The Greenwich Meridian Memoir is an epic story of love and emigration from former Czechoslovakia to the U.S. spanning two generations. The main characters, Ella and Vaclav Konecny, suffered in the aftermath of the 1968 Prague Spring movement led by Alexander Dubcek. Professor Konecny taught at the University of Khartoum in Sudan, Africa. However, the invasion of Soviet tanks and their permanent base in Czechoslovakia, was the driving force to defect the country. Mom Ella struggled with this decision and returned back to Czechoslovakia for President Svoboda's amnesty in 1973. The second historic event that fueled the action of the characters, this time Emma and Ludek, was the 1989 Velvet Revolution led by late president Vaclav Havel.