’Jakeš’s Children’. Media Portrayal of Namibian Child Refugees in Slovakia

Abstract The paper provides an insight into ‘Slovak group’ of Namibian children taken to Czechoslovakia. As a form of a communist solidarity help to the country fighting for its freedom, the children were raised and educated in newly established boarding school in Považská Bystrica from September 1989. Their stay, and particularly their sudden unexpected repatriation in 1991, raised questions not only among general public, but also in print media of those days. The article therefore discusses the media portrayal of the Slovak group of Namibian children with a special accent on the shifts in media interpretations in time. The overall research combines a biographical and historical design with the use of the qualitative analysis of print media outputs.