jaromír Balcar legt die erste Unternehmensgeschichte zu den böhmischen Ländern vor, die sowohl die NS-Besatzungsherrschaft als auch die Phase des Übergangs zum Staatssozialismus behandelt. Anhand von ...drei Konzernen aus unterschiedlichen Branchen untersucht der Bremer Historiker nicht nur die - tschechischen und deutschen - Akteure in den Chefetagen und das Verhältnis zwischen Management und Belegschaft, sondern auch zentrale betriebswirtschaftliche Handlungsfelder wie die Investitions- und Personalpolitik, die Preis- und Lohnpolitik oder die betriebliche Sozialpolitik. So werden die beachtlichen Handlungsspielräume deutlich, die der Industrie trotz aller staatlichen Eingriffe noch verblieben, ehe die Unternehmen zu reinen Erfüllungsgehilfen der Planwirtschaft degradiert wurden. Damit liefert seine Studie einen wichtigen Beitrag zur europäischen Geschichte im "Zeitalter der Extreme", das zugleich eine Epoche radikaler ökonomischer Transformationen war.
In September 1938, the major powers of Europe convened in Munich to discuss the future of Czechoslovakia in light of territorial demands made by Adolf Hitler. The ensuing agreement signed by Germany, ...France, Great Britain, and Italy authorized the German takeover of Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland. Just four years later, however, the British government declared the Munich Agreement void and thus having no influence whatsoever on the future settlements of this region. With In the Shadow of Munich, Smetana brings a fresh perspective to an often misunderstood epoch of European history. Drawing on his extensive research in British and Czech government archives, as well as numerous diaries and memoirs from the period, Smetana aims to dispel frequent myths and stereotypes that have long influenced interpretations of British and Czech relations immediately before and during World War II. A unique and provocative work, In the Shadow of Munich is essential for scholars of Slavic, Central, and East European studies.
This book maps out the history of Czechoslovak linguistic and social practices directed at Roma during the communist period. It explains how contemporary Czech society has come to understand the ...Romani population in terms of inherited social, medical and juridical ideas. Rather than focusing on the Roma people as an object of analysis, the book problematizes assumed notions of “Gypsiness” and “Czechness” in mainstream society by highlighting the role of different socialist discourses in constructing images of Roma as socially deviant and abnormal. By uncovering the lines of continuity in the intersections of ethnic discrimination, social deviance and citizenship from the 1950s to the collapse of communism, this book comes to terms with a variety of questions that have not yet been adequately addressed in the literature: What underlying assumptions informed the socialist regime’s understanding of “Gypsiness,” and how did these conceptions relate to notions of citizenship, equality and normality? How and why did the meaning of the terms “Gypsies” and “Roma” become imbued in popular discourse with ideas of unhealthiness and social deviance? What implications does translating perceived cultural traits and lifestyles of Roma into non-ethnic frames of reference have for understanding racism and ethnic sensibilities in the country today? The work emphasizes historical continuities between contemporary xenophobia and the strategies which the communist regime used to deal with the “Gypsy question.” Focusing on the discrepancies between written laws and policies as well as their implementation, this study exposes the intricate relationships between official beliefs, institutional policies and popular consciousness under the communist regime. For it was these relationships which together created the mechanisms of social control that facilitated discrimination of Czechoslovak Roma under the guise of social welfare.
The 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia brought an end to the Prague Spring and its promise of "socialism with a human face." Before the invasion, Czech reformers had made unexpected use of ...television to advance political and social change. In its aftermath, Communist Party leaders employed the medium to achieve "normalization," pitching television stars against political dissidents in a televised spectacle that defined the times.
The Greengrocer and His TVoffers a new cultural history of communism from the Prague Spring to the Velvet Revolution that reveals how state-endorsed ideologies were played out on television, particularly through soap opera-like serials. In focusing on the small screen, Paulina Bren looks to the "normal" of normalization, to the everyday experience of late communism. The figure central to this book is the greengrocer who, in a seminal essay by Václav Havel, symbolized the ordinary citizen who acquiesced to the communist regime out of fear.
Bren challenges simplistic dichotomies of fearful acquiescence and courageous dissent to dramatically reconfigure what we know, or think we know, about everyday life under communism in the 1970s and 1980s. Deftly moving between the small screen, the street, and the Central Committee (and imaginatively drawing on a wide range of sources that include television shows, TV viewers' letters, newspapers, radio programs, the underground press, and the Communist Party archives), Bren shows how Havel's greengrocer actually experienced "normalization" and the ways in which popular television serials framed this experience.
Now back by popular demand, socialist-era serials, such asThe Woman Behind the CounterandThe Thirty Adventures of Major Zeman, provide, Bren contends, a way of seeing-literally and figuratively-Czechoslovakia's normalization and Eastern Europe's real socialism.
In der Zwischenkriegszeit war das Verhältnis zwischen den Tschechen und Deutschen in der Ersten Tschechoslowakischen Republik in vieler Hinsicht gespannt. In besonderem Maße galt dies für die ...Wirtschaft. Die Studie beruht auf einem umfangreichen Fundus neu erschlossener Quellen aus den Archiven beider Länder. Christoph Boyer schlägt Schneisen in das bislang kaum erkundete Terrain der Beziehungen zwischen Tschechen und Deutschen in der Wirtschaft der CSR und will damit zu einer veränderten Sichtweise der Beziehungen insgesamt beitragen. Aus der Presse: " Dem Autor ist es gelungen, die wirtschaftspolitischen Probleme eines multiethischen Staates sachlich und detailliert darzustellen." (Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaft 6/2000) "Während die politischen Aspekte der Beziehungen zwischen Tschechen und Deutschen in der Ersten Tschechoslowakischen Republik ... eingehend thematisiert worden sind, ist der ökonomischen Dimension der Wechselbeziehungen bislang nur wenig Bedeutung geschenkt worden. Insofern ist die umfangreiche Studie ... als Pionierleistung zu bewerten." (Neues Archiv für sächsische Geschichte, Bd. 70, 1999)
The historical meaning of a Prague Spring: our studio guest was Jurij Gustinčič, a journalist covering the events from Prague.
Original language summary:
Zgodovinski pomen praške pomladi; gost v ...studiu takratni novinar na kraju dogodkov Jurij Gustinčič.
