Czech and Slovak Society

Abstract

THIS STUDY IS ONE OF COMPARATIVE STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS deliberately avoiding a sociological definition of the situation. It is assumed that two societies had existed in Czechoslovakia for some time and the difference between them, and possible analogies, are examined. There is also an assumption that the division of Czechoslovakia occurred especially because ‘Czechoslovak society’ as such had not yet been established; this was in spite of the fact that the two societies, at the time of the split, had substantially more in common than they had had at the time of Czechoslovakia's formation. There exists the view, which we want to verify, that during the decline of the federation the following factors were significant:1. The differences in economic, social, cultural and dispositional structures;2. The asynchronous and differing processes of modernization in both societies;3. The different consequences of the formation of societies of Soviet type in the Czech Lands in Slovakia;4. The differing processes for rectification of political, economic and cultural institutions in both republics after November 1989.