«I didn't get why they were so happy»

Last days of communism in Czechoslovakia seen by a child's eyes. «Students and intelectuals explainded us what it was goin' on»

Texts and article by Emiliano Biaggio

«I was only nine year old. For a child of my age, it was not an easy task to get closer to the truth». November 1989 represents for everyone a symbolic moment, a really short bur really strong period which has changed the history. And it's so still today, twenty years later, for those who know what we are talking about. Petr, 29 years old, blonde hair and sky-coloured eyes, today knows about november 1989, but at that time he coul not. Because he was too young, and above all very far from both Berlin and Prague. In 1989 "his" Czech republic was still Czechoslovakia, and there the falling of communism arrived the 17th of november, 12 days after the break at the german Kruscev's wall. «I remember that living in a small town, it was very difficult even for adults to get any piece of news about what was going on in Prague or abroad. Not counting the oficial propaganda in state owned tv or newspaper: We heard about some criminal striving to destabilize our paradise on Earth and even perhaps destroy socialism». Socialism, falling of Berlin wall, velvet revolution: for a so young witness of history too much words, too much concepts, and each of them not easy to be comprehended. And that's true especially when also your parents are looking for some explanation to give. «I must admit that in our family we were eager to break the cloud around the events in Prague. The leaders of the opposition movement (students and intelectuals) were travelling around the country talking to people on the streets and in the factories, trying to explain them, what they were doing. And they gained the support». So, in Czechoslovakia it was the change of people, began from the people and transmitted to the people. In Vsetin, small town at overt 300 kilometres from Prague where Petr spent his childhood and where he still today comes to visit his relativs, Czechs answered the calling. «There were some marches and manifestations. I guess it was the beginning of december». December. In Berlin the wall had been smashed down since one month, and soviet system was over. It happended also in Czechoslovakia, where «the new free elections were proposed for 1990», remembers Petr, who still has impressed in his mind the joy of people in those days. «I remember the splendid atmosphere of hope and happiness, solidarity and optimism, that was just omnipresent». What about today? What remains of that atmosphere? «Sincerely, I am totally fed up with the propaganda of nowadays media, and I wont certainly attend any of the official program during these days». Petr doesn't talk about the present, and we undestrand something is wrong. Maybe hopes have been disappointed, or maybe he does not remember the past and cannot make a comparison between what was and what is. But now he's older, he can see the embarassment of his people. «Today seems like, some people are still trying to cover up their old conformity and cowardness by kicking the old communists. And I dont want to be part of this spectacle».