2 Euro BU

17 November holds a dual historical significance in Czech and Slovak remembrance culture. In 1939, the German occupying power responded to student protests in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia by closing Czech universities. Nine students and university staff members were executed, and more than a thousand students were deported to Sachsenhausen concentration camp. In exile, 17 November was subsequently declared International Students’ Day. An officially authorized Prague student demonstration in 1989 drew on this history.

The march, initially organized as a commemorative event, developed into a protest against communist rule in Czechoslovakia. Security forces violently dispersed the gathering in central Prague. The crackdown triggered further demonstrations, strikes and political alliances. In Prague, Civic Forum (Bürgerforum) was formed around the writer and dissident Václav Havel. In Bratislava, Public Against Violence (Öffentlichkeit gegen Gewalt) emerged as an independent Slovak opposition movement. Theatres, universities and workforces also took part in the protests.

Under public pressure, within a few weeks the Communist Party lost its constitutionally guaranteed leading role. A government involving the former opposition was installed. At the end of December, the Federal Assembly elected Václav Havel as president; Alexander Dubček, a central figure of the Prague Spring (Prager Frühling) of 1968, became chairman of parliament. In June 1990, free parliamentary elections were held for the first time in decades.

For Slovakia, the commemorative day thus refers to the democratic reorganization of the then common Czechoslovak state and, at the same time, to the activities of the Slovak civic movement. After the peaceful division of Czechoslovakia in 1993, this legacy remained part of the political memory of both successor states. The issue also fell in the year in which Slovakia introduced the euro; the anniversary could thus be depicted on a new Slovak circulation coin.