The Velvet Revolution and Breakup of Czechoslovakia - History Matters (Short Animated Documentary)

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This episode covers the Velvet Revolution of 1989 within Czechoslovakia which saw the peaceful overthrow of the Communist Government there. Afterwards, things weren't all sunshine and roses though and latent Nationalist sentiment reared its head again. Both the Czech and Slovak halves of the nation did little to save the union and so divorce it was.

Recommended reading:

Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 by Tony Judt. This book is the be-all and end-all for the Cold War in Europe. I recommend it all the time because it deserves to be recommended all the time.

[HistoryMatters]

Hope you enjoyed this episode. Next week's will be:


Tuesday - The Sinking of the Bismarck
Friday - The Ukrainian Famine

[MrHusker]

The dissolution of Czechoslovakia was an outside job, rest of the world was affraid we would dominate them in hockey, so they split our national team in two

[biscoitor]

The worst thing to come out of the split is that now everyone confuses Slovakia and Slovenia.

[MisterSpinalzo]

Slovakia: We should start seeing other people
Czechia: ...yeah

[manyeggshells]

"oh did you hear our country split up in two?"
"meh"

[davidroman]

The Velvet Divorce was so weird. Nobody here actually cared about it, only people who really discussed it were the politicians who decided for the people. So in theory, people didnt vote for the split so it wasnt really legitimate.

Today nobody cares as well. Slovaks see Czechs as brothers and Czechs see Slovaks as brothers (except for hockey world championship when we play against each other) . Many people would like to see Czechoslovakia, many people like it the way it is today, but one way or another we care too little to actually formally try to discuss it. Everyone just sort of went along with it.

Anyway, still better than Yugoslavia.

[pointly]

American tourist: "Wow! Your country split in two? That must have been rough."

Czech: "Meh."
Slovak: "Meh."

[milankolesik]

As someone from Slovakia, I would also add some information about short, but incredibly stupid, ,Dash War" that went on shortly after the Velvet Revolution. Czechs and Slovaks, always struggling to find a middle ground, went on in a series of political debates whether they should call their country Czechoslovakia (as it is was under Commies) or Czecho-Slovakia. The dash in between was, ,incredibly important" and the whole thing became a public issue for some time (especially at Slovakia). In April 1990 the polititians finally reached a compromise: the official name for the country was, ,Czech and Slovak Federative Republic" with the adjectives of, ,czechoslovakian" (in Czech language) and, ,czecho-slovakian" (in Slovak language). As you can see, nineties were a pretty big mess here at Slovakia: struggling for the freedom (november 1989), struggling for the national identity and its representation (1990 - 1993) and finally struggling with economy (sudden rise, sudden fall) and political manipulation under Mečiar's time in the seat of Slovak prime minister (1993 - 1998). :) BTW A lot of Slovak people nowadays cannot stand Mečiar's name and they view him as an embodyment of narcisstic ambitions, political machinations and nepotism. It got so bad that media from the West once called Mečiar, ,Lukashenko on the Danube".

[lancegideondiokno]

Breakup of Czechoslovakia in a nutshell
Slovakia: I want independence
Czechia: ok
*splits *
Czech Republic: soo we still friends?
Slovakia: of course :)

[ryanrigley]

A tide of apathy. I love it. That explains why so many were slow to realize that Czechoslovakia had split in two. At the time I didn't realize this split until nearly two years after the fact.

[DarkApostleNoek]

Should we stay together when asking the people this was the results:
1% said yes
2% said no
and 97% said whatever.

[zekk]

My father still remember the velvet revolution and he always says the first thing what we did was we are going vienna and HOLY SMOKES the supermarkets have glass roof?! XD

[korakys]

Be sure to read the Slovak constitution at 3:16, it is hilarious.

[killr]

At least Czechoslovakia did it peacefully,

*_YOU HEAR ME YUGOSLAVIA_* !

[NerdX]

Slovaks are some of the most "meh" people I have ever met. I had the pleasure of being in a student group with 3 slovaks. Upon asking them what they considered to be the most interesting thing about Bratislava, two of them replied "It is only 1 hour away from Vienna". God bless you wonderful Martiner-drinking people...

[isaac_aren]

Imagine the American civil war but both sides are just like "meh" and there's now 2 American nations

[michalhruska]

Slovaks: We dissolved the federation, so we should now make new flags and symbols, right?
Czechs: Yeah we'll have to opt out on that one

[arieees]

As a Czech myself I must say this video is pretty well made (as other videos on the channel as well)

[CSGhostAnimation]

Last sentence killed me.😂

Usual Separatists: We will fight for our independence. I am willing to die for it.

Czech separatists: Meh

[itaybron]

you guys wanna stay? meh
you guys wanna split? meh
well i'm not going through the list again, split it is!