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False heroes. Removal of communist monuments in Prague after year 1989
Homutová, Ludmila ; Pech, Milan (advisor) ; Bendová, Eva (referee)
False heroes. Removal of communist monuments in Prague after year 1989 This thesis will examine monuments, established to promote communist ideology, that were removed after the Velvet Revolution and in the next few years of the 1990s in an attempt to symbolically abolish former regime. Firstly it will outline the historical context. Based on contemporary periodicals and public politicians speeches it will show social discourse regarding relation towards communism and notions what the new regime should be like. After it will deal with the concept of historical memory, places of memory and their change and rewriting. It will also compare this momument removal with iconoclasm that accompanied other revolutions. In its main part the thesis will follow several cases of monument displacements of statues of heroes and leaders, constituting events and artifacts - symbols. It will attempt to demonstrate how the monuments disappeared from the public space and how these events and the removal itself helped construction of historical memory besides the creation of monuments that are supposed to commemorate communist totalitarianism. It will also mention existing monuments that were put up during years 1948 - 1989, that stir up discussion to this day and it will touch how other countries of the Eastern Bloc...
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Polish Party System 1989-2016: A Case of Polarization
Koubek, Jiří ; Bureš, Jan (advisor) ; Just, Petr (referee) ; Charvát, Jakub (referee)
Polish Party System 1989-2016: A Case of Polarization Abstract The dissertation thesis analyses the Polish party system focusing particularly on the issues of polarization and anti-communism. The analysis is partially carried out in comparative perspective, especially in exploring anti-communism. Throughout the post-transition period, Poland has been displaying high levels of polarization, without any substantial link to the fragmentation of the party system. Seeking the sources of the polarizing tensions, the thesis has identified the construction of language of politics, as well as historicising and identity- based understanding of political divisions in Poland. The thesis specially focuses on the issue of anti-communism, as a key factor in creating and launching various polarizing impulses. The periodization of the Polish party system developments, as well as its categorization as a case of Satori's polarized pluralism is also proposed in the text. Key words: party system, Poland, polarization, anti-communism, fragmentation, alternation, competition, cleavages, dimensions of competition
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The Mašín Myth. Ideologies in Czech Literature and Culture since the Second Half of the 20th century until the Present Day
Švéda, Josef ; Janoušek, Pavel (advisor) ; Bílek, Petr (referee) ; Bauer, Michal (referee)
This dissertation analyses narratives of the Mašín brothers and their father, Josef Mašín senior. The Mašín brothers established what they called 'a resistance group' against the Communist regime in Czechoslovakia, which between 1951 and 1952 killed three people. The brothers, alongside the other member of the group, Milan Paumer, escaped from the country in 1953, heading for the Western sectors of Berlin. Despite more than 20,000 East German and Soviet troops hunting them, the group reached West Berlin safely. Later, the brothers went to the USA where they joined the U.S. army. The dissertation analyzes a whole range of discourses including newspaper articles, historical papers, books, detective stories, novels, memoirs and also one episode of the Czechoslovak television series, Třicet případů majora Zemana ('Major Zeman's Thirty Cases'), entitled Strach ('Fear'), from 1975. The dissertation is conceptually embedded in cultural studies and critical theory. Drawing on Roland Barthesʼs work on mythologies, Hayden Whiteʼs theory of history and Slavoj Žižekʼs theory of ideology, the dissertation considers the relationship of the Mašín brothersʼ narrative representations with respect to the dominant ideology of the time. The first chapter of the dissertation deals with narratives produced in Communist...
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State-owned enterprises and their role in creating opportunities for corruption
Sodomka, Jan ; Dvořáková, Vladimíra (advisor) ; Vymětal, Petr (referee)
The thesis deals with state-owned enterprises and their potential for corruption. In the first chapter is characterized corruption in the Czech Republic in the context of social, economic and political changes in the end of the twentieth century. This section also contains typology of corruption from Rasma Karklins, which is also the methodological basis of this work. The second part focuses on the characteristics of state-owned enterprises, and also on internal and external control mechanisms, which should reduce their potential for corruption. The third chapter presents in detail the processes and results of legislative changes in recent years, regarding the increase of external control mechanisms of state-owned enterprises.
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