(Institute for Sociology, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Slovak Republic
McGill University, Canada)
james.krapfl@mcgill.ca

89 is 68 Upside Down: The Significance of the Prague Spring in the Gentle Revolution

The legacy of 1968 initially provided a point of departure for much of the public discourse that swept across Czechoslovakia during the revolutionary weeks of 1989.  The common witticism that „89″ was „68″ upside down constructively obscured incompatibility between two interpretations of the relationship between the Prague Spring and what was coming to be called a „gentle“ revolution.  The first assumed an essential identity between the two movements, with 1989 making it possible the to realize the ideals of 1968; the second suggested that the ideals of 1989 might transcend those of 1968.  This contribution will reconstruct and interrogate popular Czech and Slovak discourse about 1968 between 1989 and 1992, explaining why the second interpretation was ultimately so successful as to practically eliminate memory that there had ever been an alternative.