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Top hat for everyone: The image of Britain in the newspaper discourses of Czechoslovak exile and its Third Republic afterlife
Kłusek, Johana ; Smetana, Vít (advisor) ; Brenner, Christiane (referee) ; Cornwall, Mark (referee)
The thesis focuses on the image of Britain in newspaper discourses of Czechoslovak exile during the Second World War and describes how it affected the post-war development of the country. It argues that the exiles saw Britain as the appelative Other, into which they projected their visions and fears. Anglophilia, born out of lived experience as well as objective needs of the discourse's producers, brought both benefits and detriments. It meant discursive liberation from Germans as the old referential Others and finding a safe discursive space in the severely brutalized world. Yet the hope that Czechoslovakia could adopt both "conservative" and "socially progressive" qualities of Britain proved naïve in the face of the post-war geopolitical reality. Communists appropriated the image of Britain to fit their own needs after the war. While Britain of former exiles, now democratic socialists, was still portrayed as superior to Czechoslovakia, communist Britain was depicted as an equal partner with virtues as well as flaws. The "equalization" of Britain contributed to the preservation of illusion that Communists were devoted to the principles of democracy.
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Not like us. The social marginalization and integration of minorities in the Czech borderlands while "building the new order" (1945-1960)
Spurný, Matěj ; Štaif, Jiří (advisor) ; Pavelčíková, Nina (referee) ; Brenner, Christiane (referee)
This work considers the changing attitudes of Czech society and its political élite towards minorities in the restored nation-state of Czechoslovakia after the Second World War and in the period of the coming to power of the Czechoslovak Communist Party and the stabilization of its dictatorship. To this end, it examines three very heterogeneous minority groups: the ethnic Germans remaining after the expulsions, the Gypsies (Roma), and the Volhynian Czechs. The Czech borderlands (former Sudetenland) were a distinctive space; the processes that took place there are analysed in detail in this work. The discourses and the strategies of legitimation, as well as conflicts and negotiations at the local level, are considered in particular. The aim of the work is to reveal the ideological starting points that the key political actors turned into concrete political aims and the influence that they had on specific events in the border areas, and also the influence that the thinking and notions of local actors had on the transformation of policy and even ideology. Consequently, the work presents a vivid picture of the often ambiguous attitudes amongst the individual components of the Party and State apparat (the senior leadership of the Communist Party, the individual ministries, and the regional and local...
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