Searching for Borders of Freedom: Foreign Trips of Czechoslovak Musicians and Athletes between 1948–1989

Abstract

Abstract In the era of the “people’s democratic” and later “socialist” Czechoslovakia (1948–1989), foreign trips, and even more business trips because of their financial impact on one’s life, represented privileges that were to be granted by the ruling elites only to reliable and closely-watched Czechoslovak citizens in the name of the “public interest.” At the same time, the business trips became a kind of litmus test of the loyalty and the “importance” of the travelling (in case of disapproval, non-travelling) individual in the regime’s eyes. In this context, the paper focuses on the lived experience of musicians and athletes concerning foreign trips. Finally, it discusses the potential contradictions between some popular stories in the Czech collective memory on the one hand and more detailed micro-historical probes on the other hand, which demonstrate the interpretive richness of the discussed issues.