Rituals of the Last Farewell in Contemporary Czech Society

SEER, 96, 2, APRIL 2018 392 Russia. Morozov suggests as much (p. 105), but inconsistently. Abandoning the notion of ‘the people’ as the true subaltern would not have undermined Morozov’s core argument about Russia’s intrinsic dependence on the Western normative order. Morozov’s book is a rich and insightful study of Russia’s peculiar relations with the West. It goes to the heart of Russia’s inferiority complex vis-à-vis the West by putting it in a global context. It is essential reading for anyone interested in Russian identity, foreign policy and politics. School of History, Anthropology, Philosophy & Politics Alexander Titov Queen’s University Belfast Lyons, Pat and Kindlerová, Rita (eds). Contemporary Czech Society. Institute of Sociology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague, 2016. 551 pp. Illustrations. Figures. Tables. Bibliography. Index. CZK 350.00: $14.00 (paperback). Contemporary Czech Society, edited by Pat Lyons and Rita Kindlerová, is a wide-ranging study of current attitudinal trends and changing realities, based on insights drawn largely from mass survey data. This highly engaging and thought-provoking work, which employs a social scientific framework, seeks and largely manages to present a value-free account of popular perceptions of the self and others. The publication comprises five sections: Preface; Introduction; Theory, methods and structure; fifty-seven short empiricallyinformed chapters; and Conclusion, which contains a ‘cross-validation’. The separate chapters include contributions from eighteen different scholars, although Lyons’s own input merits special recognition, not least because it exceeds that of all the other authors as a whole. The main body of the text is dividedintofivebroadlyconceivedthematicparts,whichconsiderCzechsociety from economic, historical, political science, psychological and sociological perspectives. Each chapter adopts an erotetic (question and answer) approach, and is grounded in solid scholarship, with reference to numerous secondary sources and models and frameworks, but without conventional academic citations and footnotes. The study is thus presumably intended both for a general educated market keen to learn more about the dynamics and values of Czech society, and for a more specialized readership, with an interest in particular aspects of the subject area. Amongst the questions posed in Part 1, relating loosely to economic affairs, are ‘Do Czechs know and trust official economic statistics?’; ‘Do Czechs want equality?’; ‘Are there too many university graduates in the Czech Republic?’; REVIEWS 393 and ‘What are the attitudes of Czechs towards climate change?’. Part 2: Historical Perspective, asks, inter alia, ‘Who voted for the Communists in the election of 1946?’; ‘Why did Czechs and Slovaks allow their leaders to dissolve Czechoslovakia in late 1992?’; and ‘What is current public opinion towards the Velvet Revolution?’. Questions informed by political science include ‘Are Czechs nostalgic for life under communism?’; ‘What can be learned from analysing Czech election ballot papers?’; ‘What is Czechs’ level of knowledge about refugees and asylum seekers, and is it important?’; and ‘Czexit?’. In Part 4: Psychological Perspective, Lyons addresses questions such as ‘What are the main personality traits of the Czechs?’; ‘Do Czechs think they know more than they really do?’; and ‘What does a study of a Czech internet user tell us?’. The final part looks at a range of questions from a sociological perspective, including ‘Are Czechs a nation of grumblers?’; ‘Is religion dead in the Czech Republic?’; ‘What is the nature of sexual behaviour in Czech society?’; ‘Is there equal treatment of ethnic minorities in the Czech Republic?’; and ‘How do Czechs spend their free time?’. Inevitably, with a multi-authored study of this length and breadth, there is some variation in the scope and style of the analysis, and a degree of repetition (with terms such as ‘heuristic’, ‘TOP 09’ and ‘IPSOS-MORI’ being explained more than once). Nonetheless, Lyons’s recurring voice ensures an appropriate measure of authorial continuity, while the repetition allows for the various sections and chapters to be read independent of the whole. Different readers will bring their own interests and expertise to the book, but I particularly enjoyed the chapters which employed historical and sociological perspectives, in addition to the illustrations by Miroslav Kemel, which offer a touch of light relief. Amongst the many intriguing characterizations of the Czech people is one derived from a European Social Survey (2012...

Czech Sign Language (CzSL) is a vital means of communication used in the Czech Deaf community; it constitutes an essential communication tool for a minority population in the Czech sociolinguistic space. The aim of the article is to provide an overview of the usage of CzSL in contemporary Czech society, to sketch a brief history of its formative stages and to list the challenges the Czech Deaf face nowadays. An emphasis is placed on the question of bilingualism of the CzSL users. Our special focus is on the questions of language socialization and social-cognitive development, as the early years set the stage for a Deaf child’s and the Deaf community’s subsequent advancement. Real world implications for the healthy and uncompromised development resonate throughout the discussion of the Czech education system and the place of the Deaf in it. CzSL represents an irrefutable part of the identity of the Czech Deaf population and, as such, merits a critical consideration in the context of the minority languages in the present day Czech society.

