|
|
After Tito - Tito! The Transition from Charismatic Leadership to Collective Leadership in Socialist Yugoslavia
Mosković, Boris ; Pelikán, Jan (advisor) ; Štěpánek, Václav (referee) ; Mervart, Jan (referee)
The thesis focuses on the transition process from charismatic leadership to a system of collective leadership in socialist Yugoslavia at the turn of the 70s and 80s. This was related to the death of Josip Broz Tito in May 1980, the undisputed and, so far, the only leader of the Yugoslav socialist regime. Therefore, the dissertation focuses on the circumstances in which the power elite members were preparing for this moment, representing a fundamental milestone in Yugoslav history. The researched topic is approached through a so-called actor's perspective, which is also the basis of the interpretation itself. This conception allowed me to follow in detail the specific (mainly political-institutional) preparations for the impending departure of J. B. Tito. Moreover, it enabled us to capture how Tito and his colleagues (who later became his successors) perceived the whole range of problems and challenges within their contemporary context without being distorted by later events. We were interested in what attitudes, preferences and forecasts they expressed and how this reflected their mental world as representatives of the Yugoslav model of socialism. As the interpretation focuses on the crucial period of 1977-1982, we analysed the negotiations, argumentation and communication strategy of the Yugoslav...
|
|
|
Czechoslovak Foreign Cultural Policy in the Early Years of Normalization
Machala, Jan ; Vojtěchovský, Ondřej (advisor) ; Mervart, Jan (referee)
The master's thesis deals with the approach of the communist regime to the cultural promotion of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic in developed capitalist countries, based on the analysis of selected foreign exhibitions with Czechoslovak participation. The presentation at these exhibitions was an important instrument of Czechoslovak foreign policy, which made it possible to influence the foreign public and political representation in the style of soft power. The master's thesis focuses on the form and application of this foreign-cultural policy during the early phase of the so-called normalization and examines its continuity or discontinuity in relation to the reform period of the 1960s. It focuses on the circumstances of the origin and course of the implementation of the World Exhibition in Montreal, the Man and His World exhibition, the World Exhibition in Osaka and the Czechoslovakia - a Country of Two Cultures exhibition. In addition to the above, it briefly discusses the previous development of world exhibitions. The master's thesis draws to a large extent from primary sources. In particular, the materials of the Government Commission for Exhibitions, which discussed specific forms of exhibitions, and documents of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, including reports from the relevant embassies, were...
|
|
|
Late stalinism and the attempt at a social reform against the backdrop of life and work of Jan Prochazka
Bárta, Jan ; Michela, Miroslav (advisor) ; Mervart, Jan (referee) ; Czesany Dvořáková, Tereza (referee)
The aim of the presented doctoral thesis is to characterise the time period of Czechoslovak history between the late stalinism of the fifties and the attempt at reform of socialism in 1968 through the life and work of Jan Procházka. Procházka as a writer, screenwriter, office bearer and a political activist markedly influenced the political and cultural events of his time. The subject matter of this thesis is to map his activities and strategies with which he entered the discussions about the socialism reform in the sixties, when he fully established himself in the art milieu. The work is based on two approaches, the first being the theory of social capital by the french sociologist Pierre Bourdieu and second the cultural-historical approach. The main source is Prochazka's opus (all his written works) and other texts closely related to his persona (opinions of art critics, reactions of party directorate, daily press). This biography doesn't follow a typical scheme such as birth, life, work, death, but in accordance with the chosen theory the main character is inserted into the respective social fields. His functioning within these social spaces makes the content of the individual chapters, ranged chronologically. Moreover, the thesis deals with Prochazka's functioning in the Czechoslovak Youth...
|
|
|
Street Politics. Student Protests in Prague 1962 - 1967
Polák, Michael ; Pullmann, Michal (advisor) ; Mervart, Jan (referee)
This thesis deals with the genealogy of so-called "Strahov events", i.e. the protest of students from Strahov dormitories, which took place on October 31, 1967. The key question is why seemingly an insignificant event - a power outage - led to the collapse of the university organization of the Czechoslovak Union of Youth (ČSM). The thesis analyses the 1960s through optic of street politics, and examines manifestations of the particular student collectives that preceded the Strahov protest and which set up the implicit rules on how to enter the public space and what content it should bring in and how to avoid repressive reaction in the same time. In particular, it focuses on the majáles festival marches in 1965 and 1966 and the so- called Petřín incidents - the annual May Day clashes between the Public Security forces and the youth at Petřín hill. It helps to answer related questions: how these collectives influenced the origin, course and consequences of the Strahov demonstration. In addition, the thesis focuses on the process of creation of student social movement. It examines what the students expected in the 1960s, what was the purpose of their criticism and how their criticism was influenced by the context social transformations that took place in the state-socialist Czechoslovakia in the...
