Being Diaspora: from being outsiders to becoming (un)distinguishable

Presented by Minhal Khan Prof. K. Ganesh Tamil/Sri Lankan Diaspora WWU Muenster SoSe 2013

Lands of the Bohemian Crown

The First Republic (19181938) Problems with its ethnic diversity, the separate histories and greatly differing religious, cultural, and social traditions of the Czechs and Slovaks

The Second Republic (19381939) faced problems with ethnic minorities, the most important of which concerned the German population. The German nationalist minority, vehemently backed by Hitler, demanded the union of the predominantly German districts with Germany

The Third Republic (19451948) and the Communist takeover (1948 - 1989) The Velvet Revolution 1989 and Democratic Czechoslovakia (19891992)

First wave

Communist coup 1948

Soviet Led invasion 1968

Began very early with trade, travel and scattered migration 15th c. onwards

First planned, serious wave of migration began the brain drain begins

So many people left that the government nullified passports to stem the exodus

Stories of escape
The most famous escape of this era was that of the Masin brothers, who spent one month on the run in East Germany in 1953, trying to make their way to West Berlin. They had tried to leave in 1951, but this plan had been foiled and oldest brother Ctirad Masin spent two years in labor camps as punishment. The brothers were pursued at one point by as many as 25,000 East German police and they killed at least three people on their journey to the West.

In other stories, people allegedly used scuba gear to swim down the Danube River into Austria (the Danube was later mined to prevent such escapes). In 1951, a group of resistance fighters actually hijacked a train and forced it over the border into Western Germany.

Milan Kundera
Czech writer, in exile since 1975 in France, citizen of France since 1981 His books were banned by the Communist regimes of Czechoslovakia until the downfall of the regime in the Velvet Revolution of 1989

Ignorance
The return, the return, the great magic of return. the notion of nostalgia and what it means to a Czech and worldwide The Odyssey (Homer) the founding epic of nostalgia and the great return home Perception of emigrating as misfortune The life one would have lived rejecting the wine was rejecting her. The other vs. our own other Coming back into the world as might a dead man emerging from his tomb Patriotism is dead? Does anyone still love this country?