The 'Good Divorce': Czechs and Slovaks on 30 years apart, together
Ondrej and Katarína first met in 2008, more than a decade after their countries divorced.
He, a Czech, and she, a Slovak, see their cross-national marriage as anything but unusual.
“My uncle is Slovak and has a Czech wife. My sister is getting married to a Czech man,” Katarína said. Her husband chimed in: “Many of us don't think of Slovakia as a foreign country in the true sense of the word.”
January 1st marked the 30th anniversary of the breakup of Czechoslovakia into the Czech Republic and Slovak Republic, two separate states. The “Velvet Divorce”, as it’s known abroad, is remembered as Europe’s most peaceful and successful breakup in recent history.
It was agreed without conflict or acrimony, albeit without the public’s opinion being asked, and politicians from both sides hammered it out in over just six days.
This year’s anniversary has added gravitas. Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 because of an abhorrent belief that Ukrainians, who broke away from the Soviet Union in 1991, are not a true nationality and that their territory ought to be part of the Russian Federation.
Tensions are boiling between Serbia and Kosovo, two former compatriots, while the aspirations of independence from the United Kingdom of around half the voters in Scotland rumble on -- as do separatist claims in Catalonia and Belgium.
Slovaks are now by far the largest foreign national group living in the Czech Republic. Differences in their languages are cigarette-paper thin. Even before both joined the European Union in 2004, travelling between both countries was relatively simple and a customs union from 1993 onwards meant trade was seamless.
And it has led to some oddities.
Andrej Babiš was the Czech prime
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