Revolution? What Revolution?That was almost the answer to the some survey questions I gave to my students today. You too may be asking - "What revolution?" Well on Nov 16, 1989 Bratislava and the rest of Slovakia was alive with revolt. The next day these student protests spread to the more know uprising in Prague.
This "Velvet Revolution" turned out to be a blood-less overturning of years of Communist oppression.
Now back to the given answer - "What revolution?" It turns out that at the firm I am working the average employee age is 25. Most of my students were between the ages of 4-9 years old when the revolution happened. For them it's a memory, but a vague one. They knew something "big" was happening, but unclear as to what. One of my students recalled at the age of 4 being in the streets with his father in the student marches and rattling keys in youthful rebellion. He spoke of meeting now famous figures of the revolution in his family home. For him they were his father's guests, but for a nation they were quite something else.
Of course everyone here in Slovakia knows about the Velvet Revolution either from these vague patchwork of memories or at the very least from history class. Yet, for me it's interesting that such a significant event has lost it's significance to the emerging generation of Slovaks. What issues will the culture face as it presses forward without the context of what it is emerging from? Time will tell.
To learn more of the history:
