Czechoslovak seafarers before 1989: Living on the edge of freedom

From two perspectives, the author presents a topic of maritime business-running in Czechoslovakia before 1989. Firstly, she discusses a brief history of the Czechoslovak Ocean Shipping Company in the period between 1959 and 1989. Secondly, the company’s history is complemented by life stories (memories) of former Czechoslovakian seafarers. The second part of the study is based on oral history interviews with seafarers, and it concentrates on their ‘double lives’: the first life they had lived with their families in a communist state behind strictly guarded borders; and the second life they had lived at sea, on ships, abroad, and in relative freedom, but without their families.