{"title":"Czech Conspiracy Websites as Agents of Illiberalism: Case study of Parliamentary Elections 2021","authors":"Jonáš Syrovátka","doi":"10.14712/25704893.2023.2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.14712/25704893.2023.2","url":null,"abstract":"In the past several years, conspiracy websites emerged as relevant actors in Czech uncivil society. The article uses the lens of the concept of illiberalism to explain their ideological position, relation to the liberal democratic system and understanding of politics. The analysis of their reporting about the Czech Parliamentary elections 2021 allowed the article to uncover their allies and enemies and describe the role they want to play in Czech politics.","PeriodicalId":273107,"journal":{"name":"CENTRAL EUROPEAN JOURNAL FOR CONTEMPORARY RELIGION","volume":"6 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-08-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126877780","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Cosmic Prison Break: From Gnostic Movies to Conspiracist Cosmology","authors":"Jan A. Kozák","doi":"10.14712/25704893.2023.4","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.14712/25704893.2023.4","url":null,"abstract":"The article thematically and structurally analyses a group of films usually designated as “gnostic films”. These films share a common ideology as they postulate the existence of two worlds – one illusory and the other true. The hero must escape the false world and reach the true one. As the majority of gnostic films appeared at the turn of the millennium, the article also suggests what contributed to the emergence of these films. As the cosmology of the films bears a close similarity to the cosmology of conspiracy theories, the emergence of the films is shown to be a part of the sociocultural development of the conspiracist mindset entering the mainstream. In the 1990s, conspiracism was out of the closet and gained popularity, but it was not yet perceived as an imminent societal threat and therefore was not a taboo for Hollywood filmmakers. The 1990s were also the decade of a unipolar world order where the absence of an inimical Other engendered anxiety about the system itself, which is reflected in the analysed films.","PeriodicalId":273107,"journal":{"name":"CENTRAL EUROPEAN JOURNAL FOR CONTEMPORARY RELIGION","volume":"98 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-08-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116398302","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Structural Analysis of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion","authors":"Kateřina Hlaváčová","doi":"10.14712/25704893.2023.3","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.14712/25704893.2023.3","url":null,"abstract":"This paper explores one of the most influential conspiracy theories of all time, as described in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, by employing the method of structural analysis. The “master myth” of the Protocols represents a basic structure of the conspiracy narrative, whose motifs were subsequently modified throughout the 20th and 21st centuries according to current events and moods. However, to understand the pamphlet as a whole, it is also important to shed a little light on its specific historical context and the religious, political, and social fervour of the time, which eventually gave rise to this text. The text is one we can still consider a blueprint of contemporary conspiracy narratives about the global cabal that occupies a prominent place within the modern conspiracy culture.","PeriodicalId":273107,"journal":{"name":"CENTRAL EUROPEAN JOURNAL FOR CONTEMPORARY RELIGION","volume":"136 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-08-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129462411","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Conspiracism and the Shadows of Transparency","authors":"R. Chlup","doi":"10.14712/25704893.2023.1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.14712/25704893.2023.1","url":null,"abstract":"Following the approach of cultural studies, which views conspiracism as reflecting larger cultural and social anxieties and concerns, the paper argues that one of these anxieties is connected with the modern ideology of transparency. While at first sight a widely shared positive value, transparency can be shown to hide various tensions and paradoxes on closer inspection. This paper interprets conspiracy theories as imaginative attempts at capturing these tensions, at highlighting the inconspicuous opacity of the late modern transparent world and its institutions. Conspiracists are themselves entangled in the modern ideology of transparency, but at the same time, they knock against its boundaries, making explicit the unspoken premises of the entire system in all their paradoxicality. They draw attention to numerous inconsistencies and dark cracks in our late modern social and ideological system, symbolising them through various disturbing narratives that should not be taken literally but that are interesting precisely in that they offer an opportunity to reflect on the limitations of transparency","PeriodicalId":273107,"journal":{"name":"CENTRAL EUROPEAN JOURNAL FOR CONTEMPORARY RELIGION","volume":"33 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-08-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125661910","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Matyáš Lednický, Tereza Malá, Abraham Maurer, Jan A. Kozák
{"title":"“Do I Believe?”: Three Aspects of “Belief” in Conspiracy Theories","authors":"Matyáš Lednický, Tereza Malá, Abraham Maurer, Jan A. Kozák","doi":"10.14712/25704893.2023.5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.14712/25704893.2023.5","url":null,"abstract":"The following text aims to offer and illustrate a new concept for grasping the phenomenon of conspiracy theories. Based on field research in the form of semi-structured interviews and previous research, it provides a triadic schema for navigating the conspiracy landscape and understanding the transformations and functions that conspiracy theories provide to their adherents. After introducing the topic, the first part of the text briefly summarises previous research relevant to the article and describes the theoretical position on which it is based. Subsequently, it uses H. S. Versnel’s schema to introduce the three levels of meaning of conspiracy narratives: substantivist, functionalist, and cosmological. It then concludes by