Choosing a Past: Choosing a Future. Lustration and Transition in the Czech Republic.
Choosing a Past: Choosing a Future. Lustration and Transition in the Czech Republic.

Summary/Abstract: The paper posits the notion that the process of dealing with the recent communist past in Czechoslovakia, and later the Czech Republic, entailed an attempt to link the present and future realities to a historical notion of the enduring character of the Czech nation and people, but which also points out the contestations in this project. It examines the process of Lustrace which was instituted soon after the Velvet Revolution in 1991, not from point of view of its results or procedures, or even ideas of justice, but rather by identifying the symbolic value of this process for reiterating and re-establishing a more preferable identity for the Czech nation. The process also fit in to the then nascent moves and ideas which were seeking to take the Czechs 'back' into Europe and to a European idea of civilization and enlightenment, and how this links to the significance of the market and European idea.

• Details
• Contents