Parallel Polis

Parallel Polis is a socio-political concept created by Czech political thinker and dissident Vaclav Benda in connection with the informal civic initiative, Charter 77.

Benda and other philosophers sought to build a theoretical framework for social events in dissident circles.

[1] A political scientist, Benda noticed the emergence of a new social structure in artistic and intellectual circles as a tool to escape the totalitarian communist regime and detected the following pillars of the new "field": These patterns of the parallel structure are not a closed set; on the contrary, they occur on all fronts of the resistance against the authoritarian state.

The aim of the Parallel Polis, according to Vaclav Havel, Ivan Martin Jirous, Milan Šimečky and other dissidents who discussed the concept, should be an independent society not oppressed by laws and decisions of representatives of public authorities—a society based on its own values, which are not forced by the central authorities.

[7] The space gained media attention for acts of political activism, such as a boycott of Electronic record of sales in Czech Republic after it was put into effect,[8] or after receiving a statement from the Czech National Bank prohibiting the use of the word "coin" for a symbolic metal coin connected to a virtual Bitcoin.