Forum HistoriaePub Date : 2022-07-12DOI: 10.31577/forhist.2022.16.1.3
Silvia Seneši Lutherová
{"title":"The Fight for the “Modern Peculiar Character.” The Nationalist Narrative Within the Concept of Applied Art Modernization Reform in 1920’s Slovakia","authors":"Silvia Seneši Lutherová","doi":"10.31577/forhist.2022.16.1.3","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31577/forhist.2022.16.1.3","url":null,"abstract":"SENEŠI LUTHEROVÁ, Silvia. The Fight for the “Modern Peculiar Character.” The Nationalist Narrative Within the Concept of Applied Art Modernization Reform in 1920’s Slovakia. A significant of the theoretical discourse on of In the of they defined based on an objective, perceived quality: “modern peculiar character” (Vydra). This article explores the ideological framework behind the modernization reform of applied art in Slovakia as a manifestation of the formation of the nationalist discourse within culture, first in terms of the cultural confirmation of the Slovak nation and later, the Czechoslovak nation. The “national character” of modern applied art is analysed as a period-specific ideological construct, which the authors created by re-interpreting the “national culture” using modernist discourse and therefore, in opposition to the school of folk’s understanding of peculiar character. “Modern national applied art” was construed as a representation of the modern urban culture of the Slovak nation (Hořejš), and also as a synthesis of the “spirit of the nation” and the “spirit of modern times” in terms of artistic innovation (Vydra). In the last third of the 1920’s, the concept was re-defined based on the ideological framework of the Czechoslovakist discourse to become a “modern Czechoslovak peculiar character” (Vydra), which rendered the contributions to reform of applied art in Slovakia now universal for the entire nation. Nationalistic arguments on the concept of modernization reform of applied art impacted the development of culture, which was applied as a way to assert the socio-political acceptance of aesthetic reform implying the principles of avant-garde art schools.","PeriodicalId":37228,"journal":{"name":"Forum Historiae","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-07-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"70010443","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}
Forum HistoriaePub Date : 2022-07-12DOI: 10.31577/forhist.2022.16.1.1
Barbora Buzássyová, Lásló Vörös
{"title":"Intellectuals and the “National Question” in Post-1918 Central and Eastern Europe (An Introduction)","authors":"Barbora Buzássyová, Lásló Vörös","doi":"10.31577/forhist.2022.16.1.1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31577/forhist.2022.16.1.1","url":null,"abstract":"BUZÁSSYOVÁ, Barbora – VÖRÖS, László. Intellectuals and the “National Question” in Post-1918 Central and Eastern Europe (An Introduction). This article provides introduction and context for the papers published in the current issue. Seven case studies examine the conceptions of “nation,” national existence, national history and national art in the writings of influential intellectuals active in a variety of fields—historians, literary critics, artists and art critics, and a philosopher—in Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and their successor states throughout the 20 th century. Individual cases are analysed within the context of period nationalist discourse and policies of nation-building with special attention devoted to various aspects of the intellectuals’ strategies in adapting concepts and theories from foreign sources and appropriating them to domestic national(ist) ideological contexts and doctrinal needs via assimilation, bending existing doctrines or deconstruction. The articles presented here provide read-ers an opportunity to learn about the intellectual’s relationship to the ruling powers, and about their efforts to legitimise or delegitimise regimes, national ideologies and policies, construction of narratives about nation-states’ deeply historical origins and the nature of national art and literature.","PeriodicalId":37228,"journal":{"name":"Forum Historiae","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-07-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42897364","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}
Forum HistoriaePub Date : 2021-12-20DOI: 10.31577/forhist.2021.15.2.5
Vítězslav Sommer
{"title":"An Unequal Alliance: Social Scientists as Experts in Socialist Czechoslovakia","authors":"Vítězslav Sommer","doi":"10.31577/forhist.2021.15.2.5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31577/forhist.2021.15.2.5","url":null,"abstract":"SOMMER, Vítězslav. An Unequal Alliance: Social Scientists as Experts in Socialist Czechoslovakia. This article examines the role of social scientific expertise in socialist Czechoslovakia. The first section centres on the 1950s, when the new social sciences that helped build the institutions and rules of the new regime were established. The roles of social scientists as experts are analysed during the reform era of the 1960s and the so-called consolidation regime of the 1970s. In the final part of this text, the 1980s are characterised as a period when the unequal alliance of the social sciences and the socialist state fell apart. The article demonstrates that studying the relationship of state policies towards social scientific expertise deepens our understanding of state socialist rule. Scrutinising the responses to demands imposed by the state and the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ) on academia and expertise provides a fresh perspective on the attitudes of the educated middle class towards socialism as a political project and an everyday reality.","PeriodicalId":37228,"journal":{"name":"Forum Historiae","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41971414","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}
