How the seams came apart

It will soon be twenty years since the “seams” holding Czechs and Slovaks together in one state definitively burst. Was the “Velvet Divorce” more of a benefit for both nations? Why did it happen at all? Who was really at the helm, and who was steering the course behind the scenes? The authors sought answers to these and many other questions about the coexistence and subsequent separation of Czechs and Slovaks from prominent figures in Czech and Slovak public life. Both “captains” – Václav Klaus and Vladimír Mečiar – gave extensive, exclusive interviews. However, the testimonies of Petr Pithart, Ján Čarnogurský, Zdeněk Jičínský, Ján Slota, Pavel Dubček, Jan Kalvoda, Fedor Gál, Jiří Svoboda and Milan Kňažko are no less interesting, as are the statements from representatives of the Slovak artistic community – Deana Horváthová-Jakubisková, Ján Litecký-Švéda and Miro Žbirka.

The individual interviews are interspersed with the authors’ commentary, along with photographs, selected documents, and a mosaic of historical and current quotes from Czech personalities about Slovaks and vice versa. What emerges is a vivid picture of a recent era and events that are undoubtedly worthy of our attention. And perhaps even our pride – after all, such a civilised dissolution of a shared state is unfortunately the exception rather than the rule.

The book Jak praskaly švy (How the Seams Burst) launches a new series from Nakladatelství ČAS dedicated to our history, titled Český ČAS (Czech TIME).