Czech Press Research Articles

Антонин Дворжак и идеи чешского панславизма в последней трети XIX века

The article examines the influence of the ideas of Pan-Slavism on the culture of Czechia at the end of the XIX century. For the first time, Czech pan-Slavism is consistently chronologically examined (from the 1860s to the 1890s) from three perspectives: its manifestations in a political way, in the cultural dialogue between the Czech Republic and Russia and in the life and work of Dvorak. The article focuses on the interaction between cultural and political life in Prague, revealing the debate between two political parties ("Young Czechs" and "Old Czechs") and controversies in the Czech press that divided the musical world between supporters of Smetana and Dvorak. The study places significant emphasis on Dvorak’s work in a broad context related to pan-Slavism in the context of Pan-Slavism in the spheres of political, social, and cultural life, including literature and music criticism.

For Soviet Literature in the Czech Republic: Jiří Weil’s Controversy with the Right Wing Czech Press of the 1920s

The article analyzes the polemics of the Czech writer Jiří Weil (1900–1959) with the right wing Czech press of the 1920s regarding Russian Soviet literature. The subject of scientific examination is reports, reviews, critiques, literary critical notes published in volumes 1 and 3 of the 13-volume collected works of the writer, currently published in Prague. The ideological and thematic vectors of the above-mentioned polemics are revealed, Weil’s point of view in it is determined, consistently defending the aesthetic value and substantive originality of Soviet literature of the first post-revolutionary decade. A conclusion is made about the importance of Weil’s journalism for a more complete understanding of the literary, cultural and political relationships between Russia and the Czech Republic in the 1920s. All of Weil’s journalistic texts are introduced into scientific circulation for the first time.

The Polish Uprising of 1863 in Slovak Public Opinion and Slovak Press

In the article the author analyzes the views of leading Slovak public and political fi gures and the Slovak press on various aspects of the Polish national movement. Particular attention is paid to the attitude of the Slovak press and public fi gures to the prerequisites, course and features of the Polish uprising of 1863 in the territory of the Kingdom of Poland and in the Belarusian-Lithuanian provinces of the Russian Empire. In contrast to the Czech press, which generally took the pro-Polish stand, Slovak fi gures and Slovak press, including the infl uential Slovak “Peshtbudinske Vedomosti” journal, demonstrated a critical attitude towards the Polish uprising, which they interpreted as an attempt by the Polish gentry to defend their class and social interests. In addition, Slovak leaders criticized the Polish movement for its detachment towards common Slavic interests, emphasizing at the same time that Russia had always sought to protect the interests of the Slavic peoples. They also criticized the slogan of the Polish rebels about the restoration of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth within the borders of 1772, which the Slovak press interpreted as the desire to impose Polish domination on the population of the Ukraine and Belarus. The critical attitude towards the Polish national movement, which manifested itself in 1863, also infl uenced the subsequent attitude of Slovak public towards the Russian-Polish historical dispute.

Linguistic Image of Death (LID): The Representation of President Emil Hácha’s Death in the Czech Press of the Period

This paper explores the linguistic image of death (LID) of President Emil Hácha in selected Czech newspapers published in June and July 1945 (in Rudé právo and Svobodné slovo). The author verifies certain methods of cognitive linguistics studying the linguistic image of the world in articles thematically related to the passing of this representative of Czech national politics and his funeral. The following aspects are considered to be important: conceptual metaphors, the opposition of I versus the other, and the study of stereotypes and political ethics (conservative versus progressive: the model of the strict father morality versus the model of a caretaker). Before analysing president Hácha's LID, the author tries to place the president's death in a broader context, summarizing characteristic features of LID of imminent Czechoslovak presidents who governed the country in politically critical periods of its history: of T. G. Masaryk and E. Beneš.

