Soviet Winter and the Apache Chief

The diary of a girl, a girl, then a lady from the communist era. The search for life's paths and paths, including spiritual ones. The narrator is enthusiastic about the Velvet Revolution, but it opens up new questions and answers - what will the paradise be like, what will follow? < br> < br> The protagonist, who styles herself (and her sister) as a fox, cautious and guarding her lair - her privacy, has to overcome a double handicap. Except for its nature, of uncertainty, lack of confidence and mistrust, as well as a certain amount of pain, it's a periphery complex, of the "far West" of the then Czechoslovakia. The peripherality of her native region is symbolically expressed in the description of the earthquake that struck Cheb at the turn of 1985/1986. Because the Czechs have only recently settled in the region, regular seismic tremors are not in their collective memory. < br> < br> The Apache Chief in the title refers to the figure of Karl May and his literary world, which plays an important role in the author's adolescence and life journey. Gradually, layer by layer, he discovers new aspects of May's work and personality. From Vinnetou, he moves on to Maya's religiosity and its deeper dimension. May thus also plays a role in the search for and discovery of faith, which is one of the important themes of the text. True to her "foxy disposition", the heroine overcomes her innate caution in this respect and gradually grows in confidence, discovering and becoming involved in the Christian environment with its distinctive characters (Jiří Reinsberg). < br> < br> The finale of the text is the end of 1989 and the involvement of a student of the Faculty of Arts of Charles University in the Velvet Revolution. Perhaps the most interesting in this respect is her journey (together with her sister) to her native Aš. "Revolution", a fundamental change of circumstances, will only become believable to her when (to use today's vocabulary) outside the Prague "bubble" it hits such a different region, a different world, that was her birthplace. The author's scepticism occasionally flashes through the enthusiasm of the revolutionary events and gives the depiction a more earthy and interesting character.