In November 1989, Czechoslovakia returned to a liberal democracy through the peaceful "Velvet Revolution" (led by Václav Havel and his Civic Forum). In the following years the country went through a rapid economic transformation. This also affected the media that became free of the heavy-handed control of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia and were able to develop in a competitive environment. However, even before the Velvet Revolution and despite the persecutions, there were illegally published magazines within the Samizdat phenomenon, which allowed for the circulation of dissident ideas among people who possessed positions of cultural power and authority. Václav Havel – the last president of Czechoslovakia from 1989 until its dissolution in 1992 – was one of them. Since the Soviet Union’s dissolution, most Czech media outlets have been owned by non-Czech western companies. This situation changed after the global economic recession of 2008, when many of them were acquired by Czech firms. In early 2014, eight out of the ten most influential figures in the media were Czech or Slovak.