Several texts, essays, and images are evolving around the main themes of the panel discussion, organized on the occassion of the exhibtion Flashback Hermit-1992-1999 in Olomouc, November 2023 (https://muo.cz/vystavy/flashback-hermit-1992-1999). It would like to draw on artistic and curatorial investigations into the arts and societies of the 1990s in the Czech Republic and the Central and Eastern Europe. It was originally conceived as a investigation of this subject, perceived from the perspectives of (then) emerging artist-run initiatives and / or rather autonomous or independent networks. Those operated usually beyond the official metropolis and centers, beyond comercial, state funded and by state controled institutions. Our main question actually was the following: was this set up and situation within the Central European (post-communist) “essentialy” different from the Western, or (Northern) European countries? I would argue that if there were differences they were rather a matter of degree, not of a kind. I am aware this statement was usually considered as a “dissent”, because the mainstream reading of the histories of the Cold War is based on the concept of the bipolar juxtaposition between “totalitarian”, "undeveloped" East block countries on one side and "liberal", "democratic" or "free" West block on the other.

Naturally there were various structural and cultural differences around the turning point of the November 1989 breakdown of the East block and convergence of United Europe. Cultural revolutions of the 1960s had in the political ‘thaw’ more subtile and shallower mode in Central European countries. It was suppressed by authoritarian forces in 1968 and it survived only in grey zones and margins of the official culture, or in the underground and dissent subcultures. Such historical differences “accounts for the relatively shallow foundations of cultural liberalism in post-communist countries that made them less immune to the inroads of nationalism and conservatism” (see further: Pavel Barša, Zora Hesová, Ondřej Slačálek, eds: CENTRAL EUROPEAN CULTURE WARS: BEYOND POST-COMMUNISM AND POPULISM,  Filozofická fakulta Univerzity Karlovy, 2021). Akin to the earlier “underground” or “gray-zone” communities, those initiatives were usually sustained by artists as activists. They were often grass-root and without professional schooling, seldom bound to academic or state structures, surviving on the margins. With the well funded and well established and integrated international network of the Soros Centers for Contemporary Art or the Erste Foundation national branches, their activities were lingered in floating and unestablished genres and / or trans-national informal networks. Such initiatives frequently wouldn't fit into predefined patterns and/or geopolitical communities (nationaly tinted narratives as "Czech", "Polish", "Hungarian" scenes, disciplines as "visual art", "music", or "performance"). Such hybrid and heterotopic nature of such collectives was one of the reason why only rarely attract curiosity of the academic discourse and often still awaits the evaluation.

The aesthetic, ideological and economic strategies of such initiatives and collectives covered a wide range of interests and features. What they had in common was the strong belief in a narrow relation between culture, civic values and freedom. In the individual and in the social meaning of term. To a certain extent, such initiatives and collectives were building up on the pre-revolutionary, ‘anti-political’ tendencies, whose social strategy was to "democratize society rather than the change the state". Some of them came from a wide spectre of dissent communities of the 80s, some managed to become a temporary alternatives or temporary autonomous zones to the concept of art to be primarily produced for market, for entertainment and for consumption.

We would like to thank to all who tributed their time and energy and shared kindly their thoughts. Thanks to their patience to endure the expiration date of this Anthology (for the Forgotten) in process.