This thesis deals with state Church policy from the end of the World War II, with emphasis on the gradual seizure of power by the communist party and the process of systematic oppression of Church which resulted in passing the so-called Church laws and creation of the State bureau of Church affairs in 1949. The goal of the thesis is to map the relationship between the state and Church, to relate the systemic and administrative changes in the political and religious context which resulted in the State bureau of Church affairs representing the peak of state Church oppression. Keywords Catholic Church; Czechoslovakia; Communism; state and church; systemic oppression

CONGREGATION OF SCHOLASTIC SISTERS OF III. REGULATED MONASTIC ORDER OF ST. FRANCIS This diploma thesis is focused on the development of the Congregation from its establishment to the present. I deal with the phenomenon of devoted life, spiritual motives and social cause through the history. I also give an attention to the nineteenth century, which was a great period of social changes and to the origin of woman's monastic orders and congregations as an answer to the actual requirements. The aim of the core section of the thesis is to describe the history of Congregation of St. Francis's school sisters from its beginnings in Graz to the separate branch in Bohemia. I primarily focus on the life of Czech province and its significant personalities, especially sister Eliska Pretschnerová and her beatification process. The final part of the work deals with sister's activities in the present time. I reflect the causes of the declining number of members as well as other options of existence of the Congregation. Keywords Devoted life, congregation, sisters, church, service, educate

This dissertation deals with the Czechoslovak and Polish community of "scientists of science" (mainly historians, philosophers, and methodologists of science) from 1962 to 1989. It focuses not only on the inner evolution of this community (scientists, their works, scientific institutions etc.), but it also examines how was this community formed by the tradition of scientific thought on the one hand, and by the contemporary political and ideological context (Soviet influences, Marxism-Leninism, monopoly of the communist party) on the other. It focuses also on the ability of the scientific community to accept or reflect influences from the Western Europe or United States - which means from the so-called "capitalist countries". Two spheres are analysed to clarify dispositions of Polish and Czechoslovak "scientists of science" to foreign transfers: first, scientists' possibilities to travel to Western countries (research stays, participations at congresses etc.), and second, accessibility to foreign (mainly Western) scientific literature. Functioning of Western concepts in the community of Polish and Czechoslovak "scientists of science" is illustrated by an example of the reception of Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions from 1962. This dissertation shows that the role of scientific...

In this thesis based on research of historical sources I try to reconstruct the Prague festival of majales in 50s and 60s of 20th century and understand if they were truly meant as an act of defiance against the communist "régime" as some historians say. My point of view is base around the theory of Michail Bachtin and carnival as form of culturally creative force which act as form of social order negotiation. Worlds of play and laughter exist as a parallel to the official mundane world with their own different rules and they can be used as a form of social negotiation even in totalitarian or strongly conservative "régimes". Majales is a form of carnival that grants the transition into the world of play. Students in Czechoslovakia could use this possibility to negotiate about many otherwise taboo topics. Even if the worlds of play and mundane seem to be separated they influence each other in many ways and even the rules of mundane world can be changed through play and carnival. Students are also protected by their liminal status between being a child and an adult. Which grants them more rights than children but less duties than adults.

The "internal enemy" was a formal term heavily represented in the language of the State Security (a secret service of the Czechoslovak Republic and Czechoslovak Socialist Republic), denoting a specified category of opponents to the then regime. The State Security's task was to protect the socialist and social system by fighting the external and internal enemies, with the security forces having been the authorities deciding who met the criteria. The thesis entitled "The Internal Enemy Image in the Discourse of Security Forces" aims to find out how the discourse of the State Security defined the term "internal enemy". The thesis is divided into the theoretical and empirical parts. The empirical part applies the qualitative analysis of the discourse to search for the characteristic of the term "internal enemy". All of the texts analysed in the thesis come from the Security Services Archive, administering relevant files of the era, and date back to the 1950s-1980s.

A thesis describes the life of the premonstratensians in Nová Říše and the life of its members from 1948 until 1968. Special attention is paid to events in 1950, when the brothers were arrested and taken away from the monastery in the framework of the liquidation of orders. Keywords norbertines, Nová Říše, communism, persecution, church, "Akce K"

Using the example of the inhabitants of Sudoměřice, a predominantly Catholic village in South Moravia, this thesis examines the relationship of the non-privileged strata members to the manifestations of political power in the period from the end of World War II until about 1990. The main sources are oral history interviews with 13 local citizens. The local chronicle is also an important source. It appears that the power (domination, using Weber's term), which is the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (CPC) for most of the period examined, takes on a number of different forms in memories, not only depending on the period, but also on the bearers of memories and other circumstances. For example, even some people whose families were persecuted during the Stalinist period have quite different recollections of the local CPC officials in the 1950s and their successors in the 1970s or 1980s. The topic is the question of faith, but also the standard of living. Emphasis is placed on the key moments of "great" history, such as 1945, 1948, 1968 and 1989. This thesis also aims to contribute to the discussion of how the communist regime could hold on for so long. Part of the answer is precisely that diverse perception of power, as well as the forces of social coherence at the village level affecting both local...

This thesis is a contribution to the study of the Czechoslovakian exile in France with a special focus on the years 1968-1989, or the so-called Normalization. The aim is to answer certain questions that can only be approached through oral history. Thus, on the basis of interviews with six different narrators, we will try to understand the reasons and conditions of their departure before focusing on the establishment of their new life without reference points in Paris, far from home but also in contact with other migrants. As exile has shaped our narrators, special attention will be paid to questions of identity and memory. Keywords: Exile, Czechoslovakia, France, Communism, Normalization, Oral History.

This diploma thesis deals with Jewish institutions in Lower Silesia during the period of 50's and 60's of the 20th century. The area of focus is the Socio-Cultural Association of Jews (Towarzystwo Spoleczno-Kulturalne Zydów), which was historically the only Jewish association in Poland that was allowed to exist. The main aim of this thesis is to track down and analyse relationship of the representatives of the group with the communist party and its ideology in detail, since the party was not particularly inclined towards Jewish culture due to Israel's affinity with the West. Furthermore, after the introduction and analysis of the main sources and literature, the thesis briefly introduces a topic related to the restoration of life within the Jewish community after the World War II. After that, it concentrates on the formation and development of institutions and it follows the way members were educated in the spirit of socialism as well as how the Jewish culture was formed. The fundamental sources necessary for the study of this problematic are primarily files that came into existence as a result of certain activities of institutions, such as meetings of their bodies, documents informing about social life (invitations to events), repatriation records of the USSR saved in Archive of The Jewish...

In my thesis I analyse how the United States was depicted in Rudé právo during selected stretches of the Vietnam War. I focus on 1966 (the US already at war), 1968 (the Tet offensive) and 1969 (Nixon as president, the death of Ho Chi Minh) and I explore what image a Czechoslovak reader might have made of the US based on those periods. Next, I observe the differences between the objective portrayal of these historical events and their media coverage in Rudé právo. In my work I assume that Rudé právo did not inform about the Vietnam War objectively, but was instead subject to Communist propaganda. At the same time, I am also interested in the means by which Rudé právo obtained a subjective description of these events.