The diploma thesis deals with descendant issue of Czechoslovakian immigrants, whose ancestors massively began to migrate to Argentina during the interwar period. It is estimated that more than 30 000 people with Czechoslovak roots came into this Latin American country by the mid-40s of last century, what makes, after the United States and Canada, the largest destination of Czechoslovak emigration overseas so far. The main attention in this diploma thesis is dedicated to compatriot and compatriotic associations in Buenos Aires and Presidencia Roque Sáenz Peña, which represent two most important centres of compatriotic presence in Argentina. The thesis maps the transformation of particular compatriotic associations in explored localities, their current situation and perception of Czech origin by present compatriots according to particular generations.

František Čech-Vyšata (1881-1942) was a Czech traveller and publicist. During his journeys to South America, he realized between years 1914-1917 and 1927-1937 two long-term stays in Brazil. He described his first stay in this country in travelogue V žáru pamp (1927) and another travelogue Středem Jižní Ameriky (1936) he dedicated to his second stay. Particularly in his second travellogue he also gives evidence about Czech compatriot communities in Brazil in between two World wars. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

This diploma thesis deals with the Czech community in France in both the past and present. In general, it focuses on the community organizing of Czech compatriots. The aim of the thesis is to gain a fundamental overview of this topic, to find interesting relations, and to point out the importance of compatriot associations for Czechs living in France. The thesis is based on the search in literary and internet sources, the knowledge gained via questionnaires, other conversation and the author's personal experiences during her stay in Nantes. The first part of the thesis provides basic information about the history of Czech emigration to France, the development of compatriot associations, and the start of Czech schools and Czech high-school sections in France. The second part of the thesis introduces the overview of current associations and other institutions related to Czechs and Czech culture in France. It deals, in more detail, with the activity of chosen Franco-Czech associations working in various French regions. These organizations are available for Czech compatriots to join actively. The representatives of these associations, by filling out a questionnaire, provide compelling information and observations about the most frequented organization events, the level of compatriots' interest in the...

This diploma thesis deals with the analysis of the unpublished travel book from Mexico of the Czech traveler, journalist, orientalist and polyglot Alois Richard Nykl. The criticism of the source is designed to reveal the personality of Alois Richard Nykl as much as possible, who is a little-known scientist in the current Czech environment. The author focuses on his judgments about the Mexican Indian population in the post-revolution era of the 1920s. Based on Nykl's statements, the thesis seeks to provide a comprehensive view of the changing social position of the Indians in the context of the new political concept of the Mexican state. The work, among other things, points to Nykl's interest in anthropology and archeology in an already broad range of his interests and knowledge. The thesis highlights Nykl's devotion to studying multidisciplinary information about Mexico, even though he was a specialist in Andalusian and comparative literature.

The dissertation "Vojvodovo Sketches" thesis consists of an introduction and further of published texts related to Vojvodovo. Vojvodovo, a Czech village in north-western Bulgaria founded in 1900 by about twenty Czech evangelical families from the village of Svatá Helena in what is today the Romanian part of Banat, which they left because of religious disputes and a shortage of land. Although Bulgaria engaged in several armed conflicts in the first decades of the twentieth century, the village flourished economically and the population rose steadily during that period. Eventually, however, its economic prosperity, based almost exclusively on agriculture, was curtailed by a land shortage. As a result, some villagers emigrated to Argentina in 1928. By 1934/5 the village was again overcrowded and suffering serious land shortage. This time some of its inhabitants moved to the Turkish village of Belinci in north-eastern Bulgaria (Isperich region). The history of Czech settlement in Vojvodovo, as well as Belinci, effectively ends in 1949-1950, when the overwhelming majority of their Czech inhabitants left as a part of post-war migratory processes organized under inter-state agreements and resettled in several villages in the South Moravia region of the Czechoslovak Republic. Vojvodovans were renowned for their...

