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Martin Šmíd was a fictitious Czechoslovak university student who was supposedly killed in the police attack on 17 November 1989 student demonstration in Prague that launched Czechoslovakia 's Velvet Revolution. [1] The rumour of Šmíd's death was spread by Drahomíra Dražská, a porter at a student dormitory in the city's Troja district.
Martin Šmíd was a fictitious Czechoslovak university student who was supposedly killed in the police attack on 17 November 1989 student demonstration in Prague that launched Czechoslovakia 's Velvet Revolution. The rumour of Šmíd's death was spread by Drahomíra Dražská, a porter at a student dormitory in the city's Troja district.
Fáma o smrti Martina Šmída sehrála velkou úlohu v sametové revoluci v roce 1989. Zprávu, že při večerním policejním zásahu proti studentské demonstraci 17. listopadu 1989 zemřel student Martin Šmíd, přinesla Drahomíra Dražská, vrátná na vysokoškolských kolejích v Praze-Troji.
Fáma. Správu o údajnej smrti študenta Martina Šmída počas zásahu polície proti študentskej demonštrácii 17. novembra 1989 vyniesla na verejnosť Drahomíra Dražská, vrátnička vysokoškolských internátov v pražskej Troji.
- Prior to The Revolution
- Chronology
- Aftermath
- Naming and Categorisation
- Ideals of The Revolution
- External Factors
- Pace of Change
- Jingled Keys
- See Also
- Further Reading
The Communist Party seized power on 25 February 1948. No official opposition parties operated thereafter. Dissidents (notably Charter 77 and Civic Forum) created Music Clubs (on a limited basis as only allowed NGOs) and published home-made periodicals (samizdat). Charter 77 was quashed by the government and its signed members were persecuted until ...
16 November
On the eve of International Students Day (the 50th anniversary of Sonderaktion Prag, the 1939 storming of Prague universities by the Nazis), Slovak high school and university students organised a peaceful demonstration in the centre of Bratislava. The Communist Party of Slovakiahad expected trouble, and the mere fact that the demonstration was organised was viewed as a problem by the Party. Armed forces were put on alert before the demonstration. In the end, however, the students moved throug...
17 November
New movements led by Václav Havel surfaced, invoking the idea of a united society where the state would politically restructure. The Socialist Youth Union (SSM/SZM, proxy of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia) organised a mass demonstration on 17 November to commemorate International Students Day and the fiftieth anniversary of the murder of student Jan Opletalby the Nazi government. Most members of SSM were privately opposed to the Communist leadership, but were afraid of speaking up for...
18 November
Two students visited Prime Minister Ladislav Adamecat his private residence and described to him what happened on Národní Street. The strike at the Realistic Theatre was declared and other theatres quickly followed. The theaters opened their stages only for public discussions. At the initiative of students from the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague, the students in Prague went on strike. This strike was joined by university students throughout Czechoslovakia. Theatre employees and actors i...
The victory of the revolution was topped off by the election of rebel playwright and human rights activist Václav Havel as President of Czechoslovakiaon 29 December 1989. The event was highly choreographed and symbolically significant, including on account of with religious elements, as historian Martin Wein has analyzed in detail. Within weeks, Ha...
The term Velvet Revolution was coined by Rita Klímová, the dissidents' English translator who later became the ambassador to the United States. The term was used internationally to describe the revolution, although the Czechs also used the term internally. After the dissolution of Czechoslovakia in 1993, Slovakia used the term Gentle Revolution, th...
In the months leading up to and during the revolution, citizens dispersed ideas using flyers distributed en masse. Hundreds of discrete flyers with varying messages were printed, but most shared the same ideals. In the summer of 1989, one of the most widely circulated documents was "The Eight Rules of Dialogue", which advocated for truth, understan...
The events of November 1989 confirmed that outside factors were significant catalysts for the downfall of Communism in Czechoslovakia. Therefore, the transformations in Poland and Hungary and the collapse of the regime in East Germany, both of which could be traced to the new attitude of the Soviets toward East Europe, encouraged Czechs and Slovaks...
The State's reaction to the strikes demonstrated that while global isolation produced pressures for political, social, and economic change, the events that followed could not be predetermined. Hardly anyone thought that the Communist State could collapse so quickly. Striking students and theatres did not seem likely to intimidate a state that was a...
One element of the demonstrations of the Velvet Revolution was the jingling of keys to signify support. The practice had a double meaning – it symbolized the unlocking of doorsand was the demonstrators' way of telling the Communists, "Goodbye, it's time to go home." A commemorative 2 Euro coin was issued by Slovakia on 17 November 2009 to mark the ...
Civic Forum and Public Against Violence(political movements that played major role in the revolution)Kukral, Michael Andrew. Prague 1989: Theater of Revolution. New York: Columbia University Press. 1997. ISBN 0-88033-369-3.Marek Benda, Martin Benda, Martin Klíma, Pavel Dobrovský, Monika Pajerová, and Šimon Pánek, Studenti psali revoluci (Students wrote the revolution -in Czech). Prague: Univerzum, 1990. ISBN 80-85207...Tauchen, Jaromír – Schelle, Karel etc.: The Process of Democratization of Law in the Czech Republic (1989–2009). Rincon (USA), The American Institute for Central European Legal Studies 2009. 204 pp...- 17 November – 28 November 1989
Martin Šmíd was born on 27 January 1970 in Beroun. After graduating from high school in 1988, he started studying at the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics of Charles University. He was not politically involved and did not take part in the student parade on 17 November 1989, which ended in a brutal crackdown by the forces on Národní třída. Nevertheless, his name is inextricably linked ...
Martin Šmíd was born on 27 January 1970 in Beroun. After graduating from high school in 1988, he started studying at the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics of Charles University. He was not politically involved and did not take part in the student parade on 17 November 1989, which ended in a brutal crackdown by the forces on Národní třída. Nevertheless, his name is inextricably linked ...
