SATA Prague

Fall 2007, Spring 2005
Spring 2002, Fall 1999

Prague

The fourth SATA Prague took place in the Fall of 2007.

SATA Prague 2005, the third Study Away/Teach Away program in the Czech Republic, took place in the Spring of 2005. Visit the SATA Prague 2005 Blog for an idea of what students experience in this unique program and read what students say about SATA Prague!

Background of the program

The first SATA Prague occurred in the Fall of 1999, when a dozen Connecticut College students and their professor, Eva Eckert, chair of the Slavic Studies department and Prague native, spent a semester in the Czech Republic. A second, SATA Prague 2002, then followed.

That particular semester for the first SATA Prague in 1999 was chosen to coincide with the ten-year anniversary of the Velvet Revolution. In Prague, the students took courses in Central European Studies that explored the functioning of a post-communist society and rebuilding of democracy.  They studied nationalism, economic transition, position of women in the society, history of Jews in Central Europe, Prague's art and architecture, Czech literature and language, and more. They also traveled to sites of historical and architectural importance, and explored Prague's cultural life in cafes, galleries, theaters and churches.

Perhaps the highlight of the Study Away, Teach Away/SATA experience was the November celebration in Prague's Wenceslas Square of the ten-year anniversary of the fall of communism. "I've never seen so many people so excited," said Sarah Ferguson '01. "I literally rode on a wave of people, their momentum carrying me towards the stage. I even got to hear Czech president Václav Havel speak. To this date, my semester in Prague has been the most incredible four months of my life."

The students participated in conferences organized to commemorate the anniversary and visited exhibits showing the 1989 struggle of students (much like themselves) opposing enraged police and military during the demonstrations for freedom in 1989.

The Velvet Revolution was a spontaneous and courageous expression of people's shared will to reverse the course of history. Its ten-year anniversary allowed the students to reflect upon the cost of freedom and the power of peaceful protest.

Czech Republic, Rebirth of a Democracy

At the culmination of the 1980s, Eastern Europe experienced an unprecedented constellation of political upheavals, ranging from the disintegration of the Soviet empire, birth of new nations and emergence of national languages to the Czech Velvet Revolution and collapse of walls separating the East and the West, including the Berlin Wall.

The history of several East European countries (such as Slovakia, Serbia or Ukraine) was rewritten and maps defining new borders redrawn. But while the West applauded the fall of communism, communists have quietly returned to power in several East European countries. Although human rights per se became recognized, new xenophobia directed at ethnic minorities has emerged. Today, Eastern Europe remains in transition and struggles to meet legal and economic demands of the European Union that it strives to join.

Ten years after the Velvet Revolution, the Czechs' defeat of communists seems less glorious. The Czech Republic struggles with its recent history as well as its economic budget. Its political scandals reveal lack of political culture and dependable jurisprudence.

Yet, the Czech Republic itself is a cultural and architectural gem that remains unknown to many. Prague has more theaters and bookstores per capita than most other European cities. It is a breathtaking beauty built upon the hills surrounding the river Vltava and its architecture is a museum of all styles and periods from the Romanesque to Art Nouveau.  Prague's multiple architectural layers survived many wars and calamities to give witness of a rich past of a truly multicultural metropolis.

Today, Prague has recovered its reputation as a cultural mecca at the crossroads of the Western and Eastern cultures.  As the SATA students relished the financial accessibility of concerts, operas and galleries in Prague, they were, at the same time, immersed in a traditional, yet innovative culture that few expected to encounter when they first came from America with predefined assumptions about Eastern Europe.

SATA, Spring 2002

In Spring 2002, Connecticut College students returned to Prague. The Czech Republic was holding not only its Parliament and Senate elections but also presidential elections, in which Václav Havel (the first and only president since the 1989 Velvet Revolution) would not run. View the SATA Prague 2002 Photo Gallery.

Students were guided through their SATA Prague 2002 semester by Eva Eckert, who organized the SATA Prague Fall 1999. In 1995, Professor Eckert won a Fulbright grant and took fourteen colleagues to Prague for a research seminar.

Like the first SATA Prague 1999, the students studied European Art, European Politics, Comparative Economic Systems, History, and Ethnicity and Nationalism. The College is staffed by scholars from the Czech Academy of Sciences and Charles University professors who are fluent in English and experienced in teaching in the U.S. The academic program of the Prague Hieronymus College provided a challenging perspective on today's Europe in transition.