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From the ArchivesSeeking asylum in communist Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia played an active part in the Soviet Union’s propaganda war
with the United States during the 1950s, a time of edginess and paranoia on
both sides. There was no shortage of people trying to flee across the Iron
Curtain to the West, but every now and then the flight would be in the
other direction, and someone from the West would actively seek asylum in
the Communist Bloc. For the communist regimes this was a propaganda
opportunity not to be missed. More
Czech HistoryPresident Gustáv Husák, the face of Czechoslovakia’s “normalisation”
The last communist president of Czechoslovakia Gustáv Husák became the
symbol of the spineless regime that ruled the country after the Soviet-led
invasion of Czechoslovakia. Himself a political prisoner in the 1950s, he
oversaw the persecution of opposition activists in the 1970s and 80s – an
intellectual who supported the reforms of the Prague Spring turned into the
Soviet Union’s lackey. We look at the life of Gustáv Husák on the 99th
anniversary of his birth. More
Current AffairsCzech military doctors sent as reinforcements to Slovak hospitals
Since Saturday, a group of Czech military doctors have been helping out in
hospitals in neighbouring Slovakia where hundreds of doctors walked out
over low wages. Last Wednesday the resignations of 1,200 doctors (of an
overall 7,000) came into force, leaving four of the country’s hospitals
in critical condition and another sixteen in jeopardy. Even though the
Slovak government has now agreed to meet doctors’ demands, the Czech team
is staying on until conditions return to normal. More
Czech HistoryThe Czech invasion of ‘Wilson City’
Welcome to Wilsonstadt, an independent Central European city of 400,000
Germans and Hungarians, and a few Slovaks thrown in for good measure. Named
after US President Woodrow Wilson in 1919, after successfully avoiding
annexation by Czechoslovakia - and an impossible number of other would-be
conquests - it's a prosperous, provincial town on the Danube, though
plagued by poor relations with its neighbors. More
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