The paper aims to understand lived experience of social work practitioners in contemporary Czech society through the use of the potential of metaphors. Metaphors are seen as a tool for bringing implicit knowledge and experience to the surface (especially where they are encountered certain barriers to verbalisation); as an area of connecting lived experience and its essential meaning. Using the phenomenological hermeneutical method of thematic narrative analysis and structural thematic analysis of metaphorical narratives, new ways of structuring reality by participants and new coherences are revealed, thus re-describing reality that shows the tension, if not conflict, between the concept of social work based on technically conceived rationality as officially carried out and required institutional policy in social services and social work as a value-oriented profession The implication for social work: the social workers should reflect the impacts of the revealed conflict on the practice and reconsider the further role and development of social work.

The article explores the practices of elderly care in the Czech Republic from the life-course perspective, using qualitative research methodology: biographical interviews with women providing everyday care to their parents. The case of elderly care presents an opportunity to critically examine the concepts of the 'third age' and 'young old', that have figured prominently in theoretical and political debates concerning the life stage in which the need to care for one´s parents seems most likely to arise. In the 'collective story' based on the narratives of women aged 50-66 who provided everyday care for their elderly mother, I identify and describe the factors that influence how this stage in life unfolds and the decisions women make about their life/life course. I argue that in contemporary Czech society 'young old age' cannot be defined in terms of the absence of work commitments or the absence family care commitments, and that the original concepts dealing with this new period in life did not take the new commitments of care or the gendered aspect of them into consideration.

An analysis of two important Czech films dealing, hesitantly, with Christological themes enables an engagement with contemporary Czech society. The two films, Forgotten Light and Divided We Fall occasion reflections on Christ's triple office of Priest, Prophet and King and the continuing power of the Christ story in popular Czech culture. This leads to an interpretation of the films and their messages, set against the backdrop of religious life in the Czech Republic as demonstrated in sociological research. Theologians can learn with the filmmakers how to address the new religiosity present in the society, post-ecclesial but not post-belief.

Regardless of the role religion plays in the contemporary world, and the fact that there has occurred a massive de-privatisation of religions and de- secularisation of societies, in the Czech Republic the state of religion remains considerably understudied. This paper attempts to fill in this lack of knowledge. The subject is analysed with special regard to the values that are based on cul- ture, symbolic representations and socio-economic institutions. Owing to the lack of empirical research, with the exception of some quantitative surveys and censuses, in this article the author works mainly with his own observations, which also incorporate historical arguments and analyses. He maintains that the developing trends in contemporary Czech religiosity are both similar to and dis- tinct from those in Western Europe. The similar trends include out-of-church movements and even strong anti-clericalism, along with a process of de-tradi- tionalisation and the rise of new spiritual outlets, connected either with 'New Age' spirituality or with the new charismatic and Pentecostal movements. The distinct trends involve a certain de-privatisation of traditional Christian beliefs, which is a reaction to the over-secularised suppression of the public sphere un- der the communist regime, and even before that. The paper reflects arguments that many of these processes, which have an important influence on Czech so- ciety as a whole, will undergo some changes with the state's entry into the Eu- ropean Union. Sociologický casopis/Czech Sociological Review, 2004, Vol. 40, No. 3: 277-295

The study deals with the analysis of the religious situation in Czech society after 1989. The starting point is the analysis of the broader historical and sociopolitical context. The study itself examines an analysis of the key census data from 1991, 2001, and 2011, together with the results of research explicitly focused on the religion and religious behavior of the Czech population. These are mainly international studies, such as the EVS, ISSP or AUFBRUCH.

This paper compares the standard economic and a complementary socio-economic approach to the transition. While the economic approach looks at social problems from the outside and views them as costs of transition, the socio-economic approach looks at these problems from the inside and views them as a part of the changing social structure. Both approaches are used to analyze four frictions which appear in contemporary Czech society. The first friction concerns the pension system which produces direct intergenerational dependence and turns pensioners into a socially needy population. It produces a socio-political redistributional trap, strengthening political support for further redistribution. The second friction concerns the relation between low market wages and a higher guaranteed subsistence minimum. It opens a socio-cultural trap and leads to a benefit dependency. The third friction concerns the impeding development of the middle class. Here, a socio-economic trap appears: a socially polarized society cannot take full advantage of its human capital and entrepreneurial spirit. The fourth friction involves tensions between various sections of the middle class. The socio-structural trap of unbalanced dynamics inside the middle class may cause an autonomous corporatization of individual groups to the detriment of citizenship principles and social integration.

The article describes attitudes towards death and funeral rites in contemporary Czech society. It begins by revealing the attitudes to death held by the majority of the Czech population – non-believers. The customary secular funeral ceremony, held in a crematorium, is not entirely well suited to meeting the needs of the bereaved, and this is borne out by the fact that about one-third of all cremations are held without a funeral ceremony. The author argues that the current situation is not solely the result of the economic situation of individuals but also stems from the deeply rooted attitudes and values and the approach to religion of the Czech population. The second part of the article is devoted to the attitudes towards death and the funeral rite preferences of believers, based on a survey conducted with members of three religious groups: Roman Catholics, Protestants (Church of the Czech Brethren), and Jehovah’s Witnesses. Finally, the author compares the attitudes of the secular majority and believers, and also outlines the connections between conditions today and under the former communist regime regarding the general approach to death and funeral rites.

