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1989: The Promise of Democracy in Czechoslovakia
As some of you know, I am doing my MA at McGill University in Montreal and my thesis is on the emergence and crisis of democracy in the Czech Republic and Slovakia (the successor states of Czechoslovakia, following 1993).
For the past four months, I have had the great fortune to read a number of insightful books on democracy in the region. One of them is by my supervisor, professor James Krapfl, whose book Revolution with a Human Face, portrays a unique revisionist picture of the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia.
If you are interested in the region, I recommend the book to you. Here’s a quick review.
The key insight Krapfl’s book grants the reader is that he studies what could be seen as the most overlooked actors in the Czechoslovak revolution of 1989: the citizens.
The 1989 revolution, also known as the Velvet or Gentle Revolution, was an exemplary case of civil disobedience.
The nonviolent ideals of the citizens were crucial to the developments across Czechoslovakia. Instead of prioritizing the voices of the revolution, analyses, tend to focus on the political elites at play or the political ramifications of 1989 in Europe.
For Krapfl, individual actors are the most important catalyst in the evaluation of the emergence of…
