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The effects of Western broadcasting on the Soviet people in Glasnost and Perestroika Period : The Case of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Konovalova, Evgenija ; Kolenovská, Daniela (advisor) ; Vykoukal, Jiří (referee)
ii Abstract This research project explores the impact of Western broadcasting on the public opinion of the Soviet audience in the Perestroika and Glasnost periods. Specifically, it focuses on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty's (RFE/RL) contribution to changing attitudes of the Soviet public to the communist regime and ruling party, and constructing a positive image of Western democratic values during the relevant period of study. The theoretical approach to the investigation of RFE/RL broadcasting is based on media effects theories, particularly agenda-setting and framing theories. According to them, the media are not simply a conduit of information, but able to shape public opinion. By emphasising the salience of topics and particular aspects and characteristics of the issues, the media set public agenda and influence on people's perceptions about these issues. The study to assess RFE/RL's impact draws on audience research, quantitative and qualitative data analysis. It examines geographical reach and transmission frequencies of the Radio's broadcasts and analyses the content of the most featured programmes to explore how they framed the reality. The findings from the quantitative and qualitative analysis, as well as the audience research data, demonstrate that RFE/RL's programming set anticommunist agenda...
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Armed Anti-Soviet Resistance in Lithuania 1944-1953
Skalník, Ondřej ; Švec, Luboš (advisor) ; Vykoukal, Jiří (referee)
This bachelor thesis discusses in great detail the anti-Soviet military resistance in Lithuania between years 1944 and 1953. It introduces the guerrilla movement, its structure, chronology, tactics, geographical location and development. It also defines, who were its members; the reasons that led them to the uneasy choice of life in the underground; their age, nationality, social structure, etc. On the same note, it also describes methods used by particular Soviet law-enforcement agencies in their fight against the "banditism" (that is, against the guerrillas) and in enforcing "Soviet law". It also covers a chapter on active resistance in the whole region, focusing on comparison with Latvian, Estonian and partly also Ukrainian guerrilla movements and their specifics. Guerrilla warfare and the fight of Lithuanian guerrillas (also called "forest brothers"- miško broliai) against sovietization of the country after the reinstatement of the soviet dominion in 1944 is significant and controversial topic of contemporary historiography. The discussions of the topic and the research in this area is often liable to political views and ideologies. For this reason, the bachelor thesis also explores the picture of guerrillas as seen by contemporary Lithuanian and Soviet historiography, which may also cover some...
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The "Ukraine-Lithuania-Belarus" approach and Polish Eastern Politics after 1989
Kocháňová, Alena ; Vykoukal, Jiří (advisor) ; Šmidrkalová, Michaela (referee)
This bachelor's thesis discusses the "Ukraine-Lithuania-Belarus approach" (ULB) and the way in which it influenced Poland and its Eastern policy during 1989-2005. The approach was formulated by the Polish exile in France during the Cold War. It promoted the independence of Polish's Eastern neighbors and good-neighbor policy in order to stabilize the region and impede the Soviet influence. This approach was revolutionary given the historical tensions that existed among Poland and the ULB nations. The purpose of this paper is to find out to which extent the approach was put into practice and what motivated its use. Therefore, this study uses the method of historical analysis to examine the area of independence, security, minorities and common history, find out how much the ULB approach was actually present, and the various factors that influenced it, which include Russia, NATO, EU, national interests, Polish romanticism, and different political tendencies of Ukraine, Lithuania and Belarus. Moreover, the paper examines the changes in approaches to ULB by the different Polish governments, tries to identify the common points and differences, and whether the ULB approach was more of oral or of practical nature. Finally, the thesis evaluates the Polish accession to NATO and EU and how it affected...
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The Ukrainians on the Czech Territory and Czechoslovak-Ukrainian Relations in the years 1944-1949
Zilynskyj, Bohdan ; Švec, Luboš (advisor) ; Vykoukal, Jiří (referee) ; Zahradníček, Tomáš (referee)
My thesis deals with the main aspects of the development of the Ukraininian minority on the Czech territory so as with the history of Czechoslovak-Ukrainian and Czech- Ukrainian relationships from 1944 to 1949. Nearly all aspects of such relationships were negotiated on Czechoslovak-Soviet level. Author presents concrete examples of the role of Ukraine in Czechoslovak-Soviet relationships. Another chapter describes the developement of Ukrainian national group in the Czech lands in 1944-1949 and the main transformations of this regionally, as well as socially, complex community. The last chapter envisages Ukrainian organizations in Bohemia including the structures of Greek Catholic Church. The author characterizes the main changes and the causes of worsening conditions for the existence of Ukrainian organizations. So the author explains the principles of systhematic suppression of main activities of the Ukrainian national group in Bohemia and Moravia after 1945.
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The World of Meaning of the Young Intelligentsia: Intimacy, Equality and Difference in Central Europe 1956-1968
Nebřenský, Zdeněk ; Havelka, Miloš (advisor) ; Vykoukal, Jiří (referee) ; Pažout, Jaroslav (referee)
The thesis deals with thought, mentality and conceptions of the higher education students. It focuses especially on discussions and controversies between students and party, state or universities authorities and aims at frictions which spread in official discourse and arose from student demands on more space for autonomous activity. Its main concern is the way in which these controversies were related to power transformations in the Central-European dictatorship since 1956. As an example of young intelligentsia, activists of youth and student organizations at higher education institutions in Warsaw, Prague and Bratislava have been chosen. The thesis is divided into three parts. The first part researches on the conceptions of intimate, especially problems of youth sexuality, student marriage and living conditions of young families. The second part deals with the conceptions of equality in relation to centralized work-placement of graduates. The power authorities in the state-socialist society laid stress on social equality of all citizens, but paradoxically it produced strong inequality at a local level and undermined work, social and transnational mobility. The third parts researches on conceptions of difference. In this case, authorities claimed generation unity and culture uniformity for the whole...
