This coming November marks the 25th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution and the end of Communism in Czechoslovakia. How relevant is this anniversary to students who were born sevaral years after the Berlin Wall came down?
Very, according to NYU Prague, whose faculty includes many former leaders of the Velvet Revolution. Professor Jan Urban, one of the leading dissidents under the Communist regime, is dismayed by the current strength of the Communist party, which – unlike in most other former Eastern European countries – was not disbanded 25 years ago. „What’s there to celebrate today? The Communists in Parliament are in complete support of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and their popularity is growing. Czechs are forgetting what the Russians did to us.“
Many NYU students are still interested in this “ancient history.” Some of NYU Prague’s most popular courses are taught by former dissidents. Last semester, one student wrote a profile for the Prague Wandering Webzine on Monika Pajerova, our professor and one of the few female student leaders during the Velvet Revolution http://praguewandering.com/2014/05/20/2578/.
NYU Prague is marking the anniversary by a number of programs that reflect upon the past and the future Particularly in light of current events in Ukraine – which have been compared to the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968- the anniversary seems especially important.

During orientation, NYU Prague students met with young Czech people at a panel discussion entitled „The Velvet Revolution 25 Years Later: Views of Current Czech University Students.“ The Czech students on the panel described the lives of their parents and grandparents under Communism and discussed how that affected – and continues to affect- them. Several of them expressed their concerns about the rising popularity of the Communist party among young people, which currently is polled at over 15% of the national vote.
In October, NYU students will have the chance to meet meet Mikhail Gorbachev, the architect of perestroika, and over 150 other global leaders at the annual Forum 2000 Conference. The conference, inspired by the legacy of the late President Václav Havel, is entitled “Democracy and Its Discontents: A Quarter-Century After the Iron Curtain and Tiananmen” and will take place in Prague and other Central European cities.
NYU Prague is hosting another conference – this one focused on the media and the challenges of building the post-Communist media and communication industries over the past 25 years. NYU Prague Professor Jeremy Druker, director of the international news outlet Transitions Online, is organizing the event in cooperation with Keynote.cz and has invited other NYU faculty to speak .”The event should provide a rare opportunity for academics who have written about the media transition and journalists who actually were there to meet in person and debate the positives and negatives of what has taken place,” Jeremy said. Thanks to funding from the U.S. Embassy and the International Visegrad Fund, select participants from the U.S. and from Central/Eastern Europe will attend.
Keith Jones, a documentary film-maker and frequent lecturer at NYU Prague, will screen his new film that is focused on Generation X in Czech alternative culture. It is set for release in November, and the Velvet Revolution plays a central role in the story.
During the week of November 17 – the actual anniversary of the Velvet Revolution- students can get a feeling for what life was like under totalitarian during „Communism Week“ – part of NYU Prague’s culture program Kulturama. Students will visit a nuclear bunker, go to the KGB and the Communism Museums, and can even participate in a team-building game that puts them in the role of political dissidents „trapped“ by the KGB. We will also take them to the Czech-Austrian border where a section of the Iron Curtain has been preserved and a museum is dedicated to stories about Czech’s attempts to cross the border.
Of course students can celebrate the anniversary with locals on November 17 – a national Czech holiday – by leaving a candle at the Velvet Revolution memorial site on Narodni trida (National Street). Every year, people gather around a small, understated plaque decorated by fingers raised in the „V“ for victory sign, located at the place where brave Czech university students confronted the Communist police in 1989 and set off a series of events that led to the end of Communism.

The events of 1989 and the fall of the Iron Curtain may seem like ancient history to young people today. “Events that happened 25 years ago may seem like an old story to students who weren’t even alive at the time,” acknowledges NYU Prague Director (and former dissident) Jiri Pehe. “But when we see what is happening in the contemporary world and watch efforts in various countries to achieve democracy, it is clear that many lessons can be learned from this history.”