In Czechoslovakia the revolutionary social changes of 1989 were initiated
by university students. The academic environment was the centre of the
revolution, and for one moment in history, it took over the role of a social
avant-garde. But despite the urgent need for change no comprehensive
reforms happened after the revolution in the area of universities. Is a
complete transformation of the academic environment, ideologically
supercharged until 1989, even conceivable only twenty years later?

With regard to the academic sector, critics of the Slovak university environment
expressly speak of a ‘culture of cynicism’, of a ‘local mafia’, and
of ‘dark structures in the tradition of November 1989’. Are such views and
accusations correct, or justified, and if not, why not? To understand and
analyse any changes in today’s Slovak – formerly part of the Czechoslovak
– university environment we need to ask the following questions:

Relating to the time before 1989:
What kind of working conditions arose from totalitarian ideology at
universities, and what circumstances did this create? How did ideological
control work at universities? What mechanisms of power were at work? In
which way did these change people’s lives?

Relating to 1989:
Which effects did politicization of the academic environment have during
the revolutionary events of November 1989? Which was the backdrop
of the changes in academic staff related to the revolutionary changes in
1989?

Relating to the time after 1989:
What has really changed at universities? Which themes and events from
the time before 1989 are still taboo today, and why so? We presented
these questions as part of our investigations to players who worked and
are still working at the universities/academies of Bratislava, which were
strongly exposed to ideology during the time of the totalitarian regime
before 1989: former and current lecturers and students at the Department
of Sociology at the Philosophical Faculty, as well as the Departments of
Architecture and Sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts.

Their answers helped understand that looking back at the time before
and after 1989 we, being subsequent observers, should not restrict our
investigations to the level of general observations and events that can be
presented in an anonymous way. If we did, we would risk succumbing to
the lies of the old regime.

The time has come to reconstruct and relay the stories of those people
who faced the challenges of that time; those movers who formed
their own opinions and never allowed themselves to be guided by ‘the
circumstances’ or any strife for ‘the small advantages’ in their daily lives.
All ‘great’ socio-political concepts need to be translated into daily reality.
This process usually consists of small steps and small stories – the very
fragments, only apparently meaningless, that the memories of all those
movers serve to provide to us.

When it comes to memories, there is a saying in Albania: ‘If you want one,
you are bound to get two’. It seems that in the area of the university environment
in Slovakia we investigated there are more memories of the near
past than we are able – or willing – to take in. Many do not even bother to
access them anymore.

Memories are free – to be forgotten.

Fedor Blaščák studied ancient philosophy, philosophy of the 19th and 20th century and contemporary art. He is the mentor of the project team in Bratislava, Slovak Republic.