Publication details
„Dosť som sa nabehal po svete.“ : Pohľady slovenských reemigrantov po roku 1989
| Title in English | “I Have Been Running Around the World Enough.” : The Viewpoints of Slovak Re-emigrants After 1989 |
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| Authors | |
| Year of publication | 2024 |
| Type | Article in Periodical |
| Magazine / Source | Historický časopis |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| web | https://www.historickycasopis.sk/42024/babincakova-martina-dost-som-sa-nabehal-po-svete-pohlady-slovenskych-reemigrantov-po-roku-1989.pdf |
| Doi | http://dx.doi.org/10.31577/histcaso.2024.72.4.8 |
| Keywords | Emigration;Re-emigration; 1990´s; Slovakia; Czechoslovakia; Return; oral history |
| Description | This study is partially based on previous research focused on the idea of home among “ordinary” politically inactive emigrants who left Czechoslovakia between 1968 and 1989 and decided to return for various reasons after November 1989. It examines the returns of Slovak migrants to their homeland, from which they departed during times of state socialism and returned to democracy and capitalism, through the testimonies of 9 witnesses. Why did they decide to return? What did the Velvet Revolution mean to them? How did they perceive the changes in post-communist Czechoslovakia (and later in the Slovak Republic)? What obstacles did they encounter? Did they feel accepted upon their return, or did they feel like strangers in their own country? And to what extent is it possible to answer such a question if we only ask those who did not decide to emigrate again? The presented text uses oral history to analyse the experiences of politically inactive Slovak re-emigrants with their return to their homeland, which for some had changed beyond recognition and for others had remained bitterly the same in many ways. It thus attempts to begin filling a gap that is absent in the Czech Republic thanks to theses and studies that examine the relationship of re-emigrants to society (and vice versa) after November 1989. In Slovakia, this field remains little explored. |
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