177rent a room or even just a bed. In her
article for Radio Wave, Zuzana Fuksova
argued that many young Czechs move
to small cities close to Prague since the
cost of renting a small flat in the capital
is around 800 euros and very few can
afford that.
The Eurostat research also suggests
that Poles – including the youth – usu-
ally live in overcrowded flats (around 60
per cent of the time). Hungarians and
Romanians are slightly ahead, while Slo-
vaks are right behind. In the Czech Re-
public, only 20 per cent of citizens face
overcrowding; the lowest rates have been
recorded in Cyprus, Ireland and Bel-
gium – between three and six per cent.
Conflicting viewsWhen I moved to Prague and began
watching young women and the families
of my peers, I noticed that the traditional
division of roles is something natural
for them, which contrasts the popular
image of Czechs as emancipated and
liberated. Answers given about family
life in the Generation What survey also
demonstrate how important traditional family is for young Czechs. To the ques-
tion of whether marriage is important for them, 56 per cent of Czechs answered
that they dream about it (in Germany the same was true for 54 per cent, in Poland
43 per cent and in France – 39 per cent). At the same time, 19 per cent of Czechs
think marriage is “only a piece of paper” (compared to 32 per cent in Poland, 28
per cent in France and 26 per cent in Germany). Regarding whether one can be
happy without children, 48 per cent of Generation Y Czechs answered “yes” (60
per cent of Generation Y Poles answered “yes”).
One sign against the conservative image of Czechs can be found in their attitude
towards divorce: three-quarters of respondents claim that divorce is “sometimes
A velvet divorce
Formally, Czechoslovakia ceased to exist at midnight
on December 31st 1992. Its division took place against
the will of Václav Havel who until July 1992 had been
the country’s president. The creation of two separate
states was not supported by the majority of society,
either. However, in that case, nobody asked the people
about their attitudes. Despite Havel’s insistence, there
was no referendum. The break-up was instigated by
two ambition-driven politicians. They were the leaders
of the political parties which managed to wake up the
centuries-old ethnic and national sentiments among
the Czechs and Slovaks and which won parliamentary
elections in June 1992.
On the Czech side was Václav Klaus – the leader of
the Czech Democratic Party, while on the Slovak side was
Vladimír Mečiar, who was in charge of the Movement for
a Democratic Slovakia. Thus, the final decision to divide
the country was the result of the post-election nego-
tiations which these two politicians held in the famous
Tugendhat villa in Brno. On August 26th 1992 the agree-
ment was signed by Klaus and Mečiar, at that time Czech
and Slovak prime ministers, to divide the federation. The
process was legalised in autumn 1992 when a series of
laws was passed regulating the division of Czechoslovakia
into two separate republics. Among them was the act on
the division of common property and the final division of
the federation. Based on the latter, the divorce between
the Czechs and the Slovaks took place. Political scientists
have, from the beginning, indicated that even though
it was carried out against the will of both societies and
as a result of a secret agreement of the representatives
of the elite, it did take place in the form of a velvet (i.e.,
non-violent) political change. (IR)Millennials versus statistics, Kinga Motyka Poles and Czechs across generations