Global ETD Search

1	Navrátilci z emigrace do Československa v letech 1968 - 1989 / Returnees from Emigration to Czechoslovakia 1968 - 1989 Hrenyová, Beáta January 2019 (has links) This thesis focuses on topic of emigration, more particularly re-emigration, in Czechoslovakia during times of so called "normalization". The main task is to analyze the deposition of returnees by officers of State Security, how they constructed their life stories, how they described their motivation to leave Czechoslovakia and to come back, the circumstances of their life in western countries and the circumstances of their return to Czechoslovakia. This thesis attempts to create a typology of returnees based on their own description of their lives in the depositions, especially in context of their motivation and their departure. Key words returnees, reemigration, Czechoslovakia, normalization, late socialism, State Security
2	Discourses of heroism in Brezhnev's USSR Dunlop, Lucy January 2017 (has links) This thesis examines propaganda and educational campaigns in the Brezhnev-era USSR, where the Party-state continued the longstanding Soviet attempt to form the country's youth into conscientious builders and defenders of communism. Focusing on the military, military-historical and physical-cultural activity that the state identified as areas of strategic importance in a period of intensifying competition with the capitalist world, the thesis analyses the interactions between propaganda and its producers, and the ordinary and extraordinary young people at whom it was aimed. It finds that state agencies and organisations of the Brezhnev era followed tradition in employing heroic motifs and discourses to elicit heroic behaviour amongst the population, often seeking to apply themes and material from earlier periods directly to the situation of late-1960s and 1970s youth. In particular, propaganda emphasised the importance of both models of wartime heroism, and the characteristics articulated in the 1961 Moral Code of the Builder of Communism - but in a political and social environment now much changed from those in which they had originally emerged. The thesis begins with a study of material surrounding the reinstatement of universal conscription after Khrushchev's army reforms, before examining youth involvement in one of the flagship military-patriotic education campaigns of the period. The second part of the thesis then shifts the focus to a more symbolic, yet no less significant site of the 'defence of the honour of the Motherland': the international sporting arena, particularly during the 1972 Olympiads in 'hostile' West Germany and Japan. Through a case study of coverage of the gymnast Olga Korbut, the thesis argues that, while propaganda-makers still sought to control the Soviet definition of 'heroism', conditions increasingly allowed for the emergence of celebrity and a popular heroism based more on self-advancement and public acclaim than on established Soviet ethical models.
3	A cultural history of Catholic nationalism in Slovakia, 1985-1993 Drelová, Agáta January 2015 (has links) This thesis is about the construction of a nationalised public Catholic culture in Slovakia from 1985 to 1993. At the core of this culture was the assumption that the Catholic Church had always been an integral part of the Slovak nation, her past, her present and her future. The thesis seeks to answer the question of who created this culture during the 1980s and 1990s and how and why they did so. To answer these questions this thesis adopts a cultural approach and explores how this culture was created utilising the concepts of collective memory, symbols and events as its main analytical tools. The data for this analysis include, but are not restricted to, materials produced in relation to various commemorative events and pilgrimages, especially those related to the leading national Catholic symbols: the National Patroness Our Lady of the Seven Sorrows and Saints Cyril and Methodius. The thesis argues that this culture was deliberately constructed from the point of view of many actors. Before 1989 these included the official Catholic hierarchy, underground Catholic Church communities, the pope and nationalist Communists. After 1989 these actors continued to construct this culture even as their positions of power changed. Most notably, underground Catholics became part of current ecclesiastical and political elite, and communist nationalists dissociated themselves from the Communist Party but retained their position within the cultural and political elite. The thesis consists of three chapters. The first chapter looks at how the nationalised public Catholic culture started in the mid-1980s with underground Catholic communities that focused on culture and grassroots mobilisation. The second chapter looks at how the nationalist Communists and the official church hierarchy became involved in construction of parts of this culture and how their involvement resonated with the underground Catholic communities. Chapter Three examines how this culture continued to develop in the early 1990s in a new political context, and how it contributed to a broader cultural legitimisation of Slovak independence. 943.73
4	Československá sídliště pozdního socialismu: ideologie, praxe a kritika / Czechoslovak Housing Estates in the Late Socialism: Ideology, Practice, and Criticism Sirisornpattapon, Ponpassorn January 2019 (has links) Czechoslovak housing estates built in the last two decades of state-socialism can be viewed as a socialist spatial entity with its own uniqueness and local characteristics specific to the circumstances of socialist Czechoslovakia during the "normalisation" era. These housing estates appeared from the beginning of the 1970s in big cities such as in Prague and Bratislava provided a new kind of living space for the residents. The ideas behind the creation of these estates were not only related to their physical appearance which shows the direct connection to modernist architecture, but also the aspiration of socialist ideologues to make a positive change in the name of socialist modernisation. Although the post-war socialist centralization of the Czechoslovak state and architectural practice endorses the notion of collective endeavour, the construction of housing estates for all as a part of the "building of socialism" program was attacked by contemporary critiques as providing the premises for the citizens' retreat into the private sphere. These estates could be argued to have caused a psychological impact and worked to shape a new lifestyle and mentality of the residents whose lives epitomized the main theme of normalisation-era: the quiet lives away from politics. Different poles of criticism to...
5	¡Hasta la utopía siempre! : conflicting utopian ideologies in Havana’s late socialist housing market / Conflicting utopian ideologies in Havana's late socialist housing market Genova, Jared Michael 26 April 2013 (has links) Through the broader contextualization of ethnographic fieldwork in Havana’s newly reformed housing market, this study theorizes the Cuban late socialist condition through a lens of utopian ideological conflict. A popular narrative of free market utopia has emerged in the face of the state’s recalcitrant ideology of state socialism. The popular narrative is reproduced through growth in the informal economy, while the socialist utopian narrative is maintained by the ubiquity of its bureaucratic apparatus. Inspired by postmodern theorist Jean Baudrillard’s Simulacra and Simulation (1994), this thesis theorizes the Cuban state narrative as an ideological simulation, supported only through its strongest simulacrum – the government bureaucracy. Previous work on Cuba has cited the importance of access to government-purchased goods to fuel the informal economy and individual wealth accumulation. This study highlights the reproduction of a narrative of free market utopia in the desire for access to transactions as intermediaries, particularly as the deals increase in hard currency value. The passage of Decreto-Ley Number 288, which authorized the buying and selling of homes has served to rapidly capitalize the market and encourage further development of an informal network of brokers. Greater economic hybridization in the housing sector, among others, is gradually eroding the totalizing nature of the state’s socialist utopia. / text Totality Economic anthropology Ethnography Socialism Late socialism Communism Underground capitalism Real estate Housing Property Property rights Value Special period Baudrillard Weinreb Sandercock Zizek Castro Bureaucracy Simulation Simulacra Cuba Havana Informal economy Utopia Ideology Desire Permuta

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