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Notes

[Note 1]

Earlier drafts were presented to the ESA Research Network on Biographical Perspectives on Society and to the (Czech) Association for Biographical and Reflexive Sociology. I am especially grateful to the following colleagues for their comments: T. Holecek, O. Starostova, J. Alan, Z. Konopasek, Marie Sedová, I. Bayer O. Smidova and E. Stehlikova - all of Charles' University, Prague; Z. Kusa of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava; J.P. Roos and A. Rotkirch of Helsinki University; E. Zdravomyslova of European University at St Petersburg; and A. Aarelaid-Tart of the Institute of International and Social Studies, Tallinn. Thanks are also due to Sociology's anonymous referees.

[Note 2]

Even the dissidents attended to this problem in their narratives, although their past was morally heroic in the revolution's discourse. In their case, the stigmatisation threat was evident in their accounts of their post-1989 choices.

[Note 3]

Many former dissidents had to leave high politics in 1991-2. Some were `lustrated' for having had a record as informers in the communist secret-police files. Others fell victim to the triumph of centre-right parties in the general election of 1992, or to the subsequent dissolution of Czechoslovakia and its federal institutions. Some made a comeback in 1996, having been cleared of initial `lustration' charges and able to share in the general election success of the centre left. (For the lustration campaign, see Williams 2000.)

[Note 4]

Although the `lustration' law introduced in 1991 prevented former party officials and secret police agents from holding state office. This measure only added further encouragement for people with communist career backgrounds to seek their future in the emerging private sector.

[Note 5]

All respondents' names are pseudonyms. In translating transcript quotations into English, I have tried to reflect the style of the original verbatim transcription.

[Note 6]

This radical land reform was devised by the new nation state to redistribute large land-holdings from absentee landlords - mainly the former Habsburg empire aristocracy and German industrialists. Cornwall (1997) discusses the nationalist- political nature of the process by which applicants to the land committees were able to purchase land at a discount price.

[Note 7]

The interviews took place during Vaclav Klaus's premiership. He popularised Thatcherism (by word rather than deed) and created an image of Britain as a culture in which respect for entrepreneurial propertied classes is most deeply ingrained. My respondents tended to assume that I held these views too. I avoided being drawn into ideological discussions and did little to contest this assumption.