All the family together. There was a short note about some student demonstrations in Prague that evening. It was a commemoration of the events of 17 November 1939 and the celebration of the International Student Day. There were many international days of all sorts in Czechoslovakia. So International Student Day didn't seem that important to me. After watching the news my mum shook her head and mumbled something resembling 'Silly students, silly demonstrations'. After the news we watched a film and went to bed.
When I came home that afternoon my parents were talking about a strike
We had a nice weekend. Mum took me shopping on Saturday morning. Then we baked cakes and prepared decorations for my birthday party that was planned for Wednesday afternoon. But the Sunday evening TV news was disturbing. There was very long talk about the events of 17 November in Prague. Someone said that a student died during the demonstration that evening. It was strange to hear something like that. There was always news about protests and demonstrations on the TV news. In Bulgaria, in Germany and in other countries. But not in Czechoslovakia. It felt strange, scary and exciting at the same time to hear that there were demonstrations in Prague.
Monday morning at school felt different. Our teachers seemed nervous. Everyone was talking about this Prague demonstration. Our literature teacher explained to us why 17 November was named International Student Day. She gave us a lecture about that November day in 1939 when the Nazi Government of the Czech Republic violently closed all the universities in Prague. She tried to make us understand that the students did the right thing when they organised the commemoration of those events.
When I came home that afternoon my parents were talking about a strike. That was a word I hadn't heard before. Strike meant that people didn't go to work. It was a form of protest. The main news on TV that evening was that the actors and theatre workers in Prague went on strike. The university students went on strike too. They refused to study and attend normal lectures until the Government would explain what happened on Friday evening in Prague. There were pictures of Wenceslas Square full of people, another large protest. The Communist Party called an emergency meeting. The Government was asking students to stay rational and to calm down. They promised to investigate exactly what happened on Friday evening. Actors were asking the Government for dialogue and discussion about the situation in Czechoslovak society.
On Tuesday 21 November we had a normal day at school. There was a poster announcing a 'Meeting of the citizens of our town, Poprad' on Thursday afternoon in the main square. I was very curious, and I wanted to go. Mum said a strict 'No' to this idea. In fact, she forbade me to go anywhere alone. She said it was too dangerous to attend a protest and that there would be people who could hurt me. She threatened with a whole month without TV, radio and my music player. She won the argument.
Tuesday evening's news was exciting. The Prime Minister, Mr Ladislav Adamec, had a meeting with actors and students in Prague. He promised them the discussion and implementation of more democratic principles in the laws and in the constitution of Czechoslovak Socialist Republic. University students across the whole country started strikes including the army academies. Also, the workers of Czechoslovak TV and radio proclaimed their support for the students and they requested truthful news broadcasting. The major surprise was the news from Bratislava. There was a large demonstration at Hviezdoslav's Square. Well-known actor Milan Kňažko was shown talking to the protesters. There were smaller demonstrations in all big cities across Czechoslovakia.
Protests continued into Wednesday as well. The evening news from Prague talked about many factories and workers proclaiming their support for the students. The students and actors requested not only dialogue with the Government but also free elections, political plurality, impartial and objective information in the media. They asked everyone in the whole country to join a 'General Strike' on Monday 27 November from 12 noon to 2pm.
Slovakian TV went directly to the demonstration with the camera and interviewed some actors at Slovak National Uprising — SNP — Square in Bratislava. Some of them had just returned from Prague. They were talking about young people beaten by the police. They were talking about people covered with blood who were sneaking to the theatre through the stage door in order to hide, people brutally beaten who were asking for help and medical assistance. That was shocking news for us. My parents didn't believe it.
On Thursday afternoon there was a meeting on the main square of our town. I stayed home as I promised my mum. I was more impatient to hear the news from Prague and Bratislava than I was keen on standing on our main square in the cold. The TV news was reporting about meetings and demonstrations in every town in Czechoslovakia. In Prague, writer Václav Havel spoke about political ideas and requests of 'Civic Forum' (Občanské Fórum), a public organisation founded a few days earlier.
