1.1 ABSTRACT This dissertation focuses on the role that the mass produced image (e.g. lithographs, photographs, and cinema) played in the creation and solidification of Slovak national and ethnic identity not only among Slovaks living in Slovakia, but also Slovaks living abroad in America from the 19th to the mid-20th centuries. Given the problems inherent in using the written Slovak language to form a sense of national and ethnic unity, Slovak culture drew widely on visual sources that could be rapidly reproduced, easily transmitted in Slovakia and abroad, and were affordable to a wide variety of social and economic classes. This dissertation also focuses on some of the problems of this approach which will require further study and examination. Keywords: Slovakia, Slovak nationalism, ethnic identity, photography, lithography, cinema, ethnography, mass media,

The thesis entitled Conspiracy Theories during the First Czechoslovak Republic (1918- 1938) deals with conspiracy theories, both in general and also specifically about those that were spread in the period from 1918 to 1938, known as the First Czechoslovak Republic. The author first characterizes conspiracy theories, divides them, introduces the readers to their main characteristics and describes why this theories are trusted by a large number of people. In the second part of this thesis the author deals specifically with periodicals from the First Czechoslovak Republic. These newspaper (Lidové noviny, Národní listy a České slovo) are examined by historical-comparative analysis and it is shown how on three specific cases (the mysterious death of Milan Rastislav Štefánik, the Gajda's affair and the alleged infection of Jiří Stříbrný with syphilis) conspiracy theories were spread during the First Czechoslovak Republic, what was the outcome, what was the motivation of those who spread them and how the state either opposed those theories or used them. In addition, for better understanding, this whole part is set in the historical context of the events. In the final part, the author examines whether the mentioned affairs and cases hold the characters of conspiracy theories or not.

The thesis deal with transformations of st. Wenceslas symbol and his cult in the Czech press around breaking points of Czech 20th century history. It asks about impact of contemporary policy and incidents on presentation of st. Wenceslas symbol, then about parts of st. Wenceslas cult and finally about connection of this symbol with other national symbols. The thesis is based on the assumtion that national identity is constructed through collective memory of members of the nation, appropriate symbology and history interpretation. Research uses qualitative metods (discourse analysis). Sample is made of Czech (mostly) statewide press articles that are related to st. Wenceslas and his cult, from the period around the st. Wenceslas day (28th September), in several years intervals around appointed breaking points (1918, 1938, 1939, 1945, 1948, 1968 and 1989). It has been found that 1. st. Wenceslas symbol represents unchanging connection of the church and the nation in the case of Catholic perspective, 2. in danger it mobilizes and symbolizes the statehood and the strength of the nation in case of the nationalistic use and 3. it can support legitimity of new established regime. The national symbology is connected with some conservative and nationalistic approach, st. Wenceslas symbol also with religion,...

This dissertation deals with institutional aspects of the democratic deficit of the European Union, particularly the powers of national parliaments and their capabilities to influence decision-making at the European level. The national parliaments' role in European integration became an interesting research area thanks to their greater involvement in the EU affairs in the last twenty years. However, because of the many developments of the European integration in the last twenty years (including both deepening and broadening of integration), many questions remain open. These include involvement of national parliaments both on European level and on national level; for obvious reasons, the latter has been studied less regarding the parliaments of the Member States that joined the Union in 2004 and 2007. While this dissertation deals with some aspects of the work of national parliaments of all Member States, more detailed studies are devoted to the cases of the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia. This dissertation poses questions in the three main areas of research that are all devoted to some practical aspects of national parliaments' involvement in European affairs. First, it examines the involvement of national parliaments at the European level and whether national parliaments do have the...

The diploma thesis analyzes the way of promoting the national interest of the Czech Republic in Georgia and describes possible changes as a result of the Czech EU Presidency. The national interest is examined based on the assumption that the state foreign policy is the expression of the national interest. Therefore, the primary sources for this analysis are official foreign policy documents of the Czech Republic. The aim is to confirm or disprove the hypothesis that Czech foreign-policy towards Georgia in the period from 2007 to 2011 was driven by the aim to maximize own profit through EU structures. Given the size of the Czech Republic and its geopolitical importace, the analysis is based on the theory of neo-liberal institutionalism, and in accordance with this theory the national interest operationalized into four criteria, namely: 1) Compliance of EU and Czech interests, 2) Profiting from the EU presidency to promote the Czech interests, 3) Long-term consistency of interests, and 4) Economic interests as the main priority. The set of criteria helped to identify whether the Czech Republic behaved in accordance with the theory of neo-liberal institutionalism, and whether the Czech interests were promoted either through multilateral or bilateral relations. The analysis shows that in the studied...

