The diploma thesis deals with media freedom in the Visegrád Group countries (Czechia, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary) from the perspective of professional journalists. It aims to map how journalists in these four countries perceive freedom in relation to their profession - how they understand the concept of freedom of expression, what threatens freedom of expression or freedom of the media according to them, how free they feel in their profession and what is the trend regarding media freedom in the coming years in their opinion. The theoretical part thoroughly captures the historical development of freedom of expression, its legal protection in constitutional documents and international conventions, the limits of freedom of expression as well as forms of its restriction. It also introduces the most important non-governmental non- profit organizations monitoring media freedom in the world and presents the media environment in each country. The theoretical part also pursues the perception and approach of professional journalists to freedom of expression, media freedom and other journalistic concepts and values. The analytical part then follows a journalistic professional discourse in the form of a qualitative analysis based on semi-structured in-depth interviews with active journalists from the Visegrád...

The master thesis -The Relations between the Polish United Workers' Party and the French Communist Party in 1956‖ deals with the relations between the Central European Polish United Workers' Party (PZPR) and the West European French Communist Party (PCF) in the crisis year of 1956. Analysing their mutual relations in 1956 is not only interesting from the point of view of East- West connections, but chiefly of the different approaches to Khrushchev's policy of destalinisation. Whereas the PCF was more or less under the Stalinist Maurice Thorez's control, which prevented Khrushchev's French supporters from influencing their party's politics, in case of the PZPR, the death of Bolesław Bierut in March 1956 made room for larger variety of opinions within the party. This master thesis describes not only the situation of both parties in 1956. It also analyses the images that the parties made about each other and the ways in which these images were spread and how they influenced the relations between them. The striking difference laid in the approach to the destalinisation. The parties perceived differently Khrushchev's -secret speech‖. The PCF leadership firstly denied its existence and later on claimed they did not know about it. The PZPR leadership decided to distribute the copies of the secret speech...

The thesis deals with the former Bush's plan of the so-called third pillar of the American missile defense system in Poland and Czech republic. We demonstrate on this topic the value of several key (neo)realist theoretical concepts. Specifically, the exact types and functioning of security dilemmas are analyzed in the framework of American-Russian, American-Iranian and American-Czech/Polish relations. The thesis also illustrates the importance of related modalities of deterrence and shows, which states and how balanced the US. In addition to that, attention is paid to the question whether the "shield" was motivated by defensive realist worries about security or rather by offensive realist struggle for power and gains at the expense of others.

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...

Given the enduring importance of the United States and its superpower status, American foreign policy represents a suitable topic for a detailed analysis. The focusing on Poland and the U.S. foreign policy related to it enables to find factors influencing the process of foreign policy-making and to examine the level of their impact. Selecting Poland can be explained by its great potential and rising importance within European politics as well as the long-lasting partnership between Poland and the United States that has been developed over the years. The characterization of factors influencing the formulation of the U.S. foreign policy enables understanding of tendencies and changes in the U.S. approach towards Poland. Contemporary foreign policy is not solely affected by current developments, but also the historical context and circumstances can have impact on its formulation and current shape. The formation of the American approach towards Poland is not completely isolated from other processes and therefore its final outcome depends on subsequent variables such as general American foreign orientation, the relations with Russia or the course of the general security situation. Dynamic development of events since 2001 shows how these new circumstances can be projected into the shape of foreign policy and...

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...

In this diploma thesis, the subject of research will be the topic of collective memory in Ukraine and Poland. The goal of the work will be to perform a comparative qualitative analysis of current historiographical discourses of the politics of memory devoted to the Ukrainian insurgent army (sometimes inaccurately referred to as "Bandera Movement") in Ukraine and Poland. The theoretical framework of the work will be studies of collective memory. The aim of the work will be to perform a qualitative analysis of deeper epistemic assumptions of Ukrainian and Polish political discourse. The work will examine how the UPA is represented in political memories in Poland and Ukraine, respectively, how the professional "truth" is constructed, which is behind the attitude of both societies, to which individuals with a deeper interest come closer. The purpose of this work is to identify a deeper - historiographical - subsoil of political thought, which is reflected in the discourses of Polish and Ukrainian politicians, historians or representatives of memory institutions or publicists and which is the source of their argumentation. Key words: Collective memory, discourse analysis, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, Poland, Ukraine, memory distinctions, legacy

In my diploma thesis I am focused on biography of polish composer Karol Szymanowski. In his biography I briefly analyze his major works of three different creative periods and I present what was he inspired of at those periods (eg. Wagner's harmony, oriental music, folk music of Podhale etc.). Afterwards, I detaily focus on analysis of the ballet "Harnasie", which is most inspired by the folklore music from Zakopané, where he lived for a part of his life. I analyze the ballet from music aspect, I also write about libretto, kostumes, scenography atc. I have added the ballet notes samples as a part of the musical analysis to facilitate orientation. I have included images of people, places, folk costumes, architecture and dance I am writing about. Annexes include notes samples and another images from composer's life and also a list of compositions, which are included on CD.

This thesis is to describe bases of assessment of personal income tax in selected countries -- the Czech Republic, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Austria and Polland. Its aim is to compare the number of partial bases of assessment and their content, expenditures and expenses as a percentage of income.

The main contribution of this work is to evaluate the competitive position of the Czech Republic within the Visegrad countries and its weaknesses and threats related to the international competitiveness, or competitiveness in the Central European region.