The Communist Party and the Government called another emergency meeting for Friday 24 November. In Bratislava, a strange old man was talking nicely to people that day. He was a Communist and he was talking about a better model of Communism. His name was Alexander Dubček. My parents were very surprised and moved almost to tears to see him talking at that demonstration. I didn't understand why. I didn't understand who he was and why the protesters were greeting him with lots of noise.
all the leaders of the Communist Party resigned from their posts
Something had changed that week. There were posters of all kinds everywhere in our town — just homemade drawings and inscriptions on large placards. Hundreds of them were on the shop windows, pillars, bus stops, everywhere. I understood only some of them. Some satirical drawings and slogans were not so easy to understand, especially the ones talking about year 1968. I didn't know why 1968. There were also small ribbons in three colours of Czechoslovakia: white, blue and red, on all these posters and in the shop windows. Some people started wearing such ribbons pinned to their chest. Some people were interested in those posters and some were ashamed of reading them. As soon as I walked closer to them, they walked away and pretended that they were in a hurry. They were probably afraid of something.
Besides talking about large demonstrations in Prague and Bratislava, Friday brought incredible news. The Head of Communist Party, Miloš Jakeš and all the leaders of the Communist Party resigned from their posts at the Party's emergency meeting. I hadn't heard anything like that before. We did have elections in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic (ČSSR), but we usually re-elected the same people who were already in the Communist Party leadership and similarly in the Government. I thought that was the custom, a normal thing to do. Gustáv Husák had been the President of Czechoslovakia for as long as I could remember. I thought the politicians would be in office until they died. Resignation was an unknown and a rather incomprehensible event to me. I was asking why they would go away and resign now when they had promised us lots of changes and therefore, they had so much work to do.
On Saturday the TV was broadcasting live from the huge demonstration at Letná in Prague. It started at around lunchtime and we were sitting in front of the TV all afternoon. Letenská pláň was the largest public space in our country. Usually it was the place of army parades and big parades of International Workers' Day, 1 May. This time it was full of people. Foreign media reported around 750,000 people at this demonstration. And there was a singer, Marta Kubišová, who sang a beautiful prayer:
'Let peace still remain with this country!
Let hatred, envy, grudge, fear, and strife cease!
Let them cease!
Now when your formerly lost rule over your things returns back to you, people, it returns back to you!
('Modlitba pro Martu', Marta Kubišová, 1968)
All those thousands of people were quietly listening to her singing and I suddenly realised that my mum was crying. I didn't dare to ask why. Then there were speeches by a leader of the Communist youth, one of the Communist leaders Miloslav Štěpán, writer Václav Havel, Alexander Dubček, and Václav Malý. There was a strong message from Slovakia from Milan Kňažko in the name of the movement called 'Public Against Violence' (Verejnosť Proti Násiliu) assuring people in Prague that there were large demonstrations in Bratislava and that Slovakia supported 'Civic Forum', as well as all the protests in Prague. Some well-known actors came to speak to people, too. They were talking about extending the strike in the individual theatres in Prague for another week. Reporters and employees of Czechoslovak TV proclaimed joining the general strike on Monday 27 November 1989 in the form of direct live broadcasting from the demonstrations and factories.
Another big event of Saturday was the church service to celebrate the canonisation of St. Agnes of Bohemia in St. Vitus Cathedral at Prague Castle. Thousands of people gathered there to listen to the speech of Cardinal Tomášek. The Cardinal spoke about freedom and justice. He said that he and the church stood with people. He encouraged people to be brave, wise and non-violent. He said that no one should stay impartial as those were the days when we were deciding about our own future.
Sunday was a very similar day. After breakfast we turned the TV on and spent all day watching events from Prague and Bratislava. There was another huge meeting at Letná. The main speakers from 'Civic Forum' were the same. The Prime Minister Ladislav Adamec came to talk to people. He spoke about his meeting with Václav Havel and other members of 'Civic Forum'.
