Memories & reflections

CBC Radio Sunday Edition

Generation Next: Young women's round table in Prague

Radio documentary by Karin Wells and David Gutnick

Round table participants (left to right) Lucie Bierhausova, Olga Cordiner, Lucie Benson, Barbara Jayne-Zebrowska, Eva Kostrhunova, and Eva Van Wagenen. (CBC/David Gutnick)

Barbara Jayne-Zebrowska, Olga Cordiner, Lucie Benson, Lucie Bierhausova, Eva Korstrhunova, and Eva Van Wagenen are all Czech women in their early and mid-20s. They got together in a Prague café with David Gutnick to talk about Communism and how they see the future.This is an interview transcript from the CBC Radio Sunday Edition documentary "Generation Next: Young Minds, Bodies and Souls after Communism. From Ukraine, Romania, the Czech Republic and Hungary"

Transcript

None of us really experienced the communistic era even though I remember quite well but it is true that everybody was much more relaxed in a way that you don't need to really struggle and fight all the time. Right now in these days you constantly have to think about the future, you have to all the time plan, you have to all the time know what you are doing and if you are going in the right direction and it is just a struggle, a lot of work. You cannot just go and have fun all the time that is what I think people — if they really didnt care — if they had their cottage they were happy.

That's very true I just remember the times when I was taking care by my grandparents. And everything I remember was celebrations, going to fairs, going to like merry-go-rounds, going to competitions of like reading poetry, and not so much about real life.

And I must say something completely different, my grandfather lost his job during the communist time, because he was a teacher and we were a religious family, so he was basically saying he was a Catholic and he went to church and he lost his job. So all my life I remember hiding, to go to church we had to far away on the other side of the city so nobody sees us, so completely different from what you were saying.

Wow! I didn't know that!

Religion was forbidden. There was no god. There was only the Communist Party.

Of course some suffered more, some suffered less and they didnt care because they were very happy with whatever they had and they didnt need to think about the future because it was taken care of for them.

We are the generation who was hit by all the changes. We were learning something in school, which suddenly was not true anymore you know and we were learning Russian, then suddenly we had to start learning English and German

Which was completely crazy.

And they were learning from us so it was like a completely crazy kind of thing, which was weird.

Some of these things were just funny.

And when we asked our parents well what should I be in the future? you know when I want to go to the university or if I want to go to work, what do I want to be? and they did not know the answer because they did not know what the future is going to be like.And we have this freedom and now what?

Wow, what are we doing? Where are we going? Whats going to happen?

Even if the old people felt that it was good but it was not.

It does not mean that right now it is working right. I do not think so.

The big problem in this country in the politics is that I think that young people havent voted but the old generation the old people, the grandfathers and grandmothers, the communist ones they go to vote because they feel it as an obligation. Because during communist times we had to go to vote because otherwise you would be arrested and there was only one choice you know. So now they go to vote and they do vote for the socialists or communists. So everything is going kind of to the left. And these social democrats they are like in their campaign you can see it all around here like their billboards and their advertising is just free health care, we give you this money, and free school education and everything free. And we dont believe that but we have to go and make the change. And vote for the one who actually dont give us these lies anymore. But who is there?

Who knows you know? It is like you have to spend so much time and doing research and everything and everybody is so busy. And that is also the disadvantage of the change because you are constantly fighting for survival so there is not so much time to sort of concentrate on important things where the country is going to go because you are going to give a vote and based on that something is going to happen in the country. Maybe: If it really works like that.

We have to go vote for somethingthat is the same thing that you saidbecause the Communists will vote, so we need to go and vote as well. Whatever party. Yeah. Green or...

Green sounds good too, the best of the bad ones. That is what people say, they vote for the less evil because there is just no real alternative, anything to keep the socialists or the communists out.

But there are no young people in politics, because no one wants to go there. Because it is so dirty and nasty and everyone just fights for their own good and they still proclaim these lies all the time.

We have to teach our kids how to be good, how to not lie, how to not steal. And basically be honest and moral.

Because in the communist time people were afraid to say what they think there was like a big gap between the people so I think now they are learning again how to communicate together and they need to work together.

Yes one of the goals for our generation would be to be honest with each other and open with each other and critical as well and to be able to not close our eyes from things that we se are evidently wrong because we believe that it is not our responsibility, it is not our business.

I do not want to say it like this but once the communist generation is dead or over thenwell we are not communists and we do not think the way they were, so I think we hope that we can produce something new and find some new way.

People need to learn how to forget, to forget, to move on. To draw the big line and you know you can see now — especially in the politics — all the time these fights "you were in the Communist party and you were doing these bad things, just forget about everything and move on and focus on the future and focus on our children." That is the most important thing to focus on.

Maybe we should not forget. Not to forget so that we can let it happen again. Not to dig in the past so much and getting stuck in the past all the time but there is lots of other things to take care for the future of our kids than to just be stuck with these problems all the time.

About the radio documentary

Stone cold: statue of Communist leader Vladimir Lenin looks into a democratic future for Ukraine. (CBC/Karin Wells)

On Nov. 9, 1989, the Berlin Wall was smashed. That marked the beginning of the end of a dream — for communists. For many people who lived under Soviet domination, it signaled the end of a nightmare.

Almost overnight, capitalism bloomed. Whole economies were redesigned. Free speech flourished. Unemployment soared. So did interest in organized religion. Billionaires popped up. Social safety nets were shredded. Neighbours found out who had been spying on whom. Real elections were held. Here was democracy, or something like it.

Now, from the ashes of the old — still warm, still combustible — the young are building new worlds in Eastern Europe. Theirs is the first post-Soviet generation. They carry the weight of the past, its secrets and lies. And like the young everywhere, they dream about a different future.

This is the second of three CBC Radio Sunday Edition documentaries that bring us the sounds, experiences, ideas and dreams of a special generation in a series called "Generation Next: Young Minds, Bodies and Souls after Communism, from Ukraine, Romania, the Czech Republic and Hungary" produced by Karin Wells and David Gutnick.

LISTEN to Part 2 (51:20)