Letting the Music ‘Speak For Itself’? Dvořák as Strategist

‘I only write music and let it speak for itself’ – such was Antonín Dvořák's attitude, according to Josef Kovařík, the composer's personal secretary in New York. Indeed, throughout his career, Dvořák seemed reluctant to share his views publicly. He did not contribute articles to Czech periodicals, his acquaintances were well aware of his dread of making public appearances and speeches, and contemporary critics often commented on his humble and unenterprising nature.Yet Dvořák was not as passive as his alleged statement to Kovařík would imply. While visiting England during the 1880s, he became particularly concerned about forging a certain kind of image for himself in the Czech lands. Not only did Dvořák take an interest in English reviews of his music, he also sent several of these critiques to his contacts at home with the request that they be reprinted in Czech translation in the newspapers and journals of Prague. He proved to be equally strategic in some of his other professional choices, including the surprising decision to dedicate his patriotic cantata Hymnus: Heirs of the White Mountain ‘to the English people’, which can be understood as a clever tactical ploy, meant to signal the composer's international credentials to audiences at home.Drawing upon various letters and the many excerpted English reviews that appeared in the Czech press, this article shows that Dvořák played an active part in determining which aspects of his reception in England would be relayed to the Czech public. More broadly, the article examines Dvořák's role as strategist – an aspect of the composer's career that has remained largely unexplored. Ultimately, Dvořák was mindful of what Michael Beckerman calls ‘the public-relations aspect of nationalism’, and the suggestion that he was content simply to let the music ‘speak for itself’ does not tell the whole story.

Scientific Research on Czech Presence in Ukraine in the 1920s

The purpose of this article is to analyse the scientific work on the study of Ukrainian Czechs in the 1920s. The body of work under analysis is found to highlight the reasons and premises for the growing interest in the state and society as driving issues of Czech colonization of Ukrainian lands. The research stems from the All-Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, local scientists and historians, and public activists. The text deals with the Czech national-cultural revival in Ukraine in the 1920s, discussing the history, economic activity, culture, traditions, and lifestyle of Ukranian Czechs. A significant contribution to the work has been made by Volodymyr Kravchenko, Head of the Ethnographic Department of the Volhynia State Research Museum in Zhytomyr, and his assistant and postgraduate student Nykanor Dmytruk, as well as Kornii Cherviak, Director of the Korosten Museum, Antonín Vodseďálek, Head of the seminar for Czech teachers at the Zhytomyr Education Institute, Stefan Křižánek, writer and inventor from the village of Krošna Česká, and others. This work would not have been possible without the fundamental achievements of Yevhen Rykhlik, a prominent Ukrainian Slavic-scientist of Czech origin as well as a famous philologist, ethnologist, teacher and public figure. Rykhlik founded and directed the Cabinet of National Minorities of Ukraine, carried out a number of expeditions to Czech settlements, collected an archive of the Czech press, organised the collection of materials on Czech colonization of Ukrainian lands, and published scientific articles on the subject. He also contributed to the field with his monograph “Czechs of Volhynia”, which was destroyed in the early 1930s.

Selling ‘Czechness’ abroad: images of Jan and Zdeněk Svěrák in promotion and reception of Kolya

In this article I argue that debates about Kolya (1996) and the images of its two authors Jan and Zdeněk Svěrák that were circulating in the media at the time of its release reveal several hopes and anxieties about Czech national cinema’s coming to terms with the effects of post-communist transition. I will analyse interpretations and discourses about the film circulating primarily in Czech press. The aim is to look at how the talk about Kolya developed as several discourses and interpretative strategies were introduced in different attempts to make sense of the film. The time frame I focus on here starts before the film’s release and reaches until the coverage of the Academy Awards ceremony in 1997 where the film received an Oscar for the Best Foreign Language Film. I argue that in this timespan, the film’s value was negotiated and contested prominently along a set of two references – the ‘truthfulness’ of the Czechness it represents, and the importance of international recognition for Czech cinema. I analyse these discourses in the context of changing conditions in Czech cinema after the Velvet Revolution in 1989.

