Miroslav Kusy on Charter 77 and the Slovaks

The civil rights movement Charter 77 was mainly a Czech initiative, according to Slovak political scientist and former member of the movement Miroslav Kusy. He points to the content of the charter to support his statement. "In a way, the charter followed on from the position adopted by Czechs during the Prague Spring of 1968: 'First comes democratisation,' then the rest. Neither in the founding document nor in any of the following declarations is there a word about Slovak-Czech relations or the problems that resulted from the creation of a Soviet-style federation (1968). For the Slovaks, on the other hand, finding a solution to the Slovak-Czech problem had top priority. Another sensitive issue was the representation of the Slovaks in the management of the charter. In all the years of its existence, care was taken to ensure proportional representation of ex-communists, church representatives and civil dissidents within the movement, but not the proportional representation of Slovaks."

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