This diploma thesis with the issue of Czech Franciscan church persecutions during the Communist Era in the period of the 1950´s - 1960´s. The author describes historic development of the Franciscan church, political and legislative assumptions of persecution of the regular churches, situation of the Czech Franciscans from communist party taking power to their repressions, internations, particular trials with main representatives and following detentions. This study is based on the bibliographical research of the primary and secondary sources. The author considers the impact of these persecutions on following development of the Franciscan Church.

The thesis deals with two images of the key "Others" in the Czech Republic in the second decade of its existence: communists and Romanies. It shows the characteristics that have been attributed to them, points out the attributes that were constructed as a threat, and informs about power relations into which they have been placed against the rest of society. The aim of the thesis is to show on what values society is constructed in discourses which create various forms of exclusion of these "Others". The introductory chapter summarizes the Czech relationship to the "Others": Germans, Russians, and Slovaks in the form of interpretative looks into key authors (especially Palacký, Kundera, and Pithart) Next chapter focuses on methodology and introduces the starting points of the analysis in the critical discourse analysis (especially Van Dijk, Wodak and Jäger) and in the foucaultian discourse analysis (especially Hansen). These starting points are combined with the concept of moral panic which is introduced in the third chapter which also discusses its problematic places. Analytical chapters are devoted to the election of president Václav Klaus and they also discuss the role of communists (February - June 2003) and society's reactions to ethnically contextualized violence in Šluknov Hook. They...

This diploma thesis deals with the criticism of communism in the novels of three African-American writers: Richard Wright Native Son and The Outsider, Chester Himes Lonely Crusade and Ralph Ellison Invisible Man. The main characters of their novels, mainly African-Americans, were directly confronted with racial prejudices, injustice during the Great Depression. These unfavorable living situations brought them to the Marxist Ideology. The Communist Party in USA was attractive for African-Americans because their program included the fight for racial equality. After the initial excitement of Marxist Ideology came indignation and disappointment.

The thesis is devoted to the topic of ordinary life of women mountain climbers in the period of Czechoslovakian socialism (specifically between the years 1969 -1989). Through analysis and interpretationof oral historical interviews with women climbers who had participated in the national expeditions to foreign mountains, the author will reflect the following topics: how it could be possible to become a member of selective expedition team; how this "job" women climbers combined with a daily life, working duty, and its obligations in the family. The study will also focus on the issues of travelling, climbing topic as a prestigious international competition and presentation of this prestige by executive body; it will not stay aloof from the reflection of social or physical differences between Czechoslovakian climbers and other international teams and the intervention of the Communist Party in the composition of the expeditions. The work draw ordinariness of extraordinary fates of Czechoslovak women athletes - climbers nearer, and offers one of the possible approach to the relatively unexplored sector of Czechoslovakian sport.

The aim of this thesis is to introduce all changes, that occurred in the Presidential office since February 1948 until the death of Klement Gottwald. After the short introduction, which gives us insight into the so called the Foundation period of Communism and into the life of Klement Gottwald and his wife Marta, follows the opening chapter about the situation in the Presidential office after the February 1948. It introduces two great topics, which would be examined in the next chapters - staff question and organization of the office. The thesis is closed by the chapter about the role of the Prague castle and Gottwald himself in 1948-1953. Books about this era describe mostly the general characteristics of the period and of Klement Gottwald himself. They are not paying attention to the Presidential office. Only one of the persecuted employees wrote a biography - Miroslav Jirásek. I used mostly the books of Karel Kaplan. The memoirs of Ladislav Novák (chancellor of Antonín Zápotocký, Antonín Novotný and Ludvík Svoboda) were very useful for the description of the situation after the death of Klement Gottwald. Even though documents from a couple of archives were used, some questions were left without the answers. For example, the file of the action committee doesn't exist, so we couldn't describe its...

This thesis looks into the history of the town Hořovice in the years 1945-1989. The thesis attempts to cover the most important events that took place in the chosen time span in a rather small town located in Central Bohemia but also doesn't forget to mention the everyday life of the local citizens. The thesis selects not only the events crucial from today's perspective (see Expulsion of Germans, The August 1968, …) but also facts which could be for contemporary readers (for today's citizens of Hořovice in particular) very interesting and helpful. Even though some of the facts could be regarded as minor ones, they all equally contribute to the history of the town. The thesis places all the events to the historical context with the help of archive sources, secondary literature as well as printed material and memories from that time.