Русины на страницах чешских газет и журналов от революционного 1848 г. до начала Первой мировой войны

Using the Czech press from the revolutionary 1848 to the period before WWI as the source of information, the authors revise the established view of the Rusin question in the Habsburg Empire in the mid 19th – early 20th century. The analysis suggests that the Slavic population in Galicia and Subcarpathian Rus retained their ethnic identity and distanced themselves from the mainstream population. If in 1848 all Slavic residents of Galicia, whose political leaders opposed the Poles, were referred to as Rusins in the Czech press, by the end of the 19th century the Czech press had already regarded this people as an independent nation.

Attempt to save Friendship, or What the Liberator of Prague Did in Czechoslovakia in May 1968

The article introduces the publication of the recently declassified archival documents of the Russian State Archive of Contemporary History (RGANI) and the Archive of Foreign Policy of the Russian Federation concerning the stay of a delegation of Soviet military leaders in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic on May 8-14, 1968, led by Marshal of the Soviet Union I.S. Konev. In August 2018, at the initiative of the Prague 6 City Council, metal “information plates” were installed on the pedestal of the monument to Marshal Konev, where among other things it was stated that “In 1968, he personally backed the intelligence surveillance preceding the invasion of the armed forces of the Warsaw Pact into Czechoslovakia". This action was part of measures to prepare public opinion for the removal of the monument. The documents being published show there is not the slightest reason to consider the soviet delegation headed by Marshal Konev as intelligence surveillance operation to prepare for an invasion. The internal political crisis in Czechoslovakia in early May had not yet reached its peak (the famous manifesto "Two Thousand Words" will be published only on June 27). The Soviet leadership, headed by L. Brezhnev hoped that the "Czechoslovak comrades" would be able to cope with the situation, "would rebuff the anti-socialist forces." The delegation of the Soviet military leaders had a symbolic, cultural significance and was intended to revive the memory of the events of 1945, of the victims of the Red Army and the brotherhood in arms of Soviet and Czechoslovak soldiers. In the extremely unstable and confused atmosphere of the “Prague Spring”, the members of the delegation sought to clarify the true state of affairs and public sentiments in the country. As Marshals Konev and Moskalenko admitted themselves, they “had no opportunity to fully understand all the processes”. The so-called "intelligence surveillance", which is mentioned in the Czech press, was carried out by them in a completely open way of meeting and exchanging views with colleagues, speaking at rallies, and communicating with workers. Moscow preferred to act at the time by political methods, gradually shifting to military pressure (the “Shumava” military exercises). The time for tough demands came later (negotiations in Čierna nad Tisou, July 29 – August 1, and in Bratislava on August 3, 1968). The final decision on the intervention was made by the Soviet political leadership after numerous consultations with partners in the socialist camp, largely under the influence of the tough position of the first secretary of the PUWP Central Committee W. Gomulka and the first secretary of the SED Central Committee V. Ulbricht.

NON-RATIONAL ASPECTS OF PHOTOGRAPHIC MEANING

The main intent of this paper is to show how non-rational aspects of photographic meaning affect the interpretation of images. Three kinds of non-rational aspects of photographic meaning are investigated: authenticity, aesthetics and emotionality. The essential hypothesis of this study is that there is a duality in the non-rational aspects of photographic meaning that can be identified: Viewers can not only reflect the authenticity, aesthetics and emotionality of an image, but they can also reflect the authenticity, aesthetics and emotionality in an image. This process of self-reflection of a non-rational approach to images is considered a key component of photographic interpretation, which can uncover unconscious influences affecting each individual viewer. A photograph that won the Czech Press Photo contest for the year 2017 was chosen for a case study to show how the individual perception of authenticity, aesthetics and emotionality of photographic images affects its interpretation.

What's next for the European coal heartland? Exploring the future of coal as presented in German, Polish and Czech press

This article addresses the future of coal in the European coal heartland, i.e. in the area of Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic, which together account for nearly 57% of coal consumption and 87% of coal-mining jobs in the EU. It approaches the problem within the interpretative tradition of social research and explores the coverage of the future of coal in major newspapers and political magazines in the three countries. The results show that despite similar material conditions, the issue is presented in a fundamentally different manner as the media tend follow the dominant energy policy paradigm in their countries: in Germany, they facilitate the phase-out policies; in Poland, they act as an inhibiting factor; while in the Czech Republic, their coverage echoes the political uncertainty around lignite mining in the northwest part of the country. The results also suggest that the media act mainly as a platform for the countries’ decision makers and energy policy stakeholders to voice their perspectives. The prevalent media coverage thus simultaneously enable and constrain policy options by promoting dominant discourses and preventing alternative views from surfacing.

