Tattered Velvet: A Country Falls Apart

Western media have dubbed Czechoslovakia’s breakup a no-fault divorce. Now the two newly elected protagonists, Václav Klaus, the prime minister of the Czech republic and architect of Czechoslovakia’s economic transformation, and Vladimir Mečiar, a former communist, now a nationalist and the prime minister of the Slovak republic, are sparring to shift the blame for the divorce on the other. In both parts of the country there remains a lingering affection for the old Czechoslovaki...