Strategic narrative is a communicative tool for political elites to construct a shared meaning to the international politics, to articulate state's interests, to change the discursive environment, and to shape the behaviour of other actors. It has three different dynamics, which proceed simultaneously and reinforce each other: formation of the narrative within the given state, its projection in the international arena, and its reception in other states. Theory of strategic narratives fits well into the framework of new regionalism, which tries to analyse relations between the processes of globalization, globalism, regionalization, and regionalism. Until recently, such analyses were conducted from state-level and positivist perspective. As a result, the dimension of reception remained understudied. The presented thesis is an attempt to fill this gap. It analyses global political economy from the interpretivist constructivist perspective: it uses the leading local newspaper as a data sources and analyses media (news) discourse as one form of a broad societal discourse. Such an analysis can help us to analyse how local society assesses and reacts to strategic narratives and their internalization or rejection by local elites. In my thesis, I focus on narratives of the three superpowers (the US, the EU,...

The world of Cosmas. The image of political nation in the oldest Czech chronicle This work focuses on the image of the political nation in the oldest Czech chronicle - Chronica Boemorum (The Chronicle of Czechs) by Cosmas, "the first Czech historian" [Robert Bartlett, University of St Andrews: "Bohemia made a spectacular debut in this respect with Cosmas of Prague, whose vivid prose style, gifts of powerful characterization and ability to convey action, and the occasional personal touches he allows (such as the yearning picture of his long-gone student days) make him not only a vital historical source for the Premyslid lands but also one of the great writers of the Middle Ages. He initiated a tradition which continued, with peaks and plateaux, throughout the Premyslid period, and this was important, for a native historical tradition was one of the marks of a Latin Christian society."] Cosmas' Chronicle (The Chronicle of Czechs) is part of the context of "national history". Cosmas wrote a scholarly, entertaining, but also politically committed work, presenting a "national program" of sorts. This was no Czech specialty - when we think of Europe in the 11th and 12th century, we see a garden of sprouting new nations, the medieval "spring of nations". The first national states, with clear territorial...

Politics of History in Poland have become the central theme of the Government of Law and Justice in the 2005 - 2007 period. The thesis deals with the definition of the term Politics of History and the term as understood by Law and Justice. The new direction of Politics of History prompted a lively debate in Poland between both Polish historians and the general public. The paper describes how the government conducted this policy and the tools utilized. One of their main motives was the delimitation of political developments in the country after 1989 and the lack of dealing with the communist past. For this reason, one of the subchapters of the work is devoted to significant historical discussions between 1989 and 2005. The central figures of the new direction of historical politics in Poland were brothers Jarosław and Lech Kaczyński, who had the greatest influence on the promotion of this policy in public discourse. In conclusion, the results of the two-year enforcement of historical politics.

Gastronomy belongs among the important elements of the French national identity and at the same time it is one of the main tourist attractions. Which place and why does the gastronomy have among the modern trends of public diplomacy and how is the French gastro-diplomacy formed on the online social media? There are certain long-lasting tensions visible in the French gastronomic discourse, for example between the Republican idea of unity and the foreign policy strategy of supporting diversity. However, historical research shows that these aspects are not excluding one another, they are more like two sides of the same coin. Gastro-diplomacy is then understood as a narrow dimension of the foreign policy, namely as a part of public cultural diplomacy. In the framework of contemporary French gastro-diplomacy, it is possible to observe the employment of modern instruments, such as the communication through online social networks. Combined with the bet on the long-standing good image of French cuisine, it is one of the ways in which France prove successful in the international arena. It is also a sign of strategic behaviour against the standardization of food products. Quantitative and qualitative analysis of Facebook, Twitter and Instagram posts showed that during the period 1. 1. 2009 - 30. 6. 2017,...

This diploma thesis deals with strategies of promoting Czechs as ambassadors of the EU (HoD) since the launch of the European External Action Service to the present. The main research goal of this thesis is to find out whether the Czech Republic promotes its candidates to the HoD positions in the countries of its priority interests. So far, a Czech citizen has become an HoD in six cases. These cases are confronted with a categorization of priority countries of the Czech Republic which has been elaborated by the author. Then, the Czech activities in promoting citizens are analysed based on interviews with relevant employees of the Czech state organs. These actions are consequently put into categorization of lobbying methods of the smaller states in the EU. Based on the categorization of the Czech territorial priorities, it can be claimed that the Czechs have not been sent as HoDs to the countries of the Czech interests so far. Even their other applications have not been meant to place them to the countries of the Czech interests. On the other hand, there is a bulk of activities embraced by the Czech Republic to reverse this trend. First, the Czech administration exacerbates networking and informal meetings among the Czechs based in Brussels. Second, the Czech state officials have developed formal...

