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Going West: Czech Immigration to California (1960-1970)
West, Anna ; Wohlmuth Markupová, Jana (advisor) ; Krátká, Lenka (referee)
The construction of human identity involves various aspects of self-definition, often involving an interplay between ethnic, national, and personal identities. In the case of emigrants, their self-concepts about their identities can undergo a profound transformation when they leave their home country. This oral history research project studies the experiences of emigration, arrival, integration, and identity among Czech immigrants in California who emigrated from Czechoslovakia in the 1960s. While contemporary research has centered primarily on Czechs in New York, Illinois, Nebraska, and Texas, where large Czech communities have historically existed, this study intends to fill a gap in our knowledge about Czechs who settled in California, of which less is known. Through oral history interviews with five narrators, this study examines their decisions to emigrate; their experiences of arrival and integration in California; their participation in the Czech community in California; and their perspectives on their identities before and after the fall of communism in Czechoslovakia in 1989. The presence of transnational identities and behaviors was found among the narrators, whereby they existed in social worlds that spanned their home country, Czechoslovakia (and the Czech Republic after 1993), and...
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Crime culture of the 1990s and its actor reflection
Zajíčková, Tereza ; Wohlmuth, Petr (advisor) ; Houda, Přemysl (referee)
The thesis aims to interpret the actor's reflection on crime in the 1990s. It will focus on the perception and subjective interpretation of crime, which predictably increased in intensity after the collapse of the socialist regime. This socio-pathological phenomenon, typical of post-communist states, necessarily had an impact on the cultural and social development of the time, which is also reflected in contemporary popular art. The diploma text generally subscribes to the new cultural history and uses oral history as its primary method. The research will use newly acquired oral history narratives from several categories that represent actors in the context of the phenomenon in question - justice, prison, police, etc. In the context of pre-defined contemporary cultural categories, the thesis will attempt to interpret their subjective experience of the phenomenon. Key words: Crime, Criminality, Cultural History, Oral History, ActorReflection
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Implementation and development of the Internet in the Czech Republic
Gažda, Matěj ; Hlaváček, Jiří (advisor) ; Wohlmuth, Petr (referee)
The aim of this thesis is to map the beginnings of the Internet in the Czech Republic, i.e. its implementation and development from the beginning of the 1990s (the first connection to international computer networks) to the turn of the millennium, when there is an exponential growth of the Internet in the Czech republic. The research is primarily based on the oral history method, the narrators are people that were at the beginning of the implementation of this technology. This thesis also describes the beginnings of important organizations managing certain aspects of the Czech Internet, the commercialization of the Internet, and an example of the development of a metropolitan network. The work is supplemented with historical documents and articles. For a broader context, the origin and development of the Internet itself is described here, with its subsequent expansion into Europe. There is no comprehensive description of the development of this important technology in the Czech republic. The thesis tries to change this fact.
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"New Folk in the Old Mountains" - Newcomers in The Krkonoše Mountains after 1945
Jiřičková, Marie ; Wohlmuth, Petr (advisor) ; Houda, Přemysl (referee)
"New Folk in the Old Mountains" - Newcomers in The Krkonoše Mountains after 1945 Bc. Marie Jiřičková ABSTRACT The thesis "New People on Old Mountains" - Newcomers in the Krkonoše Mountains after the 1945, adheres to the post-positivist paradigm of oral history with overlap into the fields of historical anthropology and microhistory. The focus of the thesis is on the simultaneous processes of the displacement of the German-speaking population from the borderlands and on the subsequent settlement, which took place immediately after the war; demographic stabilization occurred at the turn of the 1950s and 1960s. The emphasis lies in actor subjectivity and cultural relations. The focus of the research is on oral-historical and ethnographic research in the Berlin district of Rokytnice nad Jizerou in the Krkonoše Mountains and in subsequent analysis and interpretation of data regarding theoretical anchoring. Research questions aim at the actor's reflection on the life experience of settlement, the transformation of the relationship to the mountains, and the basic specifics of the development of the Berlin district in relation to social processes such as the ascent of socialism and secularization. The thesis concludes that settlement was strongly influenced by societal changes and the onset of socialism, that...
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The late socialist Czechoslovak ethnography and folklore studies and its influence on the Czech tradition of sociocultural anthropology after 1989
Balaš, Nikola ; Bittnerová, Dana (advisor) ; Janeček, Petr (referee) ; Woitsch, Jiří (referee)
This thesis is an attempt to provide an account of the late socialist discipline of Czechoslovak ethnography and folklore studies and provide a basis for understanding of ethnography's post socialist transformation into anthropology and ethnology. The main theoretical framework of the thesis is the critical sociology of science of Pierre Bourdieu. The thesis focuses especially on two ethnography institutions - the Department of Ethnography and Folklore Studies at Charles University in Prague and the Prague branch of the Institute for Ethnography and Folklore Studies of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences in the late socialist period, which covers the 1970s and 1980s. Apart from providing some intellectual dimension of ethnography, the thesis aims to uncover other dimensions of ethnographers' practices such as research methods, language competences, writing habits, academic hierarchies or attitudes to mutual criticism. The thesis argues that whereas ethnography as a label disappeared in the 1990s, ethnographers' practices continued to shape the nascent Czech anthropology and ethnology. The thesis makes an intensive use of ethnographers' scholarly writings, interviews with former ethnographers and also uses some documentary evidence and secondary literature as its sources. Keywords: history of...