Diploma thesis Transformation of the National Front under the leadership of M. Le Pen discusses the influence of the new chairwoman on political party. Thesis deals with the far-right National Front in context of both political and partial systems of the Fifth republic in the background of historical development of far-right parties. Work aims to uphold the hypothesis that in the life of political parties play an important role its leader, who influences the transformation of the political party and to map the current activities of M. Le Pen, who replaced her father, J.-M. Le Pen, after nearly four decades at the leader post. Replacing the leader represented a significant step in history of party as it was for a long time strongly personified with the person of J.-M. Le Pen, who managed to lead the party, despite its internal diversity. New chairwoman, who, unlike her father has no emphasis on the memories of the past, which was the World War II, the Vichy Regime and French Algeria, tries to modernize the party for a new generation of voters. With the entry of M. Le Pen at the head of the National Front there were tendencies to interpret the change of leader as a beginning of the new era of the new type of political party what was supported by the rhetoric of the new President. The work is...

The aim of this thesis is to present persistent identification systems and analysis of the use of persistent identifiers for digital objects on a sample of national digital libraries. The first part is a brief introduction to digital libraries. The second part describes selected permanent identification systems. The third part explains elements of selected national digital libraries. The last section is an analysis of the use of persistent identifiers in various national digital libraries. Keywords: persistent identifier, persistent identification system, URI, URN, PURL, Handle, DOI, ARK, digital library, national library, digital object

The thesis introduces the comparison of political approaches of Karel Kramář and Roman Dmowski towards Russia or rather towards the Russian factor. At the beginning of the 20th century these two politicians from the national-democratic circles decided independently of each other to look for a help in order to achieve independence of their nations within Russia. They were not lead only by objective reasons because Russia seemed to be the most acceptable and the most appropriate variant but also by subjective feelings, like for example their antagonism towards Germans and Germany itself or in case of Karel Kramář his affection for anything Russian. The Russian factor did not disappear from their conceptions even after the creation of an independent Czechoslovakia and Poland and it continued to be a permanent part of these conceptions. Kramář was faithful to his idea of future democratic Russia and the Slavic federation headed by this new Russia and even the Bolshevik Revolution could change his mind. Kramář assumed that Czechoslovakia could only be permanently safe by the union with democratic Russia. Although Kramář laid more emphasis on the Russian factor than Dmowski, Russia did not lose its importance for Dmowski. However, the importance gradually declined after the creation of independent...

Daniel Dolejší The causes of continuing existence of the French Foreign Legion 2015 Abstract The core theme of this diploma thesis is the French Foreign Legion that is examined from the point of view of national interests and strategic culture of France. It is very unusual in developed countries to have foreigners as a part of national army. Goal of the thesis is to discover and describe the causes of continuing existence of the French Foreign Legion. First of all, the author defines national interests and strategic culture of France for certain periods, and then he assesses the contribution of the Legion to fulfillment of goals connected to the national interests and the strategic culture. To the main conclusions of this work belongs that the first hypothesis was confirmed, the French Foreign Legion helped to reach goals based on national interests in certain periods. On the other hand, the second hypothesis was not completely confirmed. The author expected that the strategic culture always stabilizes and supports the role of the Legion, but he found out the opposite for the interwar period. The author supposes higher importance of the Legion in the area of peacekeeping operations under a mandate of the UN or NATO because the EU currently lacks troops prepared to be deployed abroad.

The aim of this work is the interpretation of the available biographical data of all deputies and senators of the Czechoslovak National Assembly, who worked in a joint parliamentary club of the Sudeten German Party (SGP) and the Karpaten German Party (KGP) in the period from the entry of the czechoslovak parliament in 1935 to the Anschluss of Austria in the spring of 1938. The Sudeten German Party became after the elections in 1935 the strongest party in the interwar Czechoslovakia by number of votes and played a significant role in the pre- Munich era. The stated objective of the unification of the entire German population in Czechoslovakia was largely fulfilled, thus the party became very heterogeneous. Using the methods of collective biography the work is aimed at providing all available sources to obtain data on the social and political background as well as on the various political and professional careers of the particular party officials who represented the SGP resp. the KDP in the Czechoslovak parliament and on the basis of these data should the results be put into the historical and social context and their common and different features be interpreted. The work assumes that with the help of this method there can be obtained new perspectives on the development within the SGP, which would be...