BOHEMIAN VOICE: CONTENTION, BROTHERHOOD AND JOURNALISM AMONG CZECH PEOPLE IN AMERICA, 1860-1910

This dissertation examines elite and popular consciousness among Czech speakers in America during their mass migration from Bohemia and Moravia, the two Habsburg crownlands that became the largest part of the Czechoslovak Republic in 1918. Between 1860 and 1910, their numbers increased tenfold to almost a quarter-million, as recorded in the United States census, and to over a half-million with their children. That was almost one-twelfth of their population in Bohemia and Moravia. In the same half-century, a stable group of men made Czech-language journalism and publishing in America. They included Karel Jon�? in Wisconsin, V�clav ?najdr in Cleveland, Franti?ek Boleslav Zdr?bek and August Geringer in Chicago, and Jan Rosick� in Omaha. Students of the first Czech-language secondary schools in Bohemia, they came to the 1860s American Midwest in their twenties and modernized a print culture launched by bricklayers and tailors. They also became leading voices in what the subtitle calls contention and brotherhood among their countrymen. Contention formed the three large camps, subcultures and allegiances?liberal/Freethinker, Catholic and Socialist. Brotherhood denotes the forms of association and security that made the fraternal benefit societies the largest and most durable platforms for Bohemian identity and advocacy in America. The dissertation uses Czech-American newspapers from the period, historiography and new archival sources from both sides of the Atlantic to more closely examine definitive episodes, personalities and institutions among Bohemians while they formed important urban and rural communities in American society from New York to the Great Plains

Modernity, History, and Politics in Czech Art

This book traces the influence of the changing political environment on Czech art, criticism, history, and theory between 1895 and 1939, looking beyond the avant-garde to the peripheries of modern art. The period is marked by radical political changes, the formation of national and regional identities, and the rise of modernism in Central Europe – specifically, the collapse of Austria-Hungary and the creation of the new democratic state of Czechoslovakia. Marta Filipová studies the way in which narratives of modern art were formed in a constant negotiation and dialogue between an effort to be international and a desire to remain authentically local

Modernity, History, and Politics in Czech Art

This book traces the influence of the changing political environment on Czech art, criticism, history, and theory between 1895 and 1939, looking beyond the avant-garde to the peripheries of modern art. The period is marked by radical political changes, the formation of national and regional identities, and the rise of modernism in Central Europe – specifically, the collapse of Austria-Hungary and the creation of the new democratic state of Czechoslovakia. Marta Filipová studies the way in which narratives of modern art were formed in a constant negotiation and dialogue between an effort to be international and a desire to remain authentically local

The Rise and Fall of the Green International: Stamboliiski and his Legacy in East European Agrarianism, 1919-1939

At the height of his power in 1923, the head of the Bulgarian Agrarian National Union (BANU), Alexander Stamboliiski, summed up the significance of his politics for European history in the following way: "Today there are only two interesting social experiments: the experiment of Lenin and my own." Taking the aspirations reflected in the quotation above seriously and rescuing the agrarian project from the enormous condescension of posterity is the foundation of this dissertation. Briefly, it is about unpacking and restoring the significance of the Golden Age of the European Peasantry between the two world wars by focusing on the paradigmatic cases of Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia. The dissertation proposes a novel synoptic approach with regards to interwar agrarianism as a counterpoint to ideology driven classifications or structuralist synthesis. Its thematic chapters alternate between strategic probes of evocative micro histories and broader theoretically informed overviews in order to illustrate and clarify the analytical frame. The most radical expression of interwar agrarianism, that of Bulgaria, and the man responsible for it, Alexander Stamboliiski, serve as the center of this dissertation. The juxtaposition of this center to the development of agrarianism in Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, as well as to various oppositional formations such as the Communist International Peasant Union allows this dissertation to overcome the national parochialism that has contributed to the sidelining of the study of agrarianism. The innovative structure of the dissertation is above all a demonstration of the rich possibilities still open to researchers in this field to reinsert the study of agrarianism into contemporary theoretical debates and developments in the historiography. The dissertation explicitly engages agrarianism with the theoretical literature on nationalism, corruption, the subaltern, as well as makes possible the connection to the problematics of modernity, politics as systemic change, transnational and global history

Legal Anarchism: Does Existence Need to Be Regulated by the State

This thesis asks does existence need to be regulated by the State? The answer relies on legal anarchism, an interdisciplinary, particularly criminal law and philosophy, and unconventional research project based on multiple methodologies with a specific language. It critically analyzes and consequently rejects State law because of its unjustified and unnecessary nature founded on unlimited violence and white-collar crime (Chapters 1-4), on the one hand, and suggests some alternatives to the Governmental legal system founded on agreement and peace (Chapter 5), on the other hand. It furthermore takes into account the elements of time and space, which means the ecological, local, national, regional, and international aspects of the legal system, in its analysis, critiques, and models

Proces demokratyzacji i jego determinanty : analiza na przykładzie Republiki Czeskiej i Węgierskiej (1990-2016)

Today democracy means that almost all adult citizens participate in the exercising of power. In substantive terms, democracy relies on freedom, equality, and majority rule. At the same time, it is also a regime that rests on specific principles and procedures (the procedural perspective). The process of consolidating democratic values and procedures goes through various stages. First, the erosion of a non-democratic regime involves the transfer of power from former elites to new political actors. Next, during the transition stage, the democratic institutional design is introduced into the political system. Finally, during the consolidation stage, the democratic principles of political life become well-established and democratic values accepted and internalised by the society. The most important determinants of the stage of erosion include: the heritage of the past and the influence of the surroundings. The transition is determined by: the structure of the state, national identity, political elites’ work on the constitution, the relationship between the organs of government, the party system, the electoral system, lustration, decentralisation of power to a system of local authorities, and external factors. The consolidation stage depends on institutional factors on the one hand. such as the final design of the constitution, a stable model of relations between the organs of government, the development of a pluralistic party system, and solidification of the electoral system, and on behavioural factors on the other, such as acceptance and internalisation of democratic values by the society. The process of democratisation can be analysed and evaluated with the use of quantitative and qualitative indicators. This study employs indices used by Freedom House, The Economist Intelligence Unit, and The Bertelsmann Foundation. [fragm. tekstu

Dobrodružství historické interpretace

Title in English: The Adventure of Historical Interpretation This collection of nineteen essays written by prominent historians demonstrates the diversity of academic approaches. Their work with historical sources, the foundation stone of research, is combined with ethical and aesthetic decision-making, which forms an indisputable part of their work. This is often surprising - both for the readers and themselves. It represents a great intellectual adventure. They cannot invent sources or set arbitrary rules, plots, and twists and turns, as a novelist might. However, they can write a scientific work which is the result of a creative approach