Assignment 4 - Benjamin Givens

By ŠJů (cs:ŠJů) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.

This image was taken during the Velvet Revolution in Prague. It is of the banners protesting communist rule that were put on the Statue of Saint Adalbert in Wenceslas Square. The revolution as a whole was a peaceful protest of Communist and Soviet rule in the country. It began with a student protest being suppressed by the state in Prague that sparked a huge number of citizens to strike and protest. The end result of the revolution was a peaceful dismantling of the one-party communist state and the introduction of democracy. This picture in particular shows the marriage between protest of the then existing tyrannical state and the cultural items before that time: the Statue of Saint Adalbert. The Czechs and Slovaks, students and workers, all worked together against a common enemy and were successful in gaining their status in relative peace. The angle of the image serves to emphasize the triumph democracy over communism and its dominance in society. The way the light shoes only the white protest signs and the background of the sky and not the buildings or any other element of the city emphasizes the total focus on the venting of frustration and upset at the existing oppressive state.