V prvem desetletju po komunističnem državnem udaru leta 1948 je bilo umetnostno zbirateljstvo na Češkosloaškem izpostavljeno hudemu ideološko motiviranemu zatiranju. To je bilo posebej izrazito ...uperjeno proti nekdanjim družbeni eliti, dotlej nosilki fenomena umetnostnega zbirateljstva. Preganjanje je doživelo vrhunec v letih 1959 in 1960 z montiranimi javnimi procesi proti uglednim predvojnim zbirateljem umetnin, nekdanjim predstavnikom buržoazije. To je sprožilo obsežen val prisilnih razlastitev zasebnega umetniškega premoženja in pomembne premike velikih, uglednih umetniških zbirk iz zasebne v javno sfero v poznih petdesetih in na začetku šestdesetih let 20. stoletja. Članek obravnava več vzorčnih primerov takih procesov, ki so se končali s svarilnimi kaznimi in zaplembo premoženja, s katerim so se obogatile vodilne javne zbirke, pa tudi primere drugih, »mehkejših« načinov razlastitve posameznikov s pomočjo močno razširjene češke institucije t. i. zakonsko prisiljenih »donacij« umetnin v vrednosti davka, odmerjenega na dediščino ali na premoženje.
Namen pričujoče raziskave je prikazati do sedaj zanemarjeno vlogo češkoslovaških slavistov pri oblikovanju Parry-Lordove teorije ustnega pesništva. Potek predstavlja v obliki zgodbe o pristnem ...odkritju, ki izhaja iz določenega znanstvenega okolja (Antoine Meillet, praški lingvistični krožek itd.). Glavne vloge v njej igrajo Matija Murko, ustanovitelj češkoslovaške slavistike Roman Jakobson in nekateri drugi raziskovalci. Največ pozornosti članek posveča Murkovim in Parryjevim znanstveno-raziskovalnim strategijam, ki sta jih uporabljala med potovanji na Balkan leta 1930, in jih primerja. Članek razkriva tudi določene povezave med Murkom in Lordom, ter nekatere njihove dokaze, ki do sedaj še niso bili objavljeni.
Once the pride of interwar Czechoslovakia, and key during the
forced industrialization of the Stalinist period, during the 1970s
and 1980s the Czechoslovak railway sector showed the symptoms of
the ...political tiredness and economic exhaustion of the Soviet Bloc.
This book examines the failure of central economic planning through
the lens of this national transport system.
Based on the presentation of its history and on the detailed
scrutiny of the actors, institutions, internal mechanisms, and
conditions of the railway sector, the analysis reveals the
identities of the real stakeholders in the state administration.
This case shows how the country was governed by Communist Party
institutions and government ministries, and how developments in the
transportation sector-like in every sector-reflected their
priorities. Numerous tables with selected statistics underscore the
economic analysis and black and white photos offer a glimpse on the
technical base of the railway sector.
The book is filled with enlightening comparisons of the
Czechoslovak transportation industry with its counterparts in the
whole Eastern Bloc. Integration into the Council for Mutual
Economic Assistance (Comecon) of the Bloc could have been an asset,
yet the records have more to say about conflicts than
cooperation.
The so-called Slovak question asked what place Slovaks held-or
should have held-in the former state of Czechoslovakia. Formed in
1918 at the end of World War I from the remains of the Hungarian
...Empire, and reformed after ceasing to exist during World War II,
the country would eventually split into the Czech Republic and
Slovakia after the "Velvet Divorce" in 1993. In the meantime, the
minority Slovaks often clashed with the majority Czechs over their
role in the nation. The Slovak Question examines this
debate from a transatlantic perspective. Explored through the
relationship between Slovaks, Americans of Slovak heritage, and
United States and Czechoslovakian policymakers, it shows how Slovak
national activism in America helped the Slovaks establish a sense
of independent identity and national political assertion after
World War I. It also shows how Slovak American leaders influenced
US policy by conceptualizing the United States and Slovakia as
natural allies due to their connections through immigration. This
process played a critical role in undermining attempts to establish
a united Czechoslovakian identity and instead caused a divide
between the two groups, which was exploited by Nazi Germany and
then by other actors during the Cold War, and proved ultimately to
be insurmountable.
This book takes a new approach to interwar Prague by addressing religion as an integral part of the city’s cultural history. Berglund views Prague’s cultural history in the broader context of ...religious change and secularization in 20th-century Europe. Based on detailed knowledge of sources, the monograph explores the interdisciplinary linkages between politics, architecture and theology in the building of symbolism and a “new mythology" of the first Czechoslovak republic (1918-1938). Berglund´s text provides an important service for understanding both Czech history as well as current Czech political debate. The author’s method can be characterized as culture history, able to connect several disciplines, emphasizing common topic (religion, politics, symbolics). Modern Czech elites, superficially characterized as “ateistic", appears in a new light to be deeply religious, a transition from more traditional, (mostly) Catholic religiosity, to a concept of a new, modern, ethical religion. The study incorporates biographical research, focusing on three principal characters: Tomás Garrigue Masaryk, Czechoslovakia’s first president; his daughter Alice Garrigue Masaryková, founding director of the Czechoslovak Red Cross; and Joze Plecnik, the Slovenian architect who directed the renovations of Prague Castle.