Forum HistoriaePub Date : 2021-12-20DOI: 10.31577/forhist.2021.15.2.7
Kristina Andělová
{"title":"The Genesis of Political Distrust Towards the “Sixty-Eighters” in Czech Politics Over the Course of 1989","authors":"Kristina Andělová","doi":"10.31577/forhist.2021.15.2.7","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31577/forhist.2021.15.2.7","url":null,"abstract":"ANDĚLOVÁ, Kristina. The Genesis of Political Distrust Towards the “Sixty-Eighters” in Czech Politics Over the Course of 1989. This article focuses on the genesis of political distrust against the so-called sixty-eighters—former reform communists—after 1989, outlining in detail the political trajectories of the Prague Spring communist actors. These politicians—the so-called socialist opposition—represented an important part of the Czechoslovak democratic opposition in the 1970s and 1980s. Even though many of the reform communists also stood at the inception of Charter 77, non-communist dissent was politically distrustful of the socialist opposition, centred around the journal Listy. Unlike the “non-political” Charter 77, Czechoslovak socialist opposition has always advocated for a profiled political program of democratic socialism. Thus, this distrust towards the reform communists persisted after 1989. In a situation where Marxism and socialism had completely lost political power and much of society rejected the socialist left as a dangerous remnant of the communist dictatorship, the advocates of post-communist democratic socialism found themselves on the margins of political discourse.","PeriodicalId":37228,"journal":{"name":"Forum Historiae","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46485318","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}
Forum HistoriaePub Date : 2021-12-20DOI: 10.31577/forhist.2021.15.2.3
Z. Panczová
{"title":"Conspiracy Theories and Rumours as Key Elements of Political Propaganda: The Cold War in the USA and Czechoslovakia in the 1950s","authors":"Z. Panczová","doi":"10.31577/forhist.2021.15.2.3","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31577/forhist.2021.15.2.3","url":null,"abstract":"PANCZOVÁ, Zuzana. Conspiracy Theories and Rumours as Key Elements of Political Propaganda: The Cold War in the USA and Czechoslovakia in the 1950s. Rumours and hearsay can be important communication devices in civil society. Their influence tends to intensify in times of social crises and long-term conflict, which then can function as a test of trust in official authorities. The Cold War took place in an almost apocalyptic atmosphere fearing the outbreak of a fatal nuclear conflict. On both sides, combat was waged not only in the fields of armaments, economics or technology, but also on a psychological level, as a way to gain the trust and sympathy of citizens. The dividing line between East and West was also a demarcation between two frequently mirrored images of the enemy presented by representatives of state power and the state-controlled media. However, in contrast to official propaganda, there was also a less manageable spontaneous public debate, which responded to the intervention of state supervision, questioned official interpretations and sought its own answers to important social events. In this paper, the function of rumours and conspiracy theories during the Cold War is described on both sides of the conflict, as indicators of public opinion and as tools for influencing it. The \"potato beetle\" case and narratives about an alleged communist conspiracy in the USA during the period of \"McCarthyism\" became symbols of the conspiratorial rhetoric of the Cold War. The article also serves as a starting point for reflections on the differences in the spread of political rumours in totalitarian and democratic societies.","PeriodicalId":37228,"journal":{"name":"Forum Historiae","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47570315","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}
Forum HistoriaePub Date : 2021-12-20DOI: 10.31577/forhist.2021.15.2.9
Matej Ivančík
{"title":"State of Grace: A Probe into Understanding Democratic Trust and Legitimacy Throughthe Eyes of the VPN (The Public Against Violence).","authors":"Matej Ivančík","doi":"10.31577/forhist.2021.15.2.9","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31577/forhist.2021.15.2.9","url":null,"abstract":"IVANČÍK, Matej. State of Grace: A Probe into Understanding Democratic Trust and Legitimacy Through the Eyes of the VPN (The Public Against Violence). Gaining trust, both domestically and internationally, became a self-evident mission for the protagonists of the 1989 democratic revolution, something ever-present within the new policies aimed at a political and economic transition. This held true in particular with the Czechoslovak case. Unlike the situation in Poland or Hungary, where the legitimacy of the political transition was framed by the so-called Round Table Talks, revolutionaries from the Civic Forum (Občanské forum or OF) and the Public Against Violence (Verejnosť proti násiliu or VPN) had to extract their legitimacy directly from the very event of the Velvet Revolution. This exposed the policies of the OF and VPN to a participatory scrutiny of sorts in an even more imminent manner. In order to gain trust, at best transferable to actual political results, i.e. winning an election, the proponents of the democratic revolution in Czechoslovakia engaged in both policies and politics which would create an environment most preferable for their goals. This text focuses on the political language of ethics and politics, totalitarianism and Europeanization, focusing mainly on strategies used by the VPN and seeks to understand how an environment focused on developing and gaining trust functioned in the Slovak case.","PeriodicalId":37228,"journal":{"name":"Forum Historiae","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46786096","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}
