Millennials, also called Generation Y, Generation “What?” and the “lost generation”, is a generation often thought of as the bogeyman for big corporations. Yet this is the generation which is beginning to set trends and have a real impact on global affairs. It encompasses those who were born between 1980 and 2000. It is a generation that has been shaped by social media and horrifying historical events: terrorist attacks and mass migration issues. Millennials are described as being flexible (e.g., frequently changing their careers and location, and easily adapting to new circumstances) and are critical, especially towards information and media. They are also referred to as the “relational” generation; they choose their friends by filtering them on Facebook based on common interests in music, literature or politics.

“We also know, of course, that the Polish Solidarity movement, led by Lech Wałęsa, was the first to find a peaceful and effective way to offer continuous resistance to the totalitarian system. Nor will we forget that it was you, the Polish Senate and the Sejm, who were the first – in the summer of last year – to condemn the shameful invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. Allow me therefore to use this occasion to thank you and the entire Polish nation.” Václav Havel speech in the Polish Sejm and Senate, January 25th 1990

ZBIGNIEW ROKITA: When did the post-war contacts between Polish and Czechoslovak opposition start?

MIROSŁAW JASIŃSKI: They started as early as 1948, when the communists took power in Czechoslovakia. That was the same year as the first meeting of Czechoslovak national socialists and the Polish People’s Party. In the next decades their co-operation included different areas: meetings at the highest level, smuggling literature and printing equipment, and active engagement with Polish students of the FAMU Prague Film Academy during the Prague Spring – Agnieszka Holland was among them. Artists who were banned in Czechoslovakia often had exhibitions in Poland. For decades the churches worked together and Czechoslovak priests and nuns were secretly ordained in Poland.