17th November 1939 and 1989: Czech University Students under Totalitarian Regimes in Contemporary Historiography and Culture of Remembrance
Abstract
In a small Central European nation, university served in the turbulent 20th century not only as a place of research, learning and education, but also a highly prominent national symbol. The author follows a structural link between two similar cases of student protests against totalitarian regimes under different historical circumstances.
He remarks both on the points of discontinuity, where the immediate impact of demonstrations led to a hardening of persecution on one hand and to a strengthening of resistance leading to the fall of the regime on the other hand, and on the points of continuity, which took the form of struggle for freedom and democracy. An analysis of changes in the perception of the legacy of November 17, in both national and international context, is an important element of this inquiry.