This master thesis maps out events and processes which are connected with the resurgence of the Woodcraft league of Czechoslovakia after the fall of communism in Czechoslovakia in 1989. It deals with woodcraft community and affiliated groups that intensified their activities during the last years of the period of normalization in Czechoslovakia. After the Velvet revolution, these groups and individuals represented basis for the resurgence of the Woodcraft league. Furthermore, this paper describes concrete steps connected with this resurgence, introduces prominent actors of this process and tries to explain their major steps. It does not omit controversial events, neither ideological cleavages linked to the resurgence of the organisation, which was gagged more than 40 years. Finally, this final thesis puts the focus on the evolution of the organisation during its first modern period when it has succeeded in establishing itself within the Czechoslovakian society marked by a newly gathered freedom, an uncritical euphoria and by the subsequent return to reality. The information for this study was collected using the method of oral history, more specifically through interviews with prominent actors of these events. Collected findings were subsequently compared with information from other written sources...

The aim of my diploma paper is to approximate the period of the divided world in the area of Novohradské hory in South Bohemian region in the twentieth century. The paper is based on many unpublished archive materials, scientific literature and mainly on many interviews with the personal observers living in this area. At first, I try to capture general events at the Bohemian {--} Austrian state boundary from the eldest time to the present. Next chapters deals with the problems of locating border patrols, the lives of members of the Frontier police and the attendance of local people at security of the state boundary. Based on the unpublished materials, the paper introduces destinies of the detained people and the dead who tried to cross the state boundary illegaly. I would also like to mention the main illegal groups of the III. anticommunist revolt, which were operating in the Budweis region, and also the agents of foreign intelligence services. Generally, I try to capture destinies of not only direct victims of the Iron Curtain {--} who were in fact vulnerable runners, but also destinies of soldiers executing compulsory millitary services, who were unfortunatelly forced to execute their national duty {--} to protect the state boundaries of totalitarian regime.

The content of the thesis is focused on the process of teaching about the socialist era in former Czechoslovakia, in the so called "Human and Society" sphere of education, which means in the subjects Education to Citizenhood and History at scondary school. The theme of this thesis is The Comparison of Educational Programs for Teaching about Communism at elementary schools in the subject called education to Citizenhood. The teoretical part of the thesis analyses the opinions of the Education Ministry of the Czech Republic to the efficient changes in teaching and high increase of using the oral history. The oral history is the main contents of the projects and programs that started mostly to introduce the socialist era to the wide public. The main aim of the thesis is to compare the educational programs, tha were put together for the public by non-profit organisations, many of these have an extensive presentation on web pages. The practical part of the thesis deals with their comparison with the help of the "comparative method", it is also focused on didactical analysis of publications published for this ocassion. The source materials for this comparison were the publications of the organisations Člověk v tísni, Opona, Post Bellum, or the internet projects Totalita.cz, Moderni-dejiny.cz etc. None of the printed publications succeeded in more than 50% in the final didactic analysis. Anyway the best results were achieved by the publications of the organisation Člověk v tísni from the project "The Stories of Injustice" and the book "The Alphabet of Communism" written by the journalist for MF DNES and published by the Host publishing house.

The dissertation deals with the historical activities of the Congregation of the Sisters of Mercy of St. Charles Borromeo in České Budějovice between the years 1850 - 1956. The thesis is especially based on the study of archival materials. Each chapter comprehensively describes the history of the three branches where the religious Sisters performed their activities. The branches are listed in chronological order of when they were established in the city. A public hospital is mentioned first, followed by an institutional complex of orphanages and schools at the former Vienna gate, and the group is concluded with an asylum for elderly people in need established in 1888. Particular attention is paid to the circumstances concerning the establishment of each branch, its background, ordinary and extraordinary days that were mostly mentioned in local chronicles; and two local superiors who had a major impact on the development and character of the community are also mentioned in the dissertation. Besides the observation of the beginnings and subsequent unprecedented development of community activities within the city frame, the text also includes an independent final chapter focused on events associated with the definitive end after the year 1948. Orientation in the topic and logical sequence of...