Forgotten Slovakia Civic Initiative: Talking Openly about Extremism. Parallel Monologues or a Discussion on Values?

“There are as many worlds as those that can fit in your head.” The first time I heard this sentence was in 1995, when I began working for the Milan Šimečka Foundation (Nadácia Milana Šimečku). While I do not remember who said it and on what occasion, it became my life credo. In the mid-1990s, the worlds that I had had in my head changed considerably. As a member of the research team of the international project Oral History: Fates of Those Who Survived (1995–7) (Salner 1997; Vrzgulova 2005, 2016), I began discovering the previously unknown faces of my surroundings, and I am still on this discovery trip. As an ethnologist, I meet and talk to people. And since I am interested in their interpretations and observations of their own life stories, I am intrigued by how large historic events are reflected in personal histories. While I assume the role of the listener during my research, I also seek to encourage debates during lectures and workshops. I am convinced that only through discussions is it possible to share our own private worlds and get to know each other. An open, decent, substantive, and constructive discussion – this is often the ideal that we seek to achieve. This is where we recognize the worlds of the people around us, where we evaluate, criticize, and argue; where we defend our own values and our view of the world, and try to convince others. This is where we listen and react. I have been combining these two roles since 2016: I discuss and I explore. I have become a member of the civic initiative “Forgotten Slovakia: Open Debates about Extremism” (Zabudnuté Slovensko: otvorené debaty o extrémizme, ZS