Paper short abstract:

The paper focuses on the current images of socialistic dwelling related to the specific situation based on a case study of inhabitants of the House Avion in Bratislava, as communicated by the generation of personal witnesses (1948 - 1989) and the transmission of the ideas to their children.

Paper long abstract:

The paper concentrates on the ways, how the representations of socialist dwelling of the inhabitants of one specific house in Bratislava (living in the house Avion in the period 1948 - 1989) influence the ideas of the younger generation (their children, grandchildren) concerning their dwelling nowadays.

According to the latest surveys the proportion of rented flats in nowadays Slovakia compared to western European countries is very low (similar to other post-communist countries). During the communist era rents were to be kept at an artificially low level, the situation changed after 1989, when private owners regained the right to freely rent their dwellings. As a result of insufficient state and communal policy related to the rental housing a lot of people decide to buy their own housing.

The inhabitants of the house Avion were in a different situation, they have chosen to create a housing association, but had to fight some extraneous privatisation attempts as well. The successful story of transformation is transmitted to the next generation in several forms. The paper seeks the answer to the questions: how does the next generation deal with the experience of their ancestors, how do they integrate this experience into their own identities and how their choices about their own dwelling might be influenced?