Źródła do dziejów Łemkowyny w latach 1917‑1921: stan poznania, kierunki poszukiwań, aneks dokumentacyjny

Source Materials for the History of the Lemko Region in the Years 1917‑1921: Current State of Knowing, Directions of Research, Documentation AnnexAt the beginning of the 20th century, the Lemko region was culturally active and documented its existence in writing, but the spoken word still played a major role in the social life. The course of history – even in such turbulent years as those between 1918 and 1921 – remained mainly in human memory. The generation of Lemkos who then co‑ created history and experienced, remembered and were to pass it on, suffered a traumatic fate – uprooting (Ukrainization), dispersion (economic migration, war and post‑war displacement to Ukraine), and finally exile (the “Wisła” action). Under these circumstances, not only did memory fail, but also documents were destroyed – these few literal traces of those times. None of the institutions created or managed by the Lemkos in the period analyzed survived for a long time. Although we know that they produced documents, these were not collected nor archived in the right way by these very institutions. Searching for the remnants of this documentation in private home archives in Poland, Ukraine and in the Lemko diaspora countries is an action necessary to recover the original documents, appeals and correspondence of the Lemko councils. It would be advisable to locate and catalogue ephemeral prints regarding the Lemko case – Rusyn, Polish, Czech, Slovak, Russian, Ukrainian. Some of the events and probably all the persons involved in them were photographed, but access to iconographic sources is very fragmentary, as these photographs often remain unrecoginsed. Apart from one archive (the collection of Zygmunt Lasocki in the National Archives in Krakow), own archives of non‑Lemko participants of events have not been found nor investigated – individual persons and institutions such as state organs, churches or political parties. Polish and Czech press, especially local press, has not been well‑ researched, apart from the Carpatho-Rusyn diaspora newspapers in the United States. It is of great importance to prepare a printed selection of basic sources for the history of the Lemko region in such an important period. It should contain basic declarations of Lemko councils, memorials addressed to state and international bodies, documentation of court proceedings against its activists, basic documents prepared by other forces active at the time in the Lemko region, and major press publications. The documentation annexed here (20 source texts) is just a sample of such a collection.

