ABSTRACT
The sudden demise of socialism and of the unconstrained rule of communist parties in Central Europe was something nobody could predict. The November 1989 revolution in Czechoslovakia was mainly the work of urban masses (see Holy, this volume) and it was at first hardly understood and welcomed in the countryside. Especially in Slovakia, people were suspicious and doubted its meaning. Under the long rule of a Slovak president, Dr Gustáv Husák, their living standards had improved steadily and there was little for them to complain about; even the Government’s policy towards the Roman Catholic church had softened during the 1980s. But to understand what ordinary rural people in Slovakia really felt about the revolution and the direction their society has taken since 1989, there is no better method than a close examination of a particular community.
