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Imaginary Elsewhere: The "West" in Czechoslovakian society in the time of Perestroika
Andělová, Kristina ; Pullmann, Michal (advisor) ; Randák, Jan (referee)
In societies of state socialism the image of West was usually characterized by high degree of ambivalence. On the one hand the West was a space where negative social and politic phenomena could be displaced - as negative film should the official image of evil West full of social insecurity, criminality and poverty, reassured Czechoslovakian citizens of rightness of building socialism. On the other hand entirely opposite scenes were part of the public meaning- unconcealed admiration of fashion trends inspired by western mass culture (films, music). There was not only the fascination with consumer commodities of the western World, but also an admiration of lot of nonmaterial aspects (freedom of press, traveling, ecologic, feministic, pacifistic movements etc.). The West became gradually something mystical- it was at the same time "familiar and inaccessible, real and abstract, mundane and exotic". This ambivalence and inaccessibility was transforming the West in some mysterious and dreamlike place where instead of evil, the promise of happiness could be projected. Despite the official ideology and censoring attempts that limited the information about life behind the Iron Curtain, citizens in Czechoslovakia had an opportunity to create their own, quite clear image of West. At the same time I am trying to...
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Intellectual History of Czech Reform Communism 1968 - 1990
Andělová, Kristina ; Kopeček, Michal (advisor) ; Kolář, Pavel (referee) ; Kolenovská, Daniela (referee)
The main topic of the dissertation is the development and changes in the political thinking of Czech reform communism from 1968. While in the 1960s reform communism represented the dominant intellectual and political current, after the military invasion in August 1968 it gradually disappeared from the public discourse and was later completely suppressed by normalization propaganda and labeled as "counter- revolutionary" and "right-wing opportunist" ideology. The central questions of the thesis explore the changes that the political project of reform communism underwent during the twenty-one-year normalization period and the shifts that took place in the "horizon of expectation" of the Czechoslovak socialist opposition in the context of the intellectual and political changes of the 1970s and 1980s. The aim of the thesis is to explain the political perspectives of reform-communist intellectuals in the Czechoslovak opposition after 1968. They represented an important part of both domestic and especially exile opposition, which formed around the journal Listy. Some of them also played an important role in the creation of Charter 77 and its legalistic criticism. Nevertheless, their story does not fully fit into the traditional narrative of Czechoslovak dissent, as they never completely parted ways with...
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Czech noncommunist left after 1989 and rethinking of alternatives
Andělová, Kristina ; Kopeček, Michal (advisor) ; Pullmann, Michal (referee)
The collapse of the communist regimes came at the time of the overall decline of the Left, both in the West and the East. In the Eastern Bloc, much of the Left's language was disqualified as a result of its association with the former communist regime, the rejection of which formed the basis of post-communist democratic identities. Although the post-communist situation was generally seen as unfavourable for leftist thought, it nevertheless represented a liberation from a regime which, in many respects, supressed leftist criticism. Social changes in 1989, guided by mass peoples' movements, enabled the Left to understand these changes through their own conceptual apparatus and integrate them with their own expectations. The defensive position of the Left and the "liberal consensus" of the nineties led the alternative leftist thought to profile itself as a leftist criticism of liberal democracy. However marginal their political position was, left-wing oriented authors tried to advocate alternative economic and social structures to those of capitalism, rejecting current pro-capitalist values and practices (consumerism, neoliberalism) and rethinking the changes in private ownership, redistribution of wealth and common values. Key words: Left, liberal consensus, 1989, democratic socialism, post-communism
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Imaginary Elsewhere: The "West" in Czechoslovakian society in the time of Perestroika
Andělová, Kristina ; Pullmann, Michal (advisor) ; Randák, Jan (referee)
In societies of state socialism the image of West was usually characterized by high degree of ambivalence. On the one hand the West was a space where negative social and politic phenomena could be displaced - as negative film should the official image of evil West full of social insecurity, criminality and poverty, reassured Czechoslovakian citizens of rightness of building socialism. On the other hand entirely opposite scenes were part of the public meaning- unconcealed admiration of fashion trends inspired by western mass culture (films, music). There was not only the fascination with consumer commodities of the western World, but also an admiration of lot of nonmaterial aspects (freedom of press, traveling, ecologic, feministic, pacifistic movements etc.). The West became gradually something mystical- it was at the same time "familiar and inaccessible, real and abstract, mundane and exotic". This ambivalence and inaccessibility was transforming the West in some mysterious and dreamlike place where instead of evil, the promise of happiness could be projected. Despite the official ideology and censoring attempts that limited the information about life behind the Iron Curtain, citizens in Czechoslovakia had an opportunity to create their own, quite clear image of West. At the same time I am trying to...
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