Kafka’s Other Prague: Writing from the Czechoslovak Republic by Anne Jamison

Reviewed by: Kafka’s Other Prague: Writing from the Czechoslovak Republic by Anne Jamison David Suchoff Anne Jamison. Kafka’s Other Prague: Writing from the Czechoslovak Republic. Northwestern UP, 2018. x + 222 pp. Anne Jamison’s Kafka’s Other Prague: Writing from the Czechoslovak Republic breaks new ground in the reading of Kafka as a translinguistic, postnational, and Jewish writer. Focusing on the period from Czech independence in 1918—the end of German’s linguistic domination of Prague—to Kafka’s death in 1924, the “other” of the book’s title opens up Kafka’s Czech linguistic, literary, and political connections more historically and textually than previous studies. Jamison expertly presents unknown—to non-Czech readers—linguistic, political, and literary texts that shaped Kafka’s late work. She does so without the least monolinguistic determinism, in order to launch acute new translinguistic readings of well-known Kafka works. “The primacy of language” in Kafka’s world, as she writes of his post-1918 situation, “brings the text closer to, rather than further away from, events and relations in the extra-textual biographical, and historical ‘real world’ of Kafka’s Czechoslovak Prague” (111). Kafka’s Other Prague offers a powerful revision of Delueze and Guattari’s capture of Kafka’s concept of small or minor literatures, using Czech writings and debates on language and identity from the period. Jamison sees the other not as seeking to inhabit the major but as a multiple historical perspective that opens up a different cultural space. Jamison shows how the sharp difference between spoken Czech, which Kafka used to enable him to keep his insurance job after 1918, and its standard form, which he had not mastered, opens up a translational perspective on the linguistic politics in his writings, creating critical effects in his thematics of gender and in his views of the minority voice. Rich readings of Czech context show how Kafka’s “assault against boundaries” (qtd. in Jamison 77), as his 1922 diary entry put it, took a multiplicity of forms. Jamison reads Kafka’s The Castle against an earlier 1921 diary entry that describes an assault that can take place “von unten” (78), or from below, or “von oben,” above, and hence as linguistically multiple against the social background. The ascendancy of Czech in 1918, for a German-speaking but Jewish Fremder, or foreigner, as The Castle describes K., could mean that a previously dominated Czech populace could be felt as an “assault . . . from below,” as well as an “assault from above,” given the newly sovereign linguistic order. The brilliance of Kafka’s Other Prague consists of such readings: its ability to take “a frame of reference far removed from the contingent, quotidian Prague” and then use material from Czech in the period to portray a “basic structure” (79) in Kafka, “in which [End Page 743] the terms and their interrelations are in flux” (79–80). Jamison uses Czech texts like Sergej Karcevskij’s later “The Asymmetric Dualism of the Linguistic Sign” or Jan Mukařovský’s ”On the Problem of Functions in Architecture” to make available the multiple meanings of architectural space and public sculpture as multiply inflected languages in Imperial German- and Czech-speaking, then-sovereign Prague, as in the case of the Jan Hus monument. Jamison shows how such imagery of nativity parallels scenes in The Castle that bring the question of foreignness as part of the native into focus, helping to establish Kafka’s practice of “establishing and deforming patterns” in his work (143). Jamison