Rozhovor Britských listů 253. Jak zastrašili komunistický parlament, aby zvolil Václava Havla prezidentem [Britské listy Interview 253. How the communist Parliament was bullied to elect Václav Havel President]

This interview is in Czech with English subtitles. "History exists in order to give sense to our present. The use or abuse of history is a way of politically legitimising our present. There is a way of politicisation of history. This is a way of using or abusing history for your contemporary political aims." Exactly thirty years ago, on 29th December 1989, the communist Parliament elected dissident Václav Havel Czechoslovak President. But it only did so as a result of quite incredible, anti-democratic blackmail. The 1989 Democratic Revolution in Czechoslovakia was on the right side of history, but the way it was realised, in many aspects, was not quite democratic. A number of Stalinist and neo-Stalinist practices were used. In this Britské listy Interview, Jan Čulík discusses this with the French historian Muriel Blaive. The interview is broadcast on the Czech cable TV station Regionalnitelevize.cz from Friday 27th December 2019