ECOLOGISTS AND PACIFISTS

Since the 1980s, ecology and pacifism have been added to the topics of freedom of speech and democracy. The reason for this was the poor state of the environment, affected by heavy industry, which was favored in the socialist economy, and the image of the army and police as repressive forces of a totalitarian state fighting against its own citizens.

The Chernobyl disaster inspired Polish-Czechoslovak protests against the construction of nuclear power plants in Stonava, Temelín, and Żarnowiec. People did not believe that they would be safe and that the reactors would only be used for civilian purposes.

Pacifist slogans were promoted by the Polish organization Freedom and Peace (Wolność i Pokój), whose members included Małgorzata Tarasiewicz and Agnieszka Romaszewska-Guzy, and by the Czechoslovak Independent Peace Association – Initiative for the Demilitarization of Society, co-founded by Hana Marvanová.

Mária Filková, Gabriela Kaliská, Judita Kokolevská, Zora Okáliová-Pauliniová, Jana Višváderová, and Hana Volková were among the authors of the 1987 publication Bratislava/Out Loud, which contained critical texts on the state of the environment and life in Bratislava in general. It also proposed solutions and pointed out the inaction of the state, serving as an indictment of the regime. Václav Havel called it the Slovak equivalent of Charter 77.

Anna Zemanová: „We enjoyed being together, knowing that we were leaving something visible and useful behind, finding ways to express our resistance against the ruling system in a way that our peers and those around us could follow. We sought new ways to invite even strangers to share our values. We were not discouraged by hard work, discomfort, or failures.“