This thesis Ostalgie in Czech art summarizes recent history of art aimed to fifties and sixties of the twentieth century and also the fundamental notion of Czech cultural time - socialist realism. In opposition to the term 'socialist realism', there is a term 'ostalgie', which is focused on a nostalgic memories during normalization. In the theoretical part of this thesis author presents and explains the two main terms and focuses on the cultural aspects which were brought or denied to the nation by to the socialistic system in those times. In the practical part the author follows the theoretical part, especially in creating posters, which is influenced by nostalgic spirit.

295 pages / My dissertation addresses two major issues in Chinese contemporary film and TV studies: the first is the proliferations of new forms of subjectivities and the state’s attempt to regulate them via the construction of an ideal citizenship on the film and TV screen; the second is to develop an approach to understand the political economy of screen culture (yingshi wenhua), as well as freedom and control in post-1989 China. My project investigates key contemporary state-sponsored (zhuxuanlü) and state-criticized/banned screen products as a way to explore socialist values advanced by the Chinese Communist Party, as well as the ways in which and the extent to which individuals are able to challenge them. The ways in which my project contributes to the fields of film and TV studies in China are fourfold. First, close readings of selected films and TV dramas inform us of three emergent forms of subjectivity that were previously theorized as a synthesized sublime subject. Second, I conceptualize qualities of the on-screen socialist spirit that the state uses to counteract the three new forms of subjectivity and maintain its superiority. Third, by discussing the state’s intervention and control on production and consumption of screen products, I reveal the state’s vested interests and individuals’ execution of agency in popular culture. This emphasis on state-individual interactions challenges the current focus on TV and film as merely a profit-oriented industry; it also unravels conflicted ideologies in screen products and questions the understanding of popular culture as mainstream culture. Fourth, by achieving the above tasks, my research exposes that the state’s tolerance of its citizens’ partial freedom is for the purpose of political stability.

Maurice was a man who solicited both keen support and bitter opposition, both during his life time and after. It is only within the last twenty or thirty years that his true worth has begun to be recognised and appreciated. The aim of the thesis is to show that his contribution to the Christian Socialist Movement was an invaluable one. Chapter two describes the working-class conditions and their causes during the first half of the nineteenth century, as well as the role the Church played in social improvement. Chapter three deals with Chartism and the European Revolutions of 1848, and the effect of the Revolutions on Chartism. Chapter four gives an account of the man F.D. Maurice, as well as some of his thoughts and aims. Chapter five is a detailed account of Maurice's contribution to Christian Socialism, showing that he was not the 'practical' leader, and emphasising the importance of his theological beliefs in governing what to do. Intro. p. 1.

During the 1960's a distinct change of emphasis took place in the manner in which East German novels reflected the relationship between individual and collective. Using three of the best known works of the period (E.Strittmatter's Ole Bienkopp, H.Kant's Die Aula and Christa Wolf's Nachdenken über Christa T.), this study attempts to describe the change and to consider its implications for the theory of socialist realism. Because each of the novels represents an individual author's contribution to a body of literature which must serve a collective function, his position vis-a-vis society is revealed not only in the social content of his work but also by the form in which it is presented. The central concern of this discussion is the way in which both the content and the form of East German socialist realist literature increasingly, in the course of the 1960's, reflect the potential contradictions and creative tensions inherent in the relationship between individuality and collectivism. Having in the initial, formative stages emphasized the unity of individual and collective aspirations, socialist realist literature began in the 1960's to move away from the programmatic, normative view of social relationships which had first evolved under foreign (Soviet Russian) conditions and become entrenched during the ideological confrontations of the 1950's. The work of Erwin Strittmatter, whose earlier writing typifies the perspectives and style of the 1950's, serves to introduce these changes. His novel Ole Bienkopp is generally recognized to be the first major work to deal principally with relationships within the GDR, rather than the broader issues of internal or external threats to the social structure. The major innovation of Ole Bienkopp is that its narrative interest derives from so-called "non-antagonistic conflicts." This clearly requires much more realistic differentiation of the individual characters than the simplistic, black-white confrontations of earlier works. Strittmatter's characterization is examined both from the point of view of its realism and also to assess the social perspective which it reflects. In contrast to Strittmatter's relatively conservative style and aggressive argumentation, Hermann Kant's Die Aula consistently introduces to East German prose many of the techniques of modern bourgeois novels, corresponding to its more reflective, questioning approach to life. Like Strittmatter and the third author, Christa Wolf, Kant undertakes a retrospective reassessment of the formative years of the GDR, when individual and collective attitudes towards the new society were first established. Although he hints at the importance of this undertaking for finding a satisfactory role for the individual in contemporary society, one of the great flaws of the novel is that he fails to follow this point through. However, many of the literary techniques which made Die Aula so popular and the social attitudes it revealed reappeared to much greater effect in Christa Wolf's Nachdenken über Christa T. Because of its subtle use of style and language and very "open" form and highly reflective, introspective approach to life in the GDR, this novel represents in many ways the apotheosis of the changes in both the content and the form of socialist prose in East Germany during the 1960's. The history of the reception of the novel alone suggests that Wolf had reached hitherto undefined boundaries of socialist realism. Bearing in mind the innovations of perspective and form introduced by Ole Bienkopp and Die Aula, the final chapter examines Wolf's concern that each individual – whether author or ordinary citizen – find fulfilment in the collective. / Arts, Faculty of / Central Eastern Northern European Studies, Department of / Graduate

