Five more years to independence

It could be described as another electoral fiasco. Jiří Novotný, however, does not consider mere 10,000 votes his party Moravané (Moravians) received in the European Parliament elections a cause for pessimism. "The change will come and we will succeed," he said. Novotný is a confident, lean and always smiling young man wearing a T-shirt with a symbol of Moravian land. His party has a single aim: self-governing Moravia, independent of the Czech Republic. In comparison to the beginning of the 1990s when Moravian parties with the same programme sat in the parliament and were supported by millions of people, it today seems like a somewhat vain attempt. Many young people in Moraiva, just like Novotný, have a different view. They believe their time will come.

People in Bohemia were reminded that the Moravian national movement still exists by funny cartoon election TV spots where characters dressed in traditional national costumes complained in an almost unintelligible Moravian dialect that the "Prague people" exploit their land. Media noticed the amateurish pictures as an interesting curiosity but it got the message across. People started talking about Moravané party again.

All this happened thanks to a generational exchange. The Moravian movement fell apart and almost perished after the initial success in the 1990s. Today it has been taken up by a generation of people in their…