Other independent currents

pp. 73-98

in: Harald G. Skilling, Samizdat and an independent society in Central and Eastern Europe, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 1989

Abstract

It was not surprising that Charter 77 was unable to become a mass movement or to exert a wide influence among the people. The experience of 1968 and of its aftermath, "normalisation", had produced feelings of frustration and hopelessness among the population, a scepticism about the possibility of change, and an unwillingness to take personal risks by supporting new movements of protest. The emergence of Charter 77, however, represented the recovery of at least limited circles from this mood of depression and the rebirth of a will to act independently. The Charter also acted as a stimulus, or catalyst, of independent thinking and acting, even though it was sometimes difficult to distinguish its own direct or indirect influence and the more spontaneous social forces which produced these results. Nonetheless, as the spokesmen noted in the anniversary statement of 6 January 1985, "It would be hard to imagine that, without the rise and work of Charter 77, independent thought, literature and art would have grown so extensively as they have done in recent years."¹