Revolution with a Human Face

Politics, Culture, and Community in Czechoslovakia, 1989-1992

Bibliographic Data

ID20022753
AuthorsJames Krapfl (corresponding author)
Year2013
Pages260
Publication date2013-09-25
Open AccessNo
TypeBOOK
VenueRevolution with a human face (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherCornell University Press (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.7591/cornell/9780801452055.001.0001
OpenAlexW4240190759
Open LibraryOL26717077M
ISBN9780801452055
LanguageEN
Citations received17

As a history of Czechoslovakia's “gentle revolution,” this book shifts the focus away from elites to ordinary citizens who endeavored—from the outbreak of revolution in 1989 to the demise of the Czechoslovak federation in 1992—to establish a new, democratic political culture. Unique in its balanced coverage of developments in both Czech and Slovak lands, including the Hungarian minority of southern Slovakia, this book looks beyond Prague and Bratislava to collective action in small towns, provincial factories, and collective farms. The book contends that Czechoslovaks rejected Communism not because it was socialist, but because it was arbitrarily bureaucratic and inhumane. The restoration of a basic “humanness”—in politics and in daily relations among citizens—was the central goal of the revolution. In the strikes and demonstrations that began in the last weeks of 1989, the book argues, citizens forged new symbols and a new symbolic system to reflect the humane, democratic, and nonviolent community they sought to create. Tracing the course of the revolution from early, idealistic euphoria through turns to radicalism and ultimately subversive reaction, the book finds in Czechoslovakia's experiences lessons of both inspiration and caution for people in other countries striving to democratize their governments

Bureaucracy · Communism · Demise · Democracy · Economic history · Elite · Political economy · Political radicalism · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Eastern European Communism and Reforms · History · Law · 1989-1992 · Czechoslovakia · Political Culture · politics and government · Politische Kultur · Politischer Wandel · revolution · Tschechoslowakei · Velvet Revolution (Czechoslovakia : 1989) fast (OCoLC)fst01355257 · Velvet Revolution, 1989

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