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Published November 15, 2014

In this photo taken Saturday, Nov. 1, 2014, puppet designer and film maker Miroslav Trejtnar prepares a map for animations of his movie 'What to tell to kids?" in a studio in Prague, Czech Republic. The Velvet Revolution that kicked off in Prague 25 years ago Monday, Nov. 17, was a seminal event in the collapse of communism. But how do you explain it to young children who have only known democracy? Renowned puppet designer Miroslav Trejtnar and filmmaker Tatana Markova teamed up to present the Velvet Revolution in a 30-minute movie that tells the story of more than a dozen children of the revolution - now parents - through the magic of animation. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek)(The Associated Press)

In this photo taken Saturday, Nov. 1, 2014, Alzbeta Berankova takes a photo for animations for the movie 'What to tell to kids?" in a studio in Prague, Czech Republic. The Velvet Revolution that kicked off in Prague 25 years ago Monday, Nov. 17, was a seminal event in the collapse of communism. But how do you explain it to young children who have only known democracy? Renowned puppet designer Miroslav Trejtnar and filmmaker Tatana Markova teamed up to present the Velvet Revolution in a 30-minute movie that tells the story of more than a dozen children of the revolution - now parents - through the magic of animation. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek)(The Associated Press)

In this photo taken Saturday, Nov. 1, 2014, puppet designer and film maker Miroslav Trejtnar prepares a map for animations of his movie 'What to tell to kids?" in a studio in Prague, Czech Republic. The Velvet Revolution that kicked off in Prague 25 years ago Monday, Nov. 17, was a seminal event in the collapse of communism. But how do you explain it to young children who have only known democracy? Renowned puppet designer Miroslav Trejtnar and filmmaker Tatana Markova teamed up to present the Velvet Revolution in a 30-minute movie that tells the story of more than a dozen children of the revolution - now parents - through the magic of animation. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek)(The Associated Press)

PRAGUE The Velvet Revolution that kicked off in Prague 25 years ago Monday was a seminal event in the collapse of communism. Try explaining that to children who have only known democracy.

That's the challenge tackled by two veterans of the uprising as the massive student protests faded ever further into the past. They wanted to capture the excitement of the rallies, the brutality of police beatings and the surreal repression of a nation that Vaclav Havel later president dubbed "Absurdistan."

So renowned puppet designer Miroslav Trejtnar and filmmaker Tatana Markova teamed up to present the Velvet Revolution in a 30-minute movie that tells the story of more than a dozen children of the revolution now parents through the magic of animation.

"The parents are telling their children why they joined the demonstration, why they wanted a change," Trejtnar said. "It's about a turning point that they didn't experience."

"We used animation to present it in a form familiar to them," said Markova, "so the story becomes lively for them."

In the movie, the parents choose a toy a small human figure or animal and tell their own story by moving it on a big map of Prague. The toys are then animated to play out the drama of the events that toppled communism in Czechoslovakia.

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Former students, now parents, use animated toys to explain 1989 Velvet Revolution to children

Oppose FEMA camps, communism or Agenda 21 Labled potential terrorists #39; by U.S. government
Oppose FEMA camps, communism or Agenda 21 Labled #39;potential terrorists #39; by U.S. government Learn more: ...

By: strongtower0914

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Oppose FEMA camps, communism or Agenda 21 Labled potential terrorists' by U.S. government - Video

Stan Persky, author of 'Post-Communist Stories,' talks to The Tyee.

Author Persky: 'The failure of communism (or Stalinism, or Soviet-style communism, if you prefer) raises the profoundest questions for a socialist like me.'

[Editor's note: As you've no doubt been reminded this week, the Berlin Wall fell just about 25 years ago, ushering in an era that philosopher and writer Stan Persky, who splits his time between Vancouver and Berlin, reflects upon in his new book Post-Communist Stories: About Cities, Politics, Desires. An excerpt runs today on The Tyee. And Persky's old friend Tom Sandborn caught up with him to have the conversation below.]

Tyee: This book is based on your 1995 release Then We Take Berlin. Although you have added lots of new material reflecting your experiences and observations in Eastern Europe over the quarter century since the Wall fell and revised and updated the material that first appeared in 1995, you must have had a reason to revisit your earlier work rather than write an entirely new text. Tell us about the process that led to this book's creation.

Stan Persky: The obvious reason for putting together a book of both new and revised writings about post-communist Europe is that this year is the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the emblematic image of the Cold War. I was worried that people wouldn't remember what had happened.

Many of the students I teach in university today have never heard of the events of 1989 in Central and Eastern Europe. Many of them have never heard of the Soviet Union, whose dissolution occurred in 1991, shortly before they were born. In fact, many of them have never even heard of communism.

It turns out that 2014 is a year of many historic anniversaries. In addition to being the 25th anniversary of the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, its also the 25th anniversary of the popular uprising in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China that was crushed by the Chinese Communist Party's army, and then erased from people's memories by methods described in George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four.

It's also the hundredth anniversary of the beginning of World War I in 1914, and the 75th anniversary of the joint Soviet-Nazi attack on Poland that began World War II in 1939. And, for those keeping track of such things, it's the quarter-century mark for the introduction of the World Wide Web, the now-ubiquitous http://www.whatever that takes us everywhere and nowhere. As someone who writes "for the record," I see it as part of my job to prevent forgetting, and to not only remind fellow citizens of what happened in our past, but to try and figure out what it meant so that we won't be doomed to repeat our historical mistakes.

Second, as a writer, I want to show the connections between the past and the present. By coincidence, 2014 also is the year in which the majority of the people of Ukraine overthrew their corrupt, Russian-dominated government in order to try to establish a society that's moving closer to the European Union, the rule of law, and a decent standard of living, and away from the influence of Vladimir Putin's authoritarian Russia.

Link:
'I'm Still Waiting for Someone to Come up with Communism 2.0' (in Culture)

A crowd of protesters waves flags showing Viktor Orban, the Prime Minister of Hungary, beside President Vladimir Putin of Russia at a rally in Budapest. Orban announced later dropped a proposed tax on Internet usage that angered thousands, who felt that the tax was an attempt to cut off one of the few sources of information not controlled by Orban's allies. Photo: New York Times

Budapest:A quarter-century ago, as Hungary helped ignite the events that would lead to the collapse of Communism, the ferment produced a new political star.

Viktor Orban was 26 then and a long-haired law graduate. In June 1989, five months before the Berlin Wall came down, he lit up a commemoration of the failed 1956 revolt against Moscow with a bold call for free elections and a demand that 80,000 Soviet troops go home.

Now, days after the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, Hungary is a member of NATO and the European Union and Mr Orban is in his third term as Prime Minister. But what was once a journey that might have embodied the triumph of democratic capitalism has evolved into a much more complex tale of a country and a leader who in the time since have come to question Western values, foment nationalism and look more openly at Russia as a model.

Looking east: Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. Photo: AFP

After leading his right-wing party Fidesz to a series of national and local election victories, Mr Orban is rapidly centralising power, raising a crop of crony oligarchs, cracking down on dissent, expanding ties with Moscow, and generally drawing uneasy comparisons from Western leaders and internal opponents to President Vladimir Putin.

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"He is the only Putinist governing in the European Union," said Joschka Fischer, the former German foreign minister.

Some other Eastern European countries, especially Poland, have remained oriented toward the West and still harbour deep suspicions of Russia long after the Cold War ended.

But Hungary is one of several countries in the former Soviet sphere that is now torn between the Western ways that appeared ascendant immediately after the fall of the Soviet Union and the resilient clout of today's Russia. Money, culture and energy resources still bind most regional countries to Russia as tightly as to Europe. Mr Putin's combative nationalism is more popular here than what many see as Western democratic sclerosis.

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Putin protege Viktor Orban spreads his wings in Hungary

Communism in Albania: A True Story
A narrative about the rise and fall of Commuism in Albania during the cold war.

By: A Rose #39;sthorns

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Communism in Albania: A True Story - Video