“Wounded” in revolution: the postwar intelligentsia and their self-distinction in Czechoslovak cinema (1956–1968)

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article analyzes the social representations of the critical socialist intelligentsia in five major Czechoslovak films made by Communist filmmakers between 1956 and 1968. These politically transgressive films provide valuable insights into how the reform-minded Communist intelligentsia viewed real socialism and their place in it. The films often portrayed intellectual protagonists stuck and emotionally struggling between careerist Party elites and an insensitive working class in the new socialist reality. Through content and reception analysis of several of the most influential films of the period, the article demonstrates how the critical intelligentsia distinguished themselves not only from Party elites but also from members of the working class in the post-1956 predicament caused by Nikita Khrushchev’s denunciation of Stalin and, by extension, the ruling logic of Communist parties in Eastern Bloc countries.