Forum HistoriaePub Date : 2021-12-20DOI: 10.31577/forhist.2021.15.2.6
Barbora Buzássyová
{"title":"Building and Testing Trust Within a Socialist Dictatorship: The Case of Czechoslovak Experts in Africa Pre- and Post-1968","authors":"Barbora Buzássyová","doi":"10.31577/forhist.2021.15.2.6","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31577/forhist.2021.15.2.6","url":null,"abstract":"BUZÁSSYOVÁ, BARBORA. Building and Testing Trust Within a Socialist Dictatorship: The Case of Czechoslovak Experts in Africa Preand Post-1968. This article explores the foundations of trust between Czechoslovak state bodies and experts selected for foreign service in Africa. The focus is on the means through which this trust was challenged during long periods of separation from socialist ways of life, ways which were reinvented after the systemic political changeover in Czechoslovak administration after August 1968. Drawing on the concept of “navigation”, it examines the strategies experts developed to earn and restore credibility in the eyes of party authorities after the total disintegration of prior networks of trust following the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia. During their tenure abroad, experts established trust networks on various levels – not only with Czechoslovak political representatives, but also with other experts in common agencies and even officers of the Czechoslovak Intelligence Service. These personal ties proved to be instrumental for negotiating future career prospects after the stormy years of 1968–1969. However, contrary to popular belief, this article demonstrates that it was less political attitude and more the economic potential of the experts' international positions that determined their ongoing credibility as “honoured” citizens.","PeriodicalId":37228,"journal":{"name":"Forum Historiae","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45039297","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}
Forum HistoriaePub Date : 2021-12-20DOI: 10.31577/forhist.2021.15.2.1
Adam Hudek, M. Zavacká
{"title":"Networking and Trust During the Cold War (An Introduction)","authors":"Adam Hudek, M. Zavacká","doi":"10.31577/forhist.2021.15.2.1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31577/forhist.2021.15.2.1","url":null,"abstract":"HUDEK, Adam – ZAVACKÁ, Marína. Networking and Trust During the Cold War (An Introduction). The article examines different concepts of the term “trust” within the social sciences, summarising the most important attitudes of experts on the importance of trust in modern societies. Trust and distrust have continually influenced the structure of social hierarchies and been decisive factors for acceptance, exclusion, and control. This analysis focuses primarily on the phenomenon of political and interpersonal trust—or the lack thereof—in both democratic and communist regimes. In geographic terms, the text is anchored in Czechoslovakia and neighbouring soviet satellites, with a slight overlap of selected African countries. It deals predominantly with the bilateral relationships between citizens and political institutions, and between institutions and their representatives, especially during transition periods following political crises.","PeriodicalId":37228,"journal":{"name":"Forum Historiae","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46255422","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}
Forum HistoriaePub Date : 2021-12-20DOI: 10.31577/forhist.2021.15.2.2
Jozef Hyrja
{"title":"“As Mr. Schwarz is not Jewish, we are unable to handle this case.” Elements of (Un)Success in Overseas Emigration from Post-war Czechoslovakia","authors":"Jozef Hyrja","doi":"10.31577/forhist.2021.15.2.2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31577/forhist.2021.15.2.2","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":37228,"journal":{"name":"Forum Historiae","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46295999","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}
Forum HistoriaePub Date : 2021-12-20DOI: 10.31577/forhist.2021.15.2.8
Agáta Šústová Drelová
{"title":"Trust in the Church Hierarchy among the Underground Church Community in Post-1968 Slovakia","authors":"Agáta Šústová Drelová","doi":"10.31577/forhist.2021.15.2.8","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31577/forhist.2021.15.2.8","url":null,"abstract":"ŠÚSTOVÁ DRELOVÁ, Agáta. Trust in the Church Hierarchy among the Underground Church Community in Post-1968 Slovakia In the post-1968 era, trust in the official hierarchy among the catholic faithful was far from guaranteed. With the church hierarchy under tight state control and effectively existing on two levels—officially and “underground”—the levels of trust fluctuated and its character changed. Trust was constructed, challenged and negotiated. Drawing on an analysis of the catholic discourse in late socialism, I argue that the character and level of trust in the local catholic hierarchy changed dynamically according to the current hierarchy’s relationship to the communist party-state, the hierarchy’s relationship with the Vatican and the level and quality of the hierarchy ́s relationship with the underground community itself.","PeriodicalId":37228,"journal":{"name":"Forum Historiae","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41946051","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}