One of the very significant omens of the time is the end of the Czechoslovak state, which disappeared from the political map of Europe on 1 January 1993, after nearly seventy-five years of existence-paradoxically enough, also due to the collapse of communism. The Czechoslovak Republic came into existence at the end of World War I, on the ruins of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The Czechs have succeeded in transforming themselves into a modern European civil society during the course of the nineteenth century. As a vital, culturally developed, and economically strong national community, they became less and less able to tolerate inferior, second-rate status in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Though public policy debate has not seemed to play a significant, positive role in the process, the more relevant question today is its potential for developments ahead, in the “post-Czechoslovak” future.