The dissertation "Vojvodovo Sketches" thesis consists of an introduction and further of published texts related to Vojvodovo. Vojvodovo, a Czech village in north-western Bulgaria founded in 1900 by about twenty Czech evangelical families from the village of Svatá Helena in what is today the Romanian part of Banat, which they left because of religious disputes and a shortage of land. Although Bulgaria engaged in several armed conflicts in the first decades of the twentieth century, the village flourished economically and the population rose steadily during that period. Eventually, however, its economic prosperity, based almost exclusively on agriculture, was curtailed by a land shortage. As a result, some villagers emigrated to Argentina in 1928. By 1934/5 the village was again overcrowded and suffering serious land shortage. This time some of its inhabitants moved to the Turkish village of Belinci in north-eastern Bulgaria (Isperich region). The history of Czech settlement in Vojvodovo, as well as Belinci, effectively ends in 1949-1950, when the overwhelming majority of their Czech inhabitants left as a part of post-war migratory processes organized under inter-state agreements and resettled in several villages in the South Moravia region of the Czechoslovak Republic. Vojvodovans were renowned for their...

This thesis examines the discursive construction of Russian national identity through the 2008 war in Georgia with a focus on how this process was influenced by the Russian leadership’s desire to gain the support of both the domestic and international audiences for its actions outside its borders. These actions involved forceful military intervention, the recognition of the independence of the two Georgian break-away republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia and the decision to place Russian military troops in the two republics during the aftermath of war. The study critically examines the official Russian discourse, with a focus on particular visions of national identity that this discourse utilized. The study demonstrates how the official discourse in the context of the 2008 war contributed to the construction of Russian national identity and thereby seeks to highlight the performative power of language. By placing considerable focus on the internal dimension of the Russian leadership’s conduct in the international arena, i.e. the consolidation of the national community in the event of war, the thesis contributes to an oft overlooked element of Russian foreign policy initiatives. Consequently, it seeks to challenge the tendency to explain Russian actions with regard to the war as a natural result of a neo-imperialistic identity – a tendency that fails to take into account how national identity can be constructed in its more immediate context. By making use of Rogers Brubaker's concept of nationalism as an event, the study discusses the increased force of nationalism during war and demonstrates how this was clearly the case during the 2008 war in Georgia. The analysis concentrates on three main identity visions within the official Russian discourse. Firstly, it examines how contemporary Russia was constructed as a great power, partly as a response to the claims that it was an imperialist state. Secondly, it discusses the role of certain historical concepts, i.e. the Cold War and the Soviet Union, within the discourse and elaborates upon the act of politicising history. Thirdly, the study analyses the Russian leadership’s protection narrative that emphasised the responsibility to protect Russian citizens and compatriots in South Ossetia and Abkhazia. It is demonstrated how these different identity visions were intertwined, resulting in a rather contradictory official discourse that speaks to many different audiences simultaneously, while foregrounding the first of the above-mentioned identity visions, namely of Russia as a great power.

The work builds on the scientific production on the theme of the resettled Czechs from areas of the former Soviet Union, which is continued treated on the soil of the Institute of Ethnology of the CAS, v.v.i., and introduces the latest conducted grant project, in which I focused on the area of health and folk medicine. The text deals with a specific group of the Czech populations predominantly from Ukraine and Kazakhstan (partially also Belarus and Russia), whose ancestors set out in the second half of the 19th century to seek a better living in the direction to the east from the borders of then Austro-Hungary. Through the use of commemorative narrations and life trajectories of the participating actors, the work maps the background of the arrival in new destinations, life in the 20th century, the change of the political and social conditions and the subsequent remigration to the Czech Republic. With a few exceptions, all of the actors figuring in this work became part of the resettlement processes - in the case of the Volyn Czechs after World War II in 1947 within the controlled exchange of the populations and in the case of the Chernobyl Czechs (and partially also some of the Czechs from Belarus and Russia) in the 1990s within the state-controlled resettlement after the accident at the Chernobyl...

