Scholar Interviews
Questions
- Vladimir Tismaneanu: What source do you use in your classroom to help students understand the events of 1989?
- Vladimir Tismaneanu: How do you teach the letters found in Adam Michnik's book?
- Vladimir Tismaneanu: How do you teach Adam Michnik's book in the classroom?
- Vladimir Tismaneanu: How do you help your students interpret the passage you read about an independent, self-governing union?
- Bradley Abrams: How do you help students make sense of 1989?
- Bradley Abrams: What sources do you use to teach 1989?
- Bradley Abrams: What else is significant about the Declaration of the Creation of Charter 77?
- Bradley Abrams: How did the regime respond to Charter 77?
- Bradley Abrams: Why is the 28th of January remarkable?
- Bradley Abrams: How do you put the anti-Charter into context for students?
- Padraic Kenney: What is remarkable about the poem and the leaflet together?
- Padraic Kenney: How should students interpret the poem?
- Padraic Kenney: What is significant about the poem?
- Padraic Kenney: Does this poem help explain the strike?
- Padraic Kenney: How do you analyze the leaflet?
- Padraic Kenney: What is significant about the leaflet?
- Padraic Kenney: What sources help us understand the strikes?
- Maria Bucur: Is there a particular source that is important to study?
- Maria Bucur: How do students study 1989 in your classroom?
- Maria Bucur: What is difficult to understand about the "Common European Home" speech?
- Maria Bucur: What is important about Ceausescu's last speech?
- Maria Bucur: How do you help students understand Ceausescu's last speech?
- Maria Bucur: What is unique about viewing Ceausescu's last speech?
- Bradley Abrams: How do you use the Charter Declaration and the anti-Charter together with students?
Bradley Abrams: Why is the 28th of January remarkable?
Transcription
On the 28th of January, there were other articles that mentioned Charter 77 or didn't mention Charter 77 in the run-up to this. But, on the 28th of January, a quite remarkable event took place at the National Theater in Prague. Eight hundred Czech and Slovak artistic and cultural luminaries, um, came to the National Theater, this grand, gilded room inside the National Theater. And they were given many, many speeches and they were told— essentially told, to sign a proclamation which is my document.
Many of the people had not had their literary works or their artistic works published or displayed in years and this was widely seen as a chance for them to get back into the good graces of the regime. Many of them I think just took it as another one of the sort of daily humiliations that they have to do to stay on the government’s good side. This was being broadcast live on Czechoslovak television so the entire nation could see people like Jan Verik who was the grand old man of Czech theater showing up. And many of them when they showed up tried to hide their faces. They were clearly ashamed and they clearly knew what was going to happen and this proclamation was then read and the 800 signatures were collected. They gathered about 7,500 signatures over the course of those two weeks.