Immediately after the Second World War, the victorious Allies authorized and helped to carry out the forced relocation of German speakers from their homes across central and southern Europe to ...Germany. The numbers were almost unimaginable-between 12,000,000 and 14,000,000 civilians, most of them women and children-and the losses horrifying-at least 500,000 people, and perhaps many more, died while detained in former concentration camps, while locked in trains en route, or after arriving in Germany exhausted, malnourished, and homeless. This book is the first in any language to tell the full story of this immense man-made catastrophe.
Based mainly on archival records of the countries that carried out the forced migrations and of the international humanitarian organizations that tried but failed to prevent the disastrous results,Orderly and Humane: The Expulsion of the Germans after the Second World Waris an authoritative and objective account. It examines an aspect of European history that few have wished to confront, exploring how the expulsions were conceived, planned, and executed and how their legacy reverberates throughout central Europe today. The book is an important study of the largest recorded episode of what we now call "ethnic cleansing," and it may also be the most significant untold story of the Second World War.
Jiří Weil’s documentary prose poem, iLamentation for 77,297 Victims/i is a literary monument to the Czech Jews killed during the Holocaust. A remarkable Czech-Jewish writer who worked at Prague’s ...Jewish Museum during the Nazi Occupation and after – he survived the Holocaust by faking his own death – Weil wrote his Lamentation while he served as the museum’s senior librarian in the 1950s. Remarkable literary experiment opening new ways how to write about the undescribable combines a narrative of the Shoa, newspaper style accounts of individual lives destroyed by the Holocaust, and quotes from the Tanakh, each having a specific and powerful effect.
Famed Czech Avant-garde photographer Jan Lukas snapped an offhand portrait of twelve-year-old Vendulka Vogl in March 1943. A friend of the Vogls, Lukas was saying goodbye to the family, who were soon ...to leave Prague for a concentration camp. The photograph almost didn’t see the light of day—Lukas knew that if the Nazis found it on him, he could wind up in the camps as well—but the image was eventually developed and came to symbolize the Holocaust and humanize its victims. Seventy years after this famous picture was taken, investigative journalist Ondřej Kundra discovered that, despite all odds, Vendulka Vogl had survived the camps of Terezín, Auschwitz, and Christianstadt, and was in fact still alive and living in the United States. Kundra persuaded her to tell the remarkable story surrounding the photograph: her survival, her later decision to flee the Communist regime for America, and how she later reconnected with Jan Lukas, maintaining a lifelong friendship.Vogl’s thrillingly moving story, Kundra’s sharp and engaging writing, and Lukas’s striking photography all combine to make Vendulka an inspiring investigation into the horrors of totalitarianism and the redemptive beauty of friendship.
In this collection of writings produced between 2000 and 2018, the pioneering literary historian of the Czech underground, Martin Machovec, examines the multifarious nature of the underground ...phenomenon. After devoting considerable attention to the circle surrounding the band The Plastic People of the Universe and their manager, the poet Ivan M. Jirous, Machovec turns outward to examine the broader concept of the underground, comparing the Czech incarnation not only with the movements of its Central and Eastern European neighbors, but also with those in the world at large. In one essay, he reflects on the so-called Půlnoc Editions, which published illegal texts in the darkest days of the late forties and early fifties. In other essays, Machovec examines the relationship between illegal texts published at home (samizdat) and those smuggled out to be published abroad (tamizdat), as well as the range of literature that can be classified as samizdat, drawing attention to movements frequently overlooked by literary critics. In his final, previously unpublished essay, Machovec examines Jirous’s “Report on the Third Czech Musical Revival" not as a merely historical document, but as literature itself.
In Quest of History Jiri Priban, Priban; Karel Hvizdala, Hvizdala; Stuart Hoskins, Hoskins
06/2020
eBook
On the centennial of the Czechs gaining their independence, award-winning Czech journalist Karel Hvížďala and Cardiff-based philosopher of law Jiří Přibán used the occasion to examine key moments in ...Czech history from the ninth century to the twenty-first. Covering such a broad scope allows the authors to look into the past and question how Czechs have viewed their history at different points – and what that means for the present and future. Employing the form of a dialogue, Hvížďala and Přibán raise and explore issues for the broader public that are normally reserved for university seminars, or avoided completely.“It’s an interesting book because simply by considering the ideas the authors of In Quest of History put forth, the reader loses his certainty of what is true and what is the common consensus – he becomes an individual."– Milan Kundera, author of The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Testaments Betrayed, and The Festival of Insignificance“This contemplation by two Czech intellectuals of Czech history, ‘the national narrative,’ collective memory, and contemporary politics should be mandatory reading for understanding the deeper context of our current crisis."– Jacques Rupnik, professor of political science at Sciences Po“Two men who are as European as they are Czech raise a question – Where are we headed? In answering, they deliver a solid classic. What an inspiring dialogue!"– Petr Pithart, Czech politician and signatory of Charter 77
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