This thesis is about a remarkable experience lived through by Latvian émigrés in the mid-1950s. They were the targets of a Soviet repatriation campaign, operated by the KGB, which not only envisioned their repatriation to the Soviet Latvian homeland, but also anticipated the destruction of their émigré society as they knew it. The purpose of this thesis is to portray and analyze this repatriation campaign and the émigré Latvian reactions to it. By looking at the activities of the Committee For Return to the Motherland in East Berlin, the contents of the Latvian language repatriation newspaper Par atgriešanos Dzimtenē (For Return to the Motherland), and the reactions to the campaign in contemporary émigré press, this study shows how highly developed strategies and tactics were implemented in order to elicit certain behaviors from émigrés, and how émigrés advanced their own counter-strategies to offset the effects of the campaign. More specifically, this study examines the standardized narratives in Par atgriešanos Dzimtenē that were meant for émigré self-identification and emulation. This thesis proposes that the repatriation campaign was a highly complex Soviet propaganda effort. The publicly announced goal of repatriation included several parallel goals, aims, and purposes and encompassed many types of activities. Above all, deception was used to cover the actions undertaken against émigrés and to mislead host country governments and agencies. This thesis concludes that notwithstanding the Soviet superiority in organization and resources, a small, unprotected, and internally divided community could withstand the concerted efforts of Soviet propaganda if the group’s sense of mission was sufficiently strong and firm. / Denna avhandling behandlar de lettiska flyktingarna från andra världskriget och deras erfarenheter av ofrivilliga kontakter med Sovjetlettland vid mitten av 1950-talet, då flyktingarna blev måltavla för en sovjetisk repatrieringskampanj. Målet för denna kampanj var repatriering, dvs att få flyktingarna att återvända till hemlandet, det av Sovjet ockuperade Lettland. Ett annat mål var att splittra flyktingarnas sammanhållning. Avhandlingen beskriver och analyserar den sovjetiska repatrieringskampanjen och de lettiska flyktingarnas reaktioner. Studien bygger på källmaterial från kampanjverkamheten Committee For Return to the Motherland, som hade sin bas i Östberlin, samt från artiklar i den lettiskspråkiga tidskriften Par atgriešanos Dzimtenē (For Return to the Motherland) som riktade sig till de lettiska flyktingarna. Flyktingarnas reaktioner studeras genom en rad lettiska tidningar som utgavs i Väst. Min avhandling visar hur väl utvecklade strategier användes i syfte att framkalla önskade reaktioner från flyktingarna, samt vilka motåtgärder flyktingar själva utvecklade mot repatrieringskampanjen. Mer specifikt analyseras standardberättelser i Par atgriešanos Dzimtenē som var avsedda för flyktingarnas självidentifiering och igenkännande. Avhandlingen pekar på att den sovjetiska repatrieringskampanjen var en mycket komplex propagandaverksamhet. Utöver det offentligt tillkännagivna kampanjmålet fanns flera parallella målsättningar och avsikter som omfattade en stor mängd skiftande aktiviteter. En strategi som användes aktivt var vilseledning, bl a för att dölja verksamheter riktade mot flyktingarna, och för att förvilla statsledningar och myndigheter i de nationer där flyktingarna vistades. Avhandlingens slutsats är att trots den sovjetiska överlägsenheten i organisation och resurser kunde en liten oförsvarad och inom sig splittrad lettisk gemenskap motstå de samordnade ansträngningar från den sovjetiska propagandan.

This thesis deals with the development and activities of compatriot organizations of Czechs and Slovaks in the 20th century that were associated in the Union of clubs of Czechs and Slovaks in Switzerland. The first clubs, which did not last long, were established in the 1860s. The origins of more stable organizations date back to the beginning of the twentieth century, when clubs such as Czechoslovak Beseda Slovan in Geneva and Czechoslovak Beseda Svatopluk Čech in Zurich were established. These organizations expanded after the big emigrant wave caused by the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia. This period between the years 1968 and 1990 is the main objective of the following research. The thesis is divided into four chapters. The first one introduces some basic notions needed for the thesis and puts the existence of compatriot clubs in Switzerland in a broader context. At the same time, it deals with the most important emigrant waves from Czechoslovakia with emphasis on those emigrants that left for Switzerland. The second chapter deals with the very development of compatriot movement in Switzerland before the critical year 1968. Furthermore, this chapter is divided into various sections on the basis of selecting important turning points in the development of compatriot organizations, such as...