The Prague Spring and Its Nonviolent Implications

Zhongyi Zhang

doi:10.54097/f1mf2v02

Authors

Zhongyi Zhang

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.54097/f1mf2v02

Keywords:

Czechoslovakia, revolution, nonviolence.

Abstract

Only a decade after the Munich Agreement in which Nazi Germany annexed the Sudetenland and turned the rest of Czechoslovakia into a puppet state months later, Czechoslovakia was toppled again to be controlled by an intimidating global pact which was one of the only two global superpowers in opposition. The paper explores the so-called nonviolent national spirit of Czechoslovakia by scrutinizing its crucial events throughout history. Most of the part will focus on the overall history of Czechoslovakia to see the national response in crucial circumstances of history, including the Munich Agreement, the 1948 communists’ coup d’etat, the Prague Spring, and the Velvet Revolution. The author seeks to find out the connection between its conformist attitude in the early years and its nonviolent but revolutionary attitude in the later years. The study reveals that most of them were not violent but only a few of them could be described as nonviolent.

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