provides linguistic surveys and their debates as well as important analyses of Prague’s Czech Press, which published philological and avant-garde journals that Kafka was familiar with and the first translation of Kafka (by Milena Jensenská). For Jamison, Kafka’s method is enlarged by “cultural realities such as bilingualism, intermarriage, and translation” (10), which enabled him to use univocal icons in unique ways: in Kafka’s Other Prague, rather than serving as an image of unifying authority, the Castle’s tower becomes instead a symbol of formative linguistic differences. Jamison thus sees no “either-or logic of the nation state for Kafka” (6) and, for critics, no either-or choice between Kafka...

Lajos Kossuth and the Hungarian Revolution in Czech Society (with an Emphasis on the Works of Karel Havlíček and Ludwig Rittersberg)

Lajos Kossuth (1802–1894) has been the symbol of not only the revolution in Hungary in 1848 but also of the Hungarian national movement in general. The article draws attention to some major published reflections of Hungarian politics and mainly its representatives in the Czech press in 1848–1852 with particular focus on Lajos Kossuth in the texts by the journalists Karel Havlíček (periodical production) and Ludwig Rittersberg (Kapesní slovníček novinářský a konversační /A Pocket Dictionary of Journalism and Conversation/). With respect to the genre diversity of their publications (the periodically issued press in the case of Havlíček and collected works, albeit of journalistic character, in the case of Rittersberg), however, it would be almost purposeless to compare these two testimonies of the period in question in detail. Each of them fulfilled their role in the public space: one was engaged in news reporting, whereas the other, after some time, remembered the values, people or events gradually forgotten in the changing political situation after the defeat of the revolution. Although Havlíček and Rittersberg were not in entire ideological agreement and alienated during the revolutionary period, they both criticised Kossuth’s national policy towards Slavs. Havlíček’s Národní noviny [National Newspaper] and his Slovan [The Slav] as well as his publication Duch Národních novin [The Spirit of the National Newspaper] and Epištoly kutnohorské [The Kutná Hora Epistles] were officially forbidden in 1850–1851; likewise the publication of Rittersberg’s work in the Austrian monarchy was forcibly interrupted at the entry ‘Medakovič’ in 1852. In this connection, the author also mentions the prepared glossary of another part of Rittersberg’s work, which remains unprocessed in the Literary Archives of the Museum of Czech Literature, paying attention to Rittersberg’s focus on major Hungarian figures, life and institutions. In the next part of the work, the author, based on her analysis of the list of prohibited publications (Chronologicko-abecední seznam tisků zakazáných v monarchii podle nařízení ministerstva vnitra z roku 1851 a tiskového nařízení policejních úřadů z roku 1852 /A Chronological-Alphabetical List of Publications Prohibited in the Monarchy According to a Decree of the Ministry of the Interior of 1851 and a Press Regulation of Police Authorities of 1852/) has provided specific examples of the restrictions to which the books published on the topic of Hungarian revolution had been subjected. Nevertheless, the governmental authorities were not satisfied with the policy of prohibiting individual publications, so that, in the end, a ban was imposed on 3 March 1853 on any information on Kossuth as well as on the Italian revolutionary Mazzini and on their ‘treacherous proclamations’.

