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prof. PhDr. Jiří Pešek, CSc. Faculty of Humanities, Charles University Lecture of the Learned Society of the Czech Republic, 19 January 2019 (introduction: Prof. PhDr. Sommer Petr, CSc., DSc.) The "Velvet Revolution", which quite unexpectedly defeated the hitherto all-powerful state-party colossus, is often interpreted as a pure Czech story. Although it is often placed in the final phase of the communist regimes in Central and Eastern Europe, the answer to the question "why did it suddenly and in fact go so easily" cannot be obtained from a comparison of the course of the Czechoslovak, Polish or East German "shaking of the yoke". The lecture therefore attempts to take a broader view, looking for the gradually maturing causes as well as the current conditions of the collapse of the Soviet empire. However, it is also necessary to look at the West, which did not count on the implosion of the communist camp, or in some cases, he was even unpleasantly surprised by this unexpected and rapid change in power, economic, migration and cultural conditions. The question of who was the initiator, leader, hegemon of the revolution and the changes caused by it and whether the change and the processes that followed it were positive or negative is also essential.