My project is an acknowledgement of the fact that the physical layout of our environments is not directly describing and shaping the way we live or our societies are shaped. Non-spatial structures are playing a bigger role in societal processes than spatial ones. My project is trying to give these invisible processes spatial expression. Non-functional structures that highlight the non-functionality of postsocialist space. The monotony and monumentality of socialist spaces is contrasted with a design that expresses the multiplicity (of possibilities, paths, choices, desires) that exists nowadays. Orthogonal space is sliced up, perforated and at points overlaid without replacing it in it’s totality. ‘Non-functional’ elements are formal expressions of the realm of virtual space which permeates our lives and cities as well. These elements function in a more ‘internet’ fashion (multi layered, multi directional, yet clustered, streamlined etc) and yet they perform in the real world. Yet in the same time they are expressing our high-tech society without being hightech. Simultaneously, the presence of these structures addresses the condition of impermanence and change that play a strong role in the psyche of East Germans today. The multiplicity which is expressed by the project contrasts the rigidity of socialist architecture and society - and creates a link to remembering the past.

In his short essay about Chopin (1945), Pasternak poses the question:What does realism in music mean?The answer to this question is far from obvious. And certainly the answer given byPasternak, in which he points to Chopin, together with Bach, as one of the great realistsin music; realist, that is, in the same meaning of the word as was Lev Tolstoj  - this answer can of course be disputed. But perhaps even more interesting than theanswer is the question, what it was in Chopin's music that for Pasternak made it into analmost paradigmatic example of realism, not only in music, but in art in general?To try to get an understanding of the possible motives behind such a view, we need totake a closer look at the biography of Boris Pasternak, the development of his views ofart and music in particular, his philosophical view of reality (the possible lastinginfluence from Hermann Cohen and the Marburg school), his idea of realism in generaland his relationship to the ruling idea of socialist realism. In particular, analyzingPasternak's view of realism, as it is expressed in Lejtenant Shmidt (1927), and theviews expounded in Shopen (1945) we will try to discern the development - if any -that has taken place in the 18 years that separate these two works. Other works byPasternak that are central to getting closer to understand his views on realism are Neskol'ko polozhenij (1922), Okhrannaja gramota (1931), which is a kind ofminiature autobiography, as is also Ljudi i polozhenija (1956), equally important.

One of the well-known Chinese revolutionary classics The White-Haired Girl (baimaonü, 白毛女) has gone through different adaptations as a propaganda of Chinese Communist Party from the 1940s to the 1960s. In recent years, the 2011 and 2015 operas are presented by the Ministry of Culture. The 2015 opera became especially widely known for Xi Jinping’s wife, Peng Liyuan’s involvement as an artistic director. What is the purpose of remaking this outdated propaganda in post-socialist China? How can these new adaptations work effectively as a means of propaganda? My study on the new adaptations of the White-Haired Girl (hereafter WHG) can serve as an example of the changes of the propaganda in the age of post-socialism. To do so, this study will use the 2011 opera and the TV reportage program which analyzes the 2011 and 2015 opera in the following ways: examine the 2011 opera as a representative work of the 21stcentury adaptations and focus on the TV reportage program Cultural Focus (Wenhuashidian, 文化视点) which demonstrates the intention of the production through interviewing the main artists and staffs of the 2011 and 2015 operas, and the Chinese public. By doing so, I argue that the emphasis of propaganda is switched from class struggle to social harmony in the 2011 and 2015 operas compared to the film (1950) and the ballet film (1971). This social harmony is achieved by promotion of familial and generational harmony. Also, the heroine, Xi’er is represented as a female individual who can contribute to the unification of the nation instead of being presented as a class subject. In this regard, the endeavor of seeking social harmony through new adaptations reflects anxieties over social disintegration in contemporary China.

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