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Poland and the Eastern Pact
Hamatová, Kateřina ; Vykoukal, Jiří (advisor) ; Smetana, Vít (referee)
The bachelor thesis "Poland and Eastern Pact" deals with the question of collective security in Eastern Europe between 1925 and 1934. Its main subject is the attitude of Poland towards the concept of "Eastern Locarno", respectively Eastern Pact. Polish efforts to implement "eastern Locarno" in 1925 were, during only one decade, replaced by a negative attitude towards the same issue. Poland was than striving for preservation of geopolitical status quo through concluding bilateral agreements, not by joining multilateral pacts. The main goal of this thesis is to find out why Poland refused to sign the Eastern Pact in 1934 in the focus of the development of its foreign policy. Stepwise the thesis deals with international relations between Poland and primarily France, Germany and the Soviet Union. On the basis of their development between 1925 and 1935 my thesis tries to find prevailing tendencies. Subsequently thesis focuses on the project of the Eastern Pact, as it was presented by France in 1934, and on Polish arguments for refusal of the pact. In the end the thesis summarizes motives why the second Polish republic adopted negative attitude and how significant this refusal was for the failure of the whole project.
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Producing and Consuming the nation: ethnography of a Czech National Memorial
Maurano Filho, Sander Roberto ; Vykoukal, Jiří (advisor) ; Matějka, Ondřej (referee)
Sander Roberto Maurano Filho Producing and Consuming the Nation: Ethnography of a Czech National Memorial Abstract Following a research agenda stimulated by Billig (1995), Palmer (1998) and Fox (2008) towards the study of aspects of everyday life through which nations are reproduced, this work approaches the National Memorial on Vítkov Hill, part of the Czech National Museum in Prague. In order to investigate to what extend national cultural productions constrain people's practices and understandings, this research offers an ethnographic study of the production and consumption of the monument, considering practices of consumption and occupation that reproduce, subvert or negotiate its national content and colossal planning. The National Memorial on Vítkov Hill combines memorial, museum, statue and park, which had their meanings re-negotiated by different political regimes during the 20th century. Re-opened in 2009 aiming to 'make sense' of national history, identity and memory in the context of a new, democratic and European Czech Republic, the monument combines official ceremonies, such as military parades and presidential rituals, with permanent and temporary exhibitions with national functions. Although planned to celebrate the nation, exhibitions are consumed by visitors that distort the national...
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Sustainable Governance of the Visegrad Countries
Ivantsiv, Olena ; Vykoukal, Jiří (advisor) ; Handl, Vladimír (referee)
With their accession to the EU the Visegrad countries subscribed to the fundamental objective of the Union under the Lisbon Treaty - sustainable development. They have undergone substantial reforms, brought their policies into compliance with EU standards and regulations. Nevertheless, a lot of work should still be done in the Visegrad Four in order integrate sustainable development approach into all of the fields of political activity and reorganize their decision-making models according to the new challenges. This study constitutes an analysis of the Visegrad states' performance in ensuring sustainable governance in the period 2005-2010. The research is based on the two editions of Sustainable Governance Indicators, developed by the Bertelsmann Stiftung, and published in 2009 (period of review: January 2005 - March 2007) and in 2011 (period of review: May 2008 - April 2010). In order to assess sustainability of the four Visegrad democracies the study provides a comprehensive comparative analysis of these states' performance and retraces the dynamics of their progress/regress in terms of ensuring sustainability. It also explores the main tendencies of the Visegrad region's development regardless of particular country, identifies the main strengths and weaknesses of the region in terms of...
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Depictions of Subcarpathian Ruthenia in the Czech newspapers of the Czechoslovak First Republic, 1919-1922: Developing Public Support for the Refusal of the Rusyn Right to Autonomy?
Brown, Geoffrey ; Vykoukal, Jiří (advisor) ; Zilynskyj, Bohdan (referee)
Geoffrey Brown Abstract: In 1919 the Rusyns of Subcarpathian Ruthenia and Rusyn immigrants living in the United States decided that joining the newly-created Czechoslovak Republic offered them the best possible conditions for a stable future. They agreed to the union on the condition that the Rusyns would be granted the widest possible degree of political autonomy, and this autonomy was then guaranteed by the Treaty of Saint Germain signed in September 1919. Once the territory of Subcarpathian Ruthenia had joined Czechoslovakia, the Government in Prague decided that the Rusyn people were incapable of meeting the responsibilities of governing their own territory, since at the end of World War One they had been among the poorest and least culturally developed of all the nations of Austro-Hungary. The Rusyn leaders, particularly the territory's first Governor, Gregory Zhatkovich, protested to no avail against the Czechoslovak government's refusal to grant the Rusyns their legal right to political autonomy. Prior to the war the Czech public had practically no knowledge of Rusyns or their territory of Subcarpathian Ruthenia. During the first three years of the Czechoslovak state, the Czech media published many newspaper articles which highlighted or exaggerated the primitive nature of the Rusyn people,...
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