Post-Socialist Economic Transformation as a Story of Loss: A Case Study of Two Engineering Plants in Slovakia

• In Event: Experiencing, Remembering, and Forgetting Social Advancement in (Post)Socialist Societies

Abstract

The paper will focus on the issue of disillusionment or disappointment that people associate with economic transformation, specifically with the process of industrialization. In many cases, this meant the liquidation of a company with which many people in a given place had associated a significant part of their working careers; and which also influenced life in a given place or region. The demise or liquidation of such a company, which occurred after 1989, is then experienced as a painful personal loss, but also as a regional or even national loss (especially when it concerns a traditional production or product). The paper will examine this broad topic using the example of two Slovak municipalities – Vyhne, Santovka. The paper is based on qualitative research, using oral history as a primary research method. It focuses not only on the reconstruction of facts but also on the subjective understanding of historical processes.

Author

• Lenka Kratka, Inst of Contemporary History CAS (Czech Republic)