Abstrakt
In this presentation I will attempt to follow the ways in which former student activists relate to their experiences of the Velvet Revolution, what it has meant for them and ask whether and how this experience still influences their present lives (based on a concept of a symbolic center as used by Miloš Havelka). I shall also focus on a finding that regardless of the way used to relate to the revolution, a special place in the narrators' stories is occupied by Václav Havel, not only as one of the key actors of the revolution, dissent, or Czech post-1989 politics, but also as a symbol of the revolution.
Using Havel's relationship towards civil society, I will attempt to explain why our narrators, if they at all actively comment on current events, perhaps also as a result of their professions, tend towards civil society rather than "traditional" politics.