Les millésimes de la Tchécoslovaquie

Abstract

The Anniversaries of Czechoslovakia. The four major anniversaries of 1988 relate to radical social and political changes in the seven decades of independent Czechoslovakia's history. The Czechoslovak state was born in 1918, lost in 1938, transferred under communist rule in 1948, and it saw a reformist attempt thwarted by force in 1968. Every one of these changes was strongly influenced by external factors. Each resulted in a momentous upheaval in the social organization of society and the political culture of the Czech and Slovak nations. October 1918 is remembered both as the culmination of the process of nation building and as the event that ushered in democracy. September 1938 (the Munich Agreement), is recalled as a symbol of the weakness of democracy at home and in the West. February 1948 climaxed the evolution of Czechoslovak communism into an instrument of Soviet power. The Prague Spring and its suppression remain terms of reference in the present reformist climate. The discontinuity of modern Czechoslovak history, epitomized by the four anniversaries, reflects the predicament of Central European nations which developed and practised their statehood on the borderline between democracy and communism. The sequence of changes has not led to a satisfactory state of affairs and further sociopolitical reorganizations are on the horizon.