reflecting on the possible applications of this framework and its relevance for future research.","PeriodicalId":273107,"journal":{"name":"CENTRAL EUROPEAN JOURNAL FOR CONTEMPORARY RELIGION","volume":"46 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-08-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133607069","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Religion in the Lyrics of the Czech Underground","authors":"Zdeněk R. Nešpor","doi":"10.14712/25704893.2022.3","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.14712/25704893.2022.3","url":null,"abstract":"The study analyses various types of religion manifested in the lyrics of Czech underground musicians in the 1970s and 1980s. The author primarily examines the religious, implicitly religious, and social sources of musicians and the recipient communities in religion. In the second part of the study, he focuses on the types and ways of presenting religious content. Although much of it was derived from ecclesiastical Christianity (which does not mean that it corresponded to specific confessions or religious traditions), he also notes non-Christian and alternative spiritualities parallel to any organised religion. Although the article does not pay much attention to the reception of the underground religion and its communities, the author concludes that this phenomenon was among the key manifestations of modern self-oriented spirituality in Czech society.","PeriodicalId":273107,"journal":{"name":"CENTRAL EUROPEAN JOURNAL FOR CONTEMPORARY RELIGION","volume":"85 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-11-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134415175","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Czech Underground from a Musical Historical Point of View","authors":"Aleš Opekar","doi":"10.14712/25704893.2022.2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.14712/25704893.2022.2","url":null,"abstract":"The first part of the article summarises and comments on the literature on the Czech music underground. It proves that professional research of the phenomenon was previously carried out by foreign authors, whose focus was mainly on the social and political contexts in Eastern Europe. Memoirs and published interviews predominated in the domestic reflection of the phenomenon. Theoretical studies, including monographic treatises, appear only on an ongoing basis. However, the underground is still more in the field of view of historians than musicologists. This article also traces the changes in understanding the “underground” category in the Czech environment. It leads to defining it compared to the “alternative scene” and “grey zone” categories, which gradually gained a specific significance in Czech public awareness in the 1970s and 1980s. The second part of the article places the Czech musical underground in the context of the general development of rock and popular music in Czechoslovakia in the 1970s and 1980s.","PeriodicalId":273107,"journal":{"name":"CENTRAL EUROPEAN JOURNAL FOR CONTEMPORARY RELIGION","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-11-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131891577","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"On Blasphemy","authors":"O. Havelka","doi":"10.14712/25704893.2022.5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.14712/25704893.2022.5","url":null,"abstract":"Book review on Yvonne Sherwood, Blasphemy: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford: Oxford University Press 2021, 145 p.","PeriodicalId":273107,"journal":{"name":"CENTRAL EUROPEAN JOURNAL FOR CONTEMPORARY RELIGION","volume":"148 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-11-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133662914","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Between the Scylla of Bowing to the Regime and the Charybdis of Frontline Clash: Evangelicals and the Underground in Czechoslovakia During the Normalisation","authors":"M. Soukupová","doi":"10.14712/25704893.2022.4","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.14712/25704893.2022.4","url":null,"abstract":"Under the so-called normalisation, the community of underground artists was not the only source of an alternate lifestyle to state-mandated behaviour in Czechoslovakia. Many Evangelical communities provided young people with an equally different vision for living, albeit much less radical. The study aims to reveal what forms of contact took place between the two milieux, principally drawing upon interviews conducted by the author with seven figures active in various Evangelical-oriented communities during the period mentioned above. The interviews recorded these people’s attitudes on the church’s social engagement, allowing respondents to judge the actions of their parent churches under the domination of state power that was hostile to religious congregations and reflect on their own positions concerning the communist regime. The article further explores the multi-layered relationship of respondents to the dissent, which provides valuable insights into the ambivalence of the Czechoslovak Evangelical clergy towards various forms of anti-regime resistance. The paper concludes with a description of specific, selected interactions between the Evangelical and underground milieux and an explanation of possible reasons why there was no significant connection between the two alternatives during the examined period.","PeriodicalId":273107,"journal":{"name":"CENTRAL EUROPEAN JOURNAL FOR CONTEMPORARY RELIGION","volume":"41 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-11-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127413464","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A Minister to the Secret Fire: Pavel Hošekʼs take on J. R. R. Tolkien (review)","authors":"Jan A. Kozák","doi":"10.14712/25704893.2021.4","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.14712/25704893.2021.4","url":null,"abstract":"Book review on Hošek, Pavel, Sloužím Tajnému ohni: Duchovní zdroje literární tvorby J.R.R. Tolkiena [I Am a Servant of Secret Fire: Spiritual Sources of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Literary Work], Brno: Centrum pro studium demokracie a kultury 2019, 191 p.","PeriodicalId":273107,"journal":{"name":"CENTRAL EUROPEAN JOURNAL FOR CONTEMPORARY RELIGION","volume":"36 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-04-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125537143","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}