Between Europeanization and De-Europeanization: A Comparative Content Analysis of the Pre-election Presentation of the EU Agenda in the Czech Quality Press

AbstractThe paper explores the process of the Czech journalists setting the EU agenda in the media during the ‘hot phase’ of the Czech national parliament election campaigns in 2002, 2006, and 2010. Unlike most studies that concentrated on the media agenda in the European Parliament election campaigns, we focused on periods that were neither strictly key events nor routine, but that were more intensively covered by the media and simultaneously generated more influential political representation defining national political attitudes towards the EU. Articles that referred to the EU during the ‘hot phase’ were content analyzed. The results suggest that in the Czech press, the EU agenda is less and less visible, and, moreover, that it is increasingly negatively framed and reduced to an economic agenda.

Transitional Injustice? Criteria for Conformity of Lustration to the Right to Political Expression

In order to promote democratic consolidation, countries undergoing the transition from repressive regimes often attempt to address past injustices and launch deep institutional reforms.1 These meas...

Film a literatura v obdobi takzvane nove vlny ceskoslovenskeho filmu by Eva Koudelkova (review)

I32 SEER, 8o, I, 2002 features is the direct opposite to that of Taylor'swork. I had expected to be left longing to watch 7heMan WiththeMovieCamera again, as it is a film I have always found exciting,just as Roberts says it is; instead, I felt exhausted and deflatedby the end of the book. Both authors have clearly done an enormous amount of research and analysis, and this alone makes the books worthy of serious attention. Both contain many snippetsof informationwhich most readersareunlikelyto have read elsewhere, and which vividly bring to life the individualsinvolved and the epoch of the films.Both books alsoprovide a historical,social and political context against which to understand the making of the films. Roberts's presentation of Vertov'sfilm as 'Stalinist'in content ratherthan avant garde in style, however, is forced, unconvincing and tiresome in its insistence. In addition to this seriouscriticism,I also have a cavil in a lightervein regarding each book; with Taylor's it concerns his (admittedlyaccurate)punning that Eizenshtein 'was able to turn realdefeat into reelvictory'(p. 57), with Roberts it isregardinghis excessiveuse of the (admittedlyalsoaccurate)word 'diegesis' (pp. I, 45, 48, 5I, 57, 62, 82, 85, 89). Yet far more important is the fact that each book does reward the reader in various ways; TheBattleship Potemkin is particularlystrong on the analysis of the director'suse of imagery related to sight(pp. 62-63 thisis a recurrentand interestingtheme in Roberts'sbook too, e.g. p. 65), and on the film's reception and fate in Moscow (pp. 65-!)8) and in Berlin (pp. 98-I I3). 7heMan WiththeMovieCamera in turn contains thought-provoking points about, amongst others, the film's treatment of filmmaking and the editing process of the film within the film (pp. 48-z49, p. 68). Taylor'sand Roberts'sKINOfiles fulfilthe serieseditor's(RichardTaylor's) brief of investigatingthe production, context and reception of the film and its makers,as well as the film itself.In conjunction, these two books paint a very informative picture of Soviet cinematographical issues of the mid to late 1920s, both aesthetic and ideological, and provide thorough and significant analysesof two keyfilmsin the canon not only of Russianbutof worldcinema. London MILENA MICHALSKI Koudelkova, Eva. Filma literatura vobdobi takzvane nove vlnyceskoslovenskehofilmu. Technicka Univerzita v Liberci, Liberec, 2000. 78 pp. Notes. Bibliography . Synopses.Priceunknown. THE title of this short volume suggests a comparative study of film and literaturein Czechoslovakia during the I96os. Unfortunately, this is not the case. It offersneither a comprehensiveoverview of Czech cinema of the time, nor an in-depth study of the films and the literaryworksthat inspiredthem. The title, or rather, the use of the word 'takzvane'('so-called'),suggeststhat the author will also attempt to challenge the conventions of cinema studies. Again this is not so. Apparently,according to the Czech press, this booklet is intended as a secondary school text-book and yet it fails even as an introduction to the subject -the text itself is a mere thirty-fourpages long and is superficial, anecdotal and banal. It has a vague and puzzling REVIEWS I33 introduction and no conclusion, which is not surprising, since no serious analysis is undertaken. Furthermore, the structure of the book is loose. It amounts to a series of repetitive synopses and brief summaries (is there any difference?), 'adorned' sporadically with critical comments, which, when interesting, remain undeveloped. It is difficultto see what the author's aims are or gauge her approach; it is not clear whether she is mainly concerned with the filmsor the literaryworks,or the 'art'of screen-adaptation. The 'study' begins by placing Czechoslovak cinema of the I96os in a historical context. A page and a half is devoted to this purpose. Koudelkova states that the 'Czechoslovak film miracle' belonged to a broader cultural scene including theatre and literature.She also comments on the films made during the I950s. The next chapter outlines a brief history of Czechoslovak cinema duringthe I96os, in which the 'CzechoslovakNew Wave'isdefined itsmembers;theroleplayedby FAMU,anditsinfluences(thereis,surprisingly, no mention of Italian Neorealism). Quite rightly she adds that during the I960s there were other generations of film directors making films in Czechoslovakia apart from the 'New Wave'. But having...

Václav Havel. A Political Tragedy in Six Acts by John s> Keane (review)