Transition in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) since 1989 has received much attention from various academic disciplines. However, the relationship between trust and corruption in the CEE context remains largely unaddressed. Therefore, we explore trust and corruption in the context of the Czech Republic via interviews with a group of new generation managers, who gained their business experience after the 1989 Velvet Revolution. We inquire about the nature of trust and corruption, and their relationship, in contemporary Czech society and business. The analysis highlights that the previously theorised dynamics between trust and corruption, often attributed to the low levels of social capital, may in fact be symptomatic of deeper issues. We find suspicion, pessimism, cynicism, and apathy, stemming from the country’s history, as the cause. However, hope is provided by the prospect of generational change and exposure to more transparent agents and environments in both societal and business terms.

The article overviews the spreading of faith in the afterlife in contemporary Czech society while using data from the international ISSP research focused on religion (1998 and 2008), complemented by qualitative research results on the character of ideas of the afterlife. In the European context, faith in the afterlife is not so common in the Czech Republic; more than half of the Czech population today sees death as the definitive end of life. This is not caused only by the small amount of believers, but also by a great divergence from believing in the afterlife in the last decade (mostly in younger age categories). Contemporary notions of the afterlife are also very vague, and besides the abstractly conceived ideas of Heaven and Hell, new conceptions have arisen, of which the most widespread is the belief in reincarnation of souls. The article describes specific ideas of middle-aged Czechs (30–50 years old), not only non-believers, but practicing Roman Catholics, as well.

The article examines the directions of the state politics of memory in the Czech Republic regarding the problem of recognising and understanding the violence by the Czechs against the German population in 1945 and the subsequent CzechGerman reconciliation, which became an important factor of the peaceful and productive interaction of the Czech Republic and Germany in the united Europe. The adoption of a new perspective of historical memory at the stage of post-socialist transformation was primarily due to the initiatives of Czech historians and activists to study the problem of violence at the final stage of World War II on the Czech lands and the subsequent expulsion of Germans. This approach in turn was reflected in the official position of the presidents of the Czech Republic V. Havel and V. Klaus during the signing of the CzechGerman agreements and declarations, which made it possible to eliminate conflicts of perception of a common traumatic past among the current generations of Czechs and Germans. The memory of the violence against German-speaking citizens of Czechoslovakia is broadcast both through the formation of memory objects (monuments, feature films) and within the framework of local public initiatives. The review of the initiatives to perpetuate the victims of the Brno death march, undertaken in the concluding part of the article, reveals the contradictory nature of reconciliation in relation to the memory of post-war violence in contemporary Czech society.

The Czech Republic seems to be somewhat different from other Central and Eastern European countries. Current sociological research has repeatedly stated that the population of the Czech Republic is now overwhelmingly atheist. Czech cinema reveals traces of the complex history that connects nationalism, religion and Czech national mythology. Thankfully, cultural theorists like Geert Hofstede and Stuart Hall have provided a useful framework to analyze the details of this relationship. The Communist regime tried hard to influence what and how its citizens thought through the power discourse of its propaganda. The overall attitude of Czech cinema towards religion seems to be critical. Few Czech films deal with genuine spirituality. Most of them regard religious organizations as metaphors of oppression, inflexibility and a closed mind. This narrative seems to be fully in line with the prevailing attitudes in contemporary Czech society, which is remarkably atheistic. Keywords:cinema; communism; Czech National Identity; Geert Hofstede; Religion; spiritual; Stuart Hall

The Czech Republic is often regarded as one of the most secularized countries in the world. It seems that such a statement is supported by the majority of statistical data, for example, the results of the last census, which was held in 2011. According to this census only 12 % of the Czech population identifies explicitly with a religious institution or tradition. It also shows a radical decline of traditional religious institutions such as the Catholic Church or the main protestant denominations, which have lost more than 50% of their members over the last ten years. What do these facts mean? Are they, as some scholars and the majority of journalist and politicians argue, clear proof of the deepening secularization or even ”atheisation” of contemporary Czech society? Or is it necessary to read this data more carefully and in the context of other relevant surveys? I will argue in this paper that the above mentioned and similar facts cannot be interpreted in the „traditional way“ as evidence of deepening secularization but instead should be read as an indicator of a change in the interpretation of religion in connection to a new social and cultural concept of this phenomenon.

Summary There is an interesting paradox whereby contemporary Czech society ranks among the most secularized in the world, and where anti-clericalism – the rejection of Christianity and, first and foremost, the Catholic church – rank as key aspects for the majority of society. Against this background, two completely contradictory trends consequently converged in one society. This involved an enhanced and extremely vocal anti-clericalism, on the one hand, and wide-spread interest in the life story of a Catholic priest martyred by the Communist Regime in 1950, on the other hand. This study is divided into three parts. The first involves a brief biography of Father Josef Toufar (1902–1950), and the so-called second life, the further development in interest in his fate to the present day. The core of the study subsequently answers the question as to the reason behind the intensity of this contemporary interest in his fate.