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A missed chance? Freedom and the 1990s in the actor's reflection of Czech men
Pražská, Michaela ; Hlaváček, Jiří (advisor) ; Krátká, Lenka (referee)
This diploma thesis deals with the topic of the newly acquired freedom in Czechoslovakia after the "Velvet Revolution" in 1989 in reflection of the men from the Czech regions. Attention is drawn to meaning and use of the freedom in the context of an individual who did not participate in political negotiations, but lived and experienced the times as an ordinary citizen. Therefore the work is based on the definition of a sociological term called Thomas theorem and focuses on perceiving of the newly acquired freedom as a new opportunity, primarily in the economic field. Keywords: freedom, business, economic transformation, Thomas theorem, oral history
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Two Yugoslavias: One Lost, the Other Dremt of. War and Disintegration of the Yugoslav Federation from the Perspective of the Yugoslav Emigrant Community in the Czech Republic
Hamoudová, Barbora ; Houda, Přemysl (advisor) ; Mücke, Pavel (referee)
The thesis deals with the reflection of the war conflict and the subsequent disintegration of Yugoslavia in the first half of the 1990s from the perspective of representatives of various ethnic and religious groups from the countries of this former federation, who found a new home in the Czech Republic. The aim of the work is to capture their recollection and perception of the causes and consequences of this historical event through oral history, in accordance with the post-positivist paradigm following the cultural turnover in the 1980s. Based on the analysis and interpretation of oral history interviews, I will attempt to interpret the intrusion into the historical subjectivity of these narrators. I will also be interested in the question of their post- conflict identity and their attitude towards the disintegration of Yugoslavia and towards post- war trans-nationalism. The narrators are ex-Yugoslavs who were born in the 1960s and 1970s in former Yugoslavia on the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina, during the Civil war (1992- 1995) were already adults and they emigrated during the war or immediately after that. Keywords: Yugoslavia, civil war, oral history, emigration, nationalism, religion, post-conflict identity, subjectivity, transnacionalism, diaspora
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Portrait of columnist Alena Wagnerová
Máchová, Natalie ; Malý, Radek (advisor) ; Čeňková, Jana (referee)
This diploma thesis sums up the life and work of Alena Wagnerová with an emphasis on topics that she has reflected in her books and articles. Alena Wagnerová first started to publish her work in the magazine Plamen in the nineteen-sixties. By then, her interest in social problems and in stories of people marginalized by the society has already started to show. After her immigration to Germany, she has fully begun to focus on issues related to the equality between women and men and in 1974 she published her book Žena za socialismu: Československo 1945-1974 a reflexe vývoje před rokem 1989 a po něm. Later on she has also published for example a monograph about the baroness Sidionie Nádherná or Czech journalist Milena Jesenská and the Franz Kafka family. This thesis also marginally covers the oral history as a method, since Alena Wagnerová presents a significant representation of this type of methodology. Among her most important publications based on the oral history belong for instance Odsunuté vzpomínky and Neodsunuté vzpomínky, in which Wagnerová covers the post-war Czech-German relations in Sudeten. Even though Wagnerová mainly focuses on the non-fiction literature, she also writes fiction, which is covered in the diploma theses as well.
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The Story of Křemže in the 20th Century
VAČKÁŘ, Matěj
This diploma thesis deals with the history of the small town Křemže in the 20th century. In the introduction part, two chapters are dedicated to methods which are used throughout the work, microhistory and oral history. Then the history of the previous 20th century is presented in the work, but the key part of the work is dedicated to the period of the First World War, the First Republic, the Second World War, 1945-48, everyday life until 1989 and the subsequent nineties of the 20th century. The great history of the 20th century, such as the First and Second World Wars, is interpreted in the work, but everyday life is the key point for the entire 20th century. For Křemže, this history is not anything special, in fact, it only described the national history, but this is also one of the reasons for choosing this topic for the thesis. In the First Republic chapters, there are described joyful moments such as the construction of new buildings but great hardship and poverty as well. During the Second World War, the everyday life of the population who tried to live their lives is shown. However, the work also presents the resistance activity of some inhabitants, as well as the subsequent repression. In the next part, the work deals with everyday life during the era of communist Czechoslovakia and in conclusion there are presented the biggest changes that came to Křemže in the 1990s.
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