Forgotten Velvet

Marty Manor Mullins

Forgotten Velvet

Číslo: 3/2019
Periodikum: New Perspectives

Klíčová slova: urban history, labour studies, Slovakia, Velvet Revolution, East European politics, communism

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Anotace: By focussing on the experience of Eastern Slovakia during Czechoslovakia’s 1989 Velvet

Revolution, this article examines the motivations propelling local revolutionaries who opposed
the Communist regime at great risk to themselves and their families. It asks what inspired
those who countered the government 30 years ago and argues that, for many,
ideological factors were the primary driver, rather than economic considerations. Exploring
these questions through the lens of Košice provides a counterpoint to accounts of the
Velvet Revolution in Prague and Bratislava, which have come to dominate understandings
of Czechoslovakia in 1989 and which obscure the particularities of the revolution in other
significant places across the country. The text draws on regional archival and period newspaper
accounts which foreground the voices of students, steel workers, dramatists, minorities
and local Communist Party leaders. These sources indicate the active but uncertain
nature of civil society in those crucial November and December days. The article also underscores
the urban rivalry between Bratislava and Košice, which manifested itself when
Košice sided with Prague’s protest organization over Bratislava’s. The 30th anniversary of
the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe provides a timely platform for a glimpse into the
largely untold story of Eastern Slovakia’s Velvet Revolution.