Циклите - граници в историята на Чехословакия
The cycles in the history of Czechoslovakia

Summary/Abstract: The author's intention is to propose a different vision on the history of Czechoslovakia through studying of her turning point's years. In the contemporary history of Czeches and Slovaks there are several such years, and strangely enough they end with the number 8. Every one of these years - 1918, 1938, 1948, 1968 and 1988 has brought Czechoslovakia great changes. Some of them were tragic - for instance, her dismemberment after the Munich conference in 1938, or the seizure of power by the communists after February coup d'etat in 1948, or the Warsaw Pact military intervention in Czechoslovakia, which had to suppress the process of political democratization in this socialist country, democratization known as The Prague Spring. But in other such years Czeches and Slovaks achieved freedom and independence as in the autumn of 1918 or showed their moral superiority to the regime - for example, demonstrations of the youth in 1988 when peoples presented the real power of powerless. The characteristic features of Czechoslovakia's history are her stable democracy, the use of peaceful means in political struggles and the participation of the masses in social life.

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