|
|
|
Ladislav Štoll'Participation on the Shaping of the Czechoslovak Culture
Čurda, Vojtěch ; Čornejová, Ivana (advisor) ; Mervart, Jan (referee) ; Křesťan, Jiří (referee)
The aim of the thesis is to describe how a literary critic and an ideologist of the Communist Party Ladislav Štoll influenced the making of the Czechoslovak culture in the 20th century. At the same time we try to capture Ladislav Štoll's life in the form of a political biography, which describes his activity in connection to the discussions, polemics and the political development of the Czechoslovak cultural left wing. As a part of the thesis we describe the activity and opinions of Ladislav Štoll in the interwar republic, his attempts to write his own fiction and broadly also his participation in the discussions amongst left-wing intellectuals (so called generational discussion, the controversy around André Gide, polemics about the Moscow Trials). Also his relationship with the thinking of Zdeněk Nejedlý, the heritage of F. X. Šalda and Štoll's opinions before the outbreak of the Second World War is analysed in the thesis. We try to capture Štoll's activity during the Second World War, including the problem of his involvement with the anti-Nazi resistance. The main focus of the thesis is Štoll's activity after the war. We analyse his place in the polemics about socialism and the cultural orientation of Czechoslovakia. We also look at Štoll's influence on the universities including his lecturing at...
|
|
|
Street Politics. Student Protests in Prague 1962 - 1967
Polák, Michael ; Pullmann, Michal (advisor) ; Mervart, Jan (referee)
This thesis deals with the genealogy of so-called "Strahov events", i.e. the protest of students from Strahov dormitories, which took place on October 31, 1967. The key question is why seemingly an insignificant event - a power outage - led to the collapse of the university organization of the Czechoslovak Union of Youth (ČSM). The thesis analyses the 1960s through optic of street politics, and examines manifestations of the particular student collectives that preceded the Strahov protest and which set up the implicit rules on how to enter the public space and what content it should bring in and how to avoid repressive reaction in the same time. In particular, it focuses on the majáles festival marches in 1965 and 1966 and the so- called Petřín incidents - the annual May Day clashes between the Public Security forces and the youth at Petřín hill. It helps to answer related questions: how these collectives influenced the origin, course and consequences of the Strahov demonstration. In addition, the thesis focuses on the process of creation of student social movement. It examines what the students expected in the 1960s, what was the purpose of their criticism and how their criticism was influenced by the context social transformations that took place in the state-socialist Czechoslovakia in the...
|
|
|
Humanity and democracy againts inhumanity and totalitarianism
Meissner, Vladimír ; Havlík, Radomír (advisor) ; Mervart, Jan (referee) ; Brabec, Martin (referee)
The twentieth century brought with it two periods of totalitarian experimentation that together resulted in the death of millions of people: Fascism in the form of German National Sozialism (Nazism) and Communism in the form of Soviet Stalinism. It was a great victory for the human spirit when both these totalitarian periods ended. People did learn a lot from them. Firstly, that human destitution was at the root of both these criminal regimes and in addition human malice together with the hatred of certain groups against others. It was this hatred that led to the criminal conspiracy of their leaders against other individuals who stood in their way. They misused the state as an instrument for the disposal of their opponents and found a "scientific" justification for their crimes. The philosophy of people who viewed progress as nothing more than using reason and who placed this above the other constituents of human life - above emotions, above the spirit of wisdom and the human moral values that make us complete unfettered - was twisted. These criminals against humanity were able to degrade an individual into a number, a race, a class, and suchlike categories. They deprived individuals of their humanity and humiliated them. This they viewed as representing their victory and their superiority over others. For...
|
|
|
Václav Chaloupecký Czechoslovak historian and archivist (1882-1951)
Ducháček, Milan ; Čornejová, Ivana (advisor) ; Kvaček, Robert (referee) ; Mervart, Jan (referee)
The aim of the presented PhD thesis is to deal with the historiographical legacy of Czech historian Václav Chaloupecký (1882-1951), the pupil of Josef Pekař and Jaroslav Goll. During the First Czechoslovak republic Chaloupecký kept the professorship of Czechoslovak history at the newly established Comenius University in Bratislava. His historiographical work has its basis in mediaevistic studies yet it also deals with the questions of contemporary history. The roots of his creativity, however, lie in poetry. Chaloupecký's work is often marked as "czechoslovakist" and positivist and due to this fact usually viewed as methodologically and ideologically obsolete. The aim of this thesis is to rethink Chaloupecký's historiographical legacy from the non-nationalistic and ideologically open minded point of view. The core of this critical approach is to show the stereotypes bound with Chaloupecký's name and last but not least to reveal the specific ideological background of Chaloupecký's work, its roots based in his individual experience with the Czech and Slovak cultural horizon and mainly in the marriage with the Slovak modernist poet Ľudmila Groeblová. The result should show a picture of life and work of a historian which was interrupted due to three breaks - The Great War, Second World War and the...
|
guest ::