178 SEER, 79, I, 200 I Over theyearstheprocessofEuropeanintegrationhasbeen anunprecedented greatsuccess;politiciansshould now avoid snatchingfailurefromthejaws of victory.The author'salternativeis to embarkon buildinga liberalorderby overcoming the past which has oscillated between violent disorder and hegemonic order (a dig at the Franco-German alliance). Europe should be based on non-hegemonic order, a common law which secures human, civil and minority rightsand become a single actor on the world stage (pp. 328f). If GartonAsh's book is neither historyin any of its academic sensesnor wellresearchedsocialscience thatneed not deterthereader;itswealthof evocative particulars,resplendentliteracy,probing questions,prudentjudgements, not theleast itsenlightenedvisionsmakeit a compelling read. London LASZLO PETER Keane, John. Vaclav Havel.A PoliticalTragedy inSixActs.Bloomsbury,London, I999.vii + 532 pp. Notes. Plates.Index. [25.00. PROFESSOR KEANE describes his ruminative biography of Vaclav Havel from his birth to early I999 as 'a serious work of scholarship' (p. 508) and as 'factional'(p. 8). By 'faction'he means a workthatis 'selective',thoughpaying 'meticulous attention to all of the important details' and a work subject to 'value-laden "interpretations"'(p. 8). In its normal, now obsolescent, usage 'faction'means the record of a seriesof factualevents narratedin the manner of fiction, and normally containing extensive fictional elements. Keane certainly uses imagery that belongs more to fiction than to scholarship (the most ingenious example, 'likea bull at a gate baying forblood' (p. 44), but the readerassumesthat this is part of his political scientistgame likethe whole notion of scholarshipas faction. The readerwill have troubleascertainingthe rulesof the game. One clue no doubt lies in the keywordof Keane's subtitle, 'Tragedy'. Havel does have some of the conventional features of the tragic hero: he is admirable in his courage (an element down-played by Keane except in his account of Havel's behaviour in hospital), in the noblemindedness of his essays, especially those of the 1970S and I980s, in the consistence of his thinking from the late 1950S onwards. His life, however, does not inspireterror,is not cathartic,and it would seem hypocriticalto label his ambitious nature or his arrogance hubris. Havel certainlyvied with the gods embodied in the Communist regime but these gods did not crush him. Keane's imaginary picture of Havel's state funeral, introduced to persuade the reader that the subtitlehas meaning, manifestslittle more than bad taste, and certainlyalackof knowledgeaboutT. G. Masarayk'sstatefuneral;Keane claims that Havel's funeralwill be 'a global media event on a scale much bigger than the state funeral of Masaryk' (p. 504). It is difficultto imagine hundreds of Czech poets and poetasters marking Havel's death, as they did Masaryk's. Towardsthe end of his study,he playswith the notion of Havel as king (not an uncommon notion in the Czech press and a notion recentlyexploited to comic effect by the Slovak novelist, Peter Pist'anek).It is a pity that Keane does not know that Czechoslovakpresidentshave from the startbeen treated REVIEWS 179 more orlessasroyalty.He does note thatCzechs spokeof Havel's 'abdication', not resignation (p. 496), but appears unaware that this regal term was used also of Masarykand Edvard Benes. I have never seen the term used for the oustingof Antonin Novotny or GustavHusak. Though I learned many little details about Havel's life from Keane, I learnednothing aboutHavel, the man orthewriter.This bookwasnot written for historians or for students of Czech culture. Keane does call his work 'political' (p.12) and no doubt he thus informs us he is writing for political scientists. Throughout Keane conceives of all relationships, between individual human beings, between individuals and institutions, and between institutions as relationships of power. Disquisitions on the nature of power interlardthis biography. Unfortunately, for a student of culture ratherthan politics, these disquisitionsofferlittle new. Statementslike 'in the era of mass communications, one of the prizes and privilegesof power is the freedom to define reality for others' (p. 369) sound hackneyed; furthermore, 'mass communication'isvague and potentiallymisleading:thinkof the power of the nineteenth-century novelist to define reality. Though power is the theme of Keane's book, he also gives us disquisitionson democracy (forexample p.14), death (p. 494), friendship (p.I83), hubris (pp. 283-84), and nationalism (p. 450). On the last, Keane speaks only of ultra-nationalism, excludes national mythologies and...

When the Watchdog Sleeps: Investigative Journalism in the Chech Republic

The so-called 'Velvet Revolution' in Czechoslovakia laid to rest Communist Party control of the mass media and gave birth to expectations for a different relationship between the government and the press. Journalists envisioned that a democratic political system would permit, even require, an independent and objective press which would be free to decide what is newsworthy, to investigate it, and to interpret it. Performing a 'watchdog' role, the press would be able to influence the political process and the government. Political deregulation and changes in the economic system, media technologies, and society itself would further enliven press freedom. But what actually happened ? In this case study we examine journalistic practices in the Czech Republic eight years after the Velvet Revolution. Drawing on numerous interviews with reporters, editors, and analysts, we discuss the pressures on journalists working in Prague in 1997. While Czech journalists cited little overt outside control of content, they did perceive a climate of control brought about by the forces of private ownership and commercial journalism. We conclude that the changes in the Czech press between 1989 and 1997 were more of a restyling than a renewing - transfiguring the facade rather than transforming the substance. While Czech journalism did provide a forum for political debate in the 1990s, journalists perceived they had less influence on the government and society than they thought they would after the Velvet Revolution

Unbridled Freedom: The Czech Press and Politics, 1918–1938

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Additional informationNotes on contributorsOwen V. JohnsonOwen V. Johnson, a member of the faculty of the Indiana University School of Journalism, writes frequently about Eastern Europe. He thanks George Juergens, Jon Knudsen, Cathy Kreyche, Thomas C. Leonard, David Paul Nord, Jeremy Popkin and Stanley B. Winters, who read and commented on an earlier draft of this article.