We can do this. This time the change is real. Communists go away!
The good news of the day was that the political prisoners were released as people requested. Some of them came to thank people for their freedom. The demonstrations were conducted in such peaceful and organised manner all week that members of the police force came to proclaim their support for the students and for strikes. They apologised for the events of Friday 17 November and expressed the hope that such a situation would never happen again.
The representatives from different factories came to inform about the general strike and the situation in their workplace. All those thousands of people symbolically 'jingled their keys' as one rings a bell marking the end of something.
I was watching all this with amazement and surprise. But my parents were much more excited and emotionally upset by all the events. My mum was crying a lot and often shouting with all the people on TV. She kept repeating: 'We can do this. We can do this. This time the change is real. Communists go away!' I had never seen her in such a fighting mood before. My father was quiet, but he was smiling all weekend. At the end of demonstrations, he was joking a lot. He even said that his old friends from Switzerland could come back to Czechoslovakia soon.
In such an excited mood at home I dared to ask mum about some of those people from 'Civic Forum'. I asked her about Václav Havel. She didn't know much about him, only that he was a writer and a political prisoner. She started to talk about Alexander Dubček. She respected this old man very much for what he did in 1968. She explained to me that he tried to reform the Czechoslovakian Communist Party, but he was stopped by Russian politicians. His reforms led to the invasion of Warsaw Pact armies into Czechoslovakia on the 21 August 1968. And then he was removed from politics. My mum didn't hear of him for 21 years.
Then I asked her why she was crying when Marta Kubišová was singing that lovely prayer. Her answer was that Marta Kubišová used to be her favourite singer. But she disappeared after recording the song 'Prayer for Marta'. This song was recorded as a reply to the events of August 1968. Marta Kubišová was punished for it. She couldn't record any more songs and all her songs were prohibited on the radio. My mum was very happy to see her singing again.
After all this lovely talk about people that suddenly arose from the darkness of political prohibition, I wanted to do something to make my mum feel a little better. I asked her about the three coloured ribbons. She said that the colours of our two countries mean that we are proud to be Czechoslovakians and we were prepared to fight for our country. So, we made them together and pinned them on our jackets. My mum also said a little prayer that evening. It felt very unusual as I had never seen her praying before. But with all the changes around I was happy to accept anything new.
On Monday there was the 'General strike'. The TV was broadcasting live from all the factories and from the meetings in all the towns. We all watched the TV at school instead of normal classes. The demonstrations continued every day. Every evening there was news about more changes. On Tuesday 28 November the Czechoslovak Government made a major agreement with Civic Forum. They agreed to form a new Government by 3 December 1989. They agreed to the changes in the Constitution: the removal of the articles about the leading role of the Communist Party in the country and in the National Front. Civic Forum demanded that after the nomination of the new government, President Gustáv Husák would resign.
After this weekend of demonstrations at Letná everything suddenly felt different. People were nice and more open. Lots of people were shouting catch lines and greeting each other on the streets. The neighbours suddenly started talking to us about politics and about the events in our town. People decorated their cars and windows with Czechoslovak flags. Everyone understood that the Communist Party had lost and that there were major changes ahead of us. I had the impression that everyone believed in a much better future.
On Saint Nicholas day, 6 December 1989 there was the 'Velvet Revolution train' travelling from Bratislava to Košice. There were students and actors on this train. It stopped at all the major stations giving people leaflets and short speeches about the atmosphere in Bratislava. They came to 'wake up' the east of Slovakia. It was understood as a mission of freedom. I persuaded my mum to go with me to our train station and she agreed. However, the crowd was so large that we couldn't see much. I brought one poster home with me. It said: 'Today truth, tomorrow freedom'.