Living celebration of death: The Day of the Dead in contemporary Mexican society Mgr. Petra Ponocná Abstract This work deals with perceptions of The Day of the Dead feast in the urban society of Mexico City in the context of official ideology of Mexican cultural nationalism. Dissertation was founded on fieldwork in Mexico City in two different locations, namely delegación Cuauhtémoc and delegación Xochimilco. I focus on the perceptions of the feast by research partners and I try to point out the process of self-identification with the locality and its relation to attitude formation to The Day of the Dead and national identity. I investigate the role of the state and the city in organizing the holiday and research partners reactions to these interventions. The work is based on long-term ethnographic research with distinctive elements of auto ethnography

This study examines the specific aspects of the reception of Russian formalism and the development of the Formal method in Soviet Ukrainian culture in the 1920s - the beginning of 1930s. Russian formalism in the process of reception becomes an important tool for the "modernization" of national culture and, as a result, an instrument for a new phase in the construction of national cultural identity. On that basis, the cultural-historical and ideological context of the development of Ukrainian literary criticism, criticism and (partially) literature of the late 19th - first decades of the 20th century is consistently reconstructed in eight chapters of the work. The first chapter highlights theoretical aspects of the study, reviews critical literature, reconstructs the history of reception of Russian formalism in Russian and Western criticism and the history of literature. The second chapter addresses the historical and theoretical premises of the reception of Formal theory in Ukrainian culture. The next chapter discusses historical and political context of the development of literature and literary criticism in 1917-1920 using the example of multinational post-revolutionary Kiev; a brief review of the theoretical and historical works of the 1920s also appears here. A special focus is put on the...

Diploma thesis "Reflection of National Identities in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the Discussion of NATO Membership" is a discourse analysis focusing on the socio-political environment in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the perspective of discussion over possible accession to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation. The first part of the thesis begins by an overview of the history of NATO engagement in the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia, followed by a summary of current NATO relations with the countries of Western Balkans, specifically with Bosnia and Herzegovina. Special regard is given to national identities and their role in the conduct of the country's foreign policy. The second part of the thesis is dedicated to examining the current political debate. It seeks to understand how national identity shapes the discussion over the accession to the organisation. Specifically, through discourse analysis, it aims to identify the tools employed in the political debate and the impact it has on the overall political environment of the country.

This diploma thesis will focus on the Griko dialect, which is still spoken in some areas of Apulia and which is characterized by its ambiguity between the Greek and Italian language. It thus bears the remnants of Greek culture in southern Italy. The diploma thesis will consist of a theoretical and practical part: In the first part, the cultural-historical reality that defines the dialect will be described. This will be followed by a practical analysis of selected texts, their subsequent description and analysis by a comparative method. Lastly, the work will deal with the current socio-cultural situation of the dialect and its use. Key words: griko, Southern Italy, Salento, Apulia, Greece, language, dialect, culture, text analysis, national traditions, identity, Greek, Italian, prestige, origin

The thesis Racism and New Dimensions of Projecting the Multicultural Experience in Contemporary British Drama analyzes multiculturalism in contemporary Britain and questions its discursive boundaries through the works of some black and Asian contemporary playwrights such as Roy Williams, debbie tucker green and Tanika Gupta. The works of these playwrights articulate a set of experiences that reflects an image of the contemporary issues of bigotry and violence in Britain. Williams, Gupta and green present new approaches on the multicultural Britain concerning the issues of racism, discrimination and knife crime, shedding light on the cruelly racist world from the 'white and black' perspectives. Rethinking the questions of identity, Britishness, social agency and national affiliation from new proportions. The second chapter Roy Williams's Sing Yer Heart Out for the Lads (2002), Sucker Punch (2010) and The No Boys Cricket Club (1996). Williams stages sport in all its complexity as a rich ground for contemplating the issues of racism, belonging, nationalism and identity. He portrays an image of the conflict among the ethnic communities in a multicultural space, highlighting that conflict in its larger context. The third chapter discusses Tanika Gupta's White Boy (2008) and Sugar Mummies (2006). Both of...