Unexcused Absences

Tea with Jana

“I was involved,” Jana demurs, when I ask her about the Velvet Revolution. We are enjoying a slice of Medovník, traditional Czech honey cake, in a cafe in the Malá Strana neighborhood near Prague castle. And although we are old friends, it suddenly strikes me that this elegant woman, who looks like a European aristocrat rather than Che Guevara, is a real, live revolutionary.

I met this gifted mathematician in Moscow back in the early 1990’s while my father was working with a number of Eastern Bloc mathematicians. She was involved in the Velvet Revolution as the official spokesperson for Václav Havel’s group, Civic Forum. When Havel became president immediately after the revolution, Jana remained part of the inner-circle of intellectuals of that era. She later ran for office and served in Parliament, helping craft legislation for the new country.

How did she become a revolutionary? Jana grew up under communism, and yes please imagine all the stereotypical things you’ve heard about that. Although the Communists nearly killed the tradition, Czech students have a long history of studying in France. Jana was one of 12 students in the entire nation chosen to go to France and study. Jana left home as a teenager and studied for three years at a French boarding high school. After completing her studies and returning to Czechoslovakia, she was told she could not travel to the West again, visit her friends or host family, or experience any of the Western freedoms she had known while in France.

Malá Strana Neighborhood

After completing University in Prague and a PhD in the USSR (yes, educated in three different languages) Jana became a mathematics professor, but who could have guessed the changes in store for her and her country? Although she worked as a mathematician, she was one of the few Czechs who had actually lived in a democratic society and seen capitalism up close. I imagine her fellow citizens had a few questions for her when it came time to kick out the Communists! And so, Jana became a revolutionary.

Can you imagine what it must have been like for an entire country to change its political and economic system? Those who have lost jobs in this recession know something about how difficult it is to re-invent yourself, learn new skills, and put those into practice. Now imagine an entire country having to go through this process while trying to protect its culture, national treasures, and invent a better way of life for all its citizens.

So, Jana gave up mathematics and started crafting her new country, eventually starting a business school in Prague, the US Business School, Praha. From mathematician to revolutionary, dissident to MP, to founding a school and educating students once again, Jana’s life has taken quite a wide circle against the backdrop of the fall of Communism and the opening of the Eastern Bloc.

Astronomical Tower

The Czech Republic successfully emerged from Communism due to the enormous effort made by her citizens. And there’s no doubt that the Czech’s did it right. The Velvet Revolution must be one of the very few bloodless revolutions in history. When Slovakia split off in the 1990’s, the Czech’s approached the Velvet Divorce with the same decorum. There are probably even fewer bloodless civil wars in history. And although freedom and capitalism are not without issues, the Czech Republic’s citizens stood up and did as Jana did, overcoming huge challenges in order to earn long-awaited freedom.

So if you visit Prague, you won’t see obvious signs of revolutionary struggle but you will see thousands of success stories in the booming businesses, restaurants, shops, restored homes, churches and palaces of the Czechs who radically changed their own lives and revolutionized their own country. Stop into a cafe, enjoy a slice of Medovník and chat with a local. You, too, may find you’ve just had tea with a revolutionary.