Buch, Englisch, 270 Seiten, Paperback, Format (B × H): 148 mm x 210 mm, Gewicht: 354 g
Buch, Englisch, 270 Seiten, Paperback, Format (B × H): 148 mm x 210 mm, Gewicht: 354 g
ISBN: 978-3-8382-1426-9
Verlag: ibidem-Verlag
This political biography is the first ever written about Ponická, despite her being a household name in Slovakia. Josette Baer’s analysis is based on Ponická’s memoirs of that cruel year of 1977, newspaper articles she published prior to 1971, when the regime effectively banned any critical voice from publication, and newspaper articles she published after the Velvet Revolution of 1989 to promote the establishing of a rule-of-law state and democracy.
The documents of the StB, the Slovak and Czech Security Services, are analyzed for the first time; they are evidence of how the StB tried to pressure the resilient and disciplined grandmother of three into obedience.
Oral history interviews with Dirk Mathias Dalberg, Vlasta Jaksicsová, and Mary Šamal inform the reader about the situation of the Slovak dissidents of Charter 77, how normal citizens lived in the regime, and how the Czech and Slovak exile communities in the USA saw the dissidents in Communist Czechoslovakia.