The student will compile a thesis about the period of dogmatic socialist realism in czech architecture in 1950s. The student will start with a definition of this style, will try to reconstruct a theoretical resources and fundamental parts of socialist realism and then determine the pre-stages in the architecture before the second world war. The attention will be focused on influnces and imports from The Soviet Union including the journeys of czechoslovakia architects there between 1920s-1930s and in 1950s. Own architecture production of dogmatic socialist realism in Czechoslovakia will be shown on chosen buildings in Prague (hotel Jalta, hotel International…). From this selection the student will determine its specifications and if it is possible to infer them based on the comparsion with the other buildings in Czechoslovakia. Keywords architecture, socialist realism, Prague, 1950s, ideology, The Soviet Union, historicism

This master's thesis looks into the phenomenon of unofficial education in Czechoslovakia and Poland in the 1970s and 1980s. Comparing several initiatives, the thesis analyses the context of their origins, ways of organisation, members, motivations, themes of lectures, and the position between the dissent and the Communist regime. The author focuses on the general characterisation of the phenomenon and its connection to the unofficial sphere. Keywords: education, underground seminars, flying university, opposition, socialist regime, Czechoslovakia, Poland

Panelstories: Ethnography of Space (Re)production at Černý Most Modernist Housing Estate. Mgr. Michal Lehečka Abstract: The dissertation focuses on spatial environment of socialist modernist housing estates. Based on data collected during a 10year long fieldwork in multiple modernist housing locations, it explores dominant ways of spatial (re)production of Černý Most housing estate in Prague. Thanks to its ownership and ethnic structure Černý Most represents an ideal fieldwork site where both long term and contemporary phenomena resulting from the post-socialist transformation can be detected, described and analysed. After 1989, former socialist modernist cities have undergone a plethora of political, economical and social changes and disruptions. These changes continuously uncover an ongoing interaction between the initial egalitarian and collectivist heritage of the housing estate as well as its ambiguous and fragmented property structure. Spaces of the estates are continuously (re)produced through various manifestations of actors' territorial claims. The spatial changeability is best described by Henri Lefebvre's notion of socio-material (re)production of space and his widely used concept of spatial triad (Lefebvre 1991). Transformation of housing estates is therefore (re)produced through (in)visible...

3 ABSTRACT Humankind in its whole being is reflecting an environment by culture and visual art. Different cultural periods value nature and environment differently, what have a strong impact on nature management - some culture periods have a strong feeling for protecting nature for its own value while others see nature just as a source of materials or energy. This relationship is possible to find in art artifacts made during particular culture period. The communistic idea was ruling for almost half of the twentieth century in former Czechoslovakia. And its point of view has strong negative impact on state of nature and environment. As an official style of art socialist realism was approved at the same time. Its main goal was portraying a new communistic world, new communistic society and new communistic man. Aim of this work is to find out how the socialistic realism displays nature and landscape topic in art pieces. In core of this work stays the assumption, that socialistic realism has no value for nature itself, on the contrary it appreciates only it's rebuilding for easier exploitation. Findings are based on study of theoretical art texts and art-pieces from the period 1945 - 1958. Keywords: nature, landscape, aesthetic, art, socialist realism, landscape painting

In 1948 Czechoslovakian Communist come to power. Their goal is to conquer all segments of society and to promote socialist ideology. The literature has become an important instrument to promote socialism. Official art is dominated by the only permitted aesthetic norm so called socialist realism. A form of socialist realism is constructive novel. One of the most important author is Václav Řezáč and his novel Nástup. Socialist realism can be seen as a mythical system according to Roland Barthes, so as a utterance that hides the historicity and acts as something natural and obvious. Narratological and thematic analysis attempting to expose this myth and revealing strategies, which was formed. Narratological analysis argue against the widely accepted view, that the former literature was written in classic narrative and the use of traditional means of text construction. The aim is to show that the novel is written in a modern narrative, but with the preservativ of the traditional semantic framework, which allows efficient expansion of ideology.

The dissertation thesis is focused on specific segment of contemporary visual artists from Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and the Slovak Republic, whose work reflects the recent past. The thesis maps and interprets artistic reflections of the past with emphasis on the era of socialism in the region of Central Europe, and defines the characteristic features of the generation of artists born in the 70s and their position in the post-socialist situation. These artistic approaches are categorized and anchored in the broad current of the so-called historiographical turn in contemporary art and put in a broader cultural and art historical context. Keywords contemporary art, Central Europe, historiographic turn, archive, socialist modernism, nostalgia

The objective of the present thesis is to describe the situation in the interpreting industry in Czechoslovakia before the change of regime in 1989. The thesis specifically focuses on self-taught interpreters. The primary objective of the thesis is to collect and present, in a comprehensive way, personal memories of such interpreters. At present such memories are diffuse in texts on various topics or in personal, more or less extensive, memoirs of some of these interpreters. In addition, the thesis aims to present such memories against the background of the general developments in institutional interpreting in Europe and Czechoslovakia during the relevant period. With this thesis being the first domestic study of this kind, the method of oral history has been used and complemented with the analysis of archive materials. The empirical part of the thesis is mainly based on 12 interviews with self-taught interpreters, who were active interpreters in the second half of the twentieth century in our country. Furthermore, it compares and complements this information with written sources from that period (in particular Ad notam, the bulletin of the Czech Union of Interpreters and Translators) and outlines the practical and theoretical aspects of the then interpreting activities outside institutional...

The thesis aims to describe the media image of the czech fine art during 1948-1953 in the cultural periodicals "Kulturní politika", "Tvorba", "Var" and "Lidové noviny". It focuses on two topics that occurred most frequently in these periodicals;That is the definition of art and socialist realism and shaping artists and society. Social realism is characterized not only by description, but also by inspiration sources like Czech fine art of 19th century and the tendency to oppose competitive or similar artistic styles and trends like formalism, naturalism, academicism and kitsch. Shaping the artists and society is understood in terms of upringing, education and enlightenment. In connection with these two areas this thesis focuses on history, cultural policy of the Communist Party, the organizational structure of artistic production, distribution of art, shaping artists, penetration of art into public and private space, socialist realism and an attitude of visual artists to new conditions of artistic production. Different features were also included to capture the uniqueness of each periodical. The starting point of the thesis is a historical and qualitative analysis.

The thesis focuses on the construction and symbolic encoding of Prague from 1945 to the late 1950s, with emphasis on the Stalinist era. Based on an analysis of historical texts and architectural projects, the thesis studies the motivations and tactics, which the post-war political and professional elites sought to manifest their own values and ideological principles in the area of the capital city. Through the analysis of historical concepts of "old" and "new" Prague examines the thesis the changing relationship between tradition and modernity in the image of the city. The sociocultural phenomenon of Stalinism is thematized as a specific part of the long process of modernization, which passes through Prague during the first half of the 20th century. The thesis deals also with the attributes that should characterize the "new" socialist Prague and with the ways of using the Soviet patterns and local historