Word: ashe
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Although the ten-day prediction was a bit optimistic, Ash was in the ballpark. He gives a day-by-day account of the formation of the opposition Civic Forum, the mass demonstrations in the streets of Prague, and the rapid ascension of playwright Vaclav Havel from dissident to president...
...Civic Forum, the coalition opposition group, managed the nowdubbed Velvet Revolution from, of all places, a theatre called the "Magic Lantern." Ash brilliantly juxtaposes the gravity of the political situation with the ironic humor of Havel and his band of writers, artists, economists and politicians. He tells of how his press credentials bore Havel's personal stamp--"a beaming pussy cat with the word 'Smile' across his chest!" A second credential bears a stamp with a beaming green frog and the words tres bien...
From the inside, Ash conveys the feeling that he and the ragtag bunch of reformers are truly in Revolution Central. At the same time, he demonstrates the agitated spontaneity with which the rapid changes occurred, the wondrous transfer of power from "the castle" to the Magic Lantern...
Throughout his personal essays, Ash inserts historical background that is immensely readable, his narration frequently benefiting from personal experience. But Ash's brilliance as a scholar and as an historian shines through in his final essay, in which he attempts to make sense of the amazing scenes depicted in the previous chapters...
Although he proposes a variety of extremely plausible theories, Ash aptly summarizes his personal explanation in three words--"Gorbachev, Helsinki and Tocqueville." The combination of Soviet liberalization, a internationally respected code of human rights and the lack of a coherent right to rule, he explains, set the stage for revolutions from both above and below...