Major political changes happened very soon. On 10 December the new Government was appointed in Prague. Our new Prime Minister, Marián Čalfa, was a Communist. In the new Government there were four members of other political Parties and seven members without political Party membership. Gustáv Husák resigned from the post of the president on the same day. A little later, on 29 December 1989, writer Václav Havel became the new President of Czechoslovakia. Shortly afterwards Václav Havel made an official visit to the United States of America. He gave a speech to the U S Congress in Washington. He spoke about the era of change from a political and philosophical point of view and about his personal experience of the extraordinary journey from being a dissident and prisoner to becoming a president. As an educated intellectual he spoke about the social situation in the world and our attitude and moral responsibility for the whole world. His words revealed his humanitarianism and conscious attitude to the problems of our society: 'The salvation of this human world lies nowhere else than in the human heart, in the human power to reflect, in human meekness and in human responsibility.'
This was a magic moment for me. We watched the live broadcast of this speech on TV. For the first time in my life I felt very proud of being Czechoslovakian. We were suddenly recognised in America and therefore it felt as if Czechoslovakia came out of darkness and started to exist as an independent country.
Václav Havel as an outstanding leader with personal connections around the world opened many doors for negotiations and dialogue between new free Czechoslovakia and other countries. He was an unusual figure in Central European politics for his intellectual and creative thinking and his talent for speaking in public.
Everyday life in Czechoslovakia changed only a little bit. The fences of the 'iron curtain' in Bratislava were removed and people started to travel to Austria. Similarly, people started to travel to West Germany. But in reality only rich people could go shopping there. Everything was very expensive in those countries. More foreign products started to appear on the shelves of our shops: Swiss chocolates, German sweets and American coffee. 'Tuzex' luxury shops started to sell their goods for normal money (Czechoslovak crowns) and more small private businesses started.
At school, our teachers reacted immediately to the changes in our society and we had some special lectures, mainly in our history and literature classes. We had a few special lessons about the spring and summer of 1968 in Czechoslovakia. We had also special lessons about Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, the first president of Czechoslovakia. Our teacher was reading to us from the history of the Catholic Church about the destruction of monasteries and prosecution of priests during the 1950s. We also started to learn about the works of prohibited writers and we were encouraged to read their books. After Christmas our head teacher came to all of us and told us that there would be change in our studying of foreign languages. Russian wasn't mandatory anymore. I was lucky. We had an English teacher at our school. Therefore, we started to learn English from 1 February 1990. We started to learn about Western European countries from all available sources. Our English teacher organised the screening of the film 'Queen in Budapest' for us at the local cinema. Most of us hadn't heard anything about this band before. We were also given a specific homework to follow news about the British Royal Family and American president in the newspapers.
In my mind the Velvet Revolution is a blend of demonstrations, speeches and protest songs. This song, composed by Ivan Hoffmann on the streets of Bratislava, summarises all the events the best:
'We promised each other love, we promised to speak the truth. We promised to hold on, to have a new day. Those young people raised their bare hands for us, they were beaten for us, for our silence. Since that moment ages past on our streets and the bell rang for the evil for the last time.' ('Sľúbili sme si lásku', Ivan Hoffmann, 1989)
The Velvet Revolution was a miraculous and peaceful revolution. It changed the political system in Czechoslovakia. The most conservative Communist regime in Central Europe fell under the pressure of the protests of ordinary people. People were talking about the universal principles of truth, love and freedom, values essential and intrinsic to all human beings. Provoked by violence on innocent young people this revolution rejected all violence and recalled the humanistic traditions of Czech and Slovak nations. It encouraged people to be brave and speak their mind. It brought people punished and scorned for years back to the light of normal day.
The streets full of people standing next to one another shoulder-to to-shoulder made us all believe that the whole country was standing together. There was a strong feeling of unity in those revolution days. There was confidence that we would help one another, and we would be making all the changes in our society together. Those deeply emotional days made me believe that anything is possible when people stand together. Thanks to the Velvet Revolution I will always believe that people anywhere in the world can find the courage to stand together for the essential values: truth, love and freedom.
