The Velvet Revolution is now celebrating its 35th anniversary. This creative article commemorates the date of December 10, 1989, when the first non-communist government in Czechoslovakia since 1948 took office. It is more important than ever to remember the lessons from this time of national euphoria. This is especially true with regards to the freedoms that peoples both in and outside of Eastern Europe enjoy and often take for granted. The piece is a collage of different memories and hopes of Czech citizens from that time of new liberty--drawn from both interviews and the author's imagination.

Inept management and inconsistent policies have caused disappointment among an Armenian civil society eager for reform.

Following the revolution in 2018, Armenians were satisfied that they finally overcame a corrupt regime. After losing a war and experiencing democratic backsliding, the people who brought Pashinyan to power might be the ones bringing him down

The recent regulations in Armenia contradict the political leadership’s commitments to democratisation and may be damaging to the country’s progress.

The developments in Slovakia leading up to 1989 can be interpreted as a belated response to momentous changes in Moscow and, more immediately, in Prague. They could be classified as a “revolution on the periphery” – a phenomenon describing how the wave of change travelled to provinces and distant cities from the centre. Nevertheless these events shaped Slovakia’s development and their interpretation plays a role in politics today.
Looking back now at the precarious post-communist transformation and pondering the turbulent period that we witness today, we might ask to what extent the current condition in Central Europe in general, and Slovakia in particular, were affected by the events of 1989 – that annus mirabilis when the communist regimes of Central Europe fell after four decades in power. Was the current status quo somehow predetermined by the events and developments of that year? Or did the post-communist transformation contain its own dynamics, reflecting the longer-term conditions and political cultures of the countries that now form the Visegrád Group?