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Between Prague and Helsinki: Setting the Transnational Stage for Dissidence

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Dissidents in Communist Central Europe

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in the History of Social Movements ((PSHSM))

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Abstract

The first half of the 1970s was a time of soul-searching for the opposition, but by 1975 open political dissent reemerged, beginning a new chapter in the struggle with Communist authoritarianism. Three elements had to be in place before the transnational figure of the dissident in the form that we now know it could emerge. Firstly, the massive wave of emigration after 1968 created a network of “dissident interpreters” ready to publicize and explain to Western audiences the nuances of Central European politics. Secondly, the growing domestic unofficial publishing—samizdat—began to cross borders and create new channels for ideas’ circulation, together with exilic publishing, radio, and later TV. Finally, human rights began to take the role of a universal lingua franca of 1970s détente and gave the East European dissenters an idiom in which their struggles could be expressed in a way intelligible across the political spectrum.

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  1. Department of Political Science, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway

    Kacper Szulecki

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Szulecki, K. (2019). Between Prague and Helsinki: Setting the Transnational Stage for Dissidence. In: Dissidents in Communist Central Europe. Palgrave Studies in the History of Social Movements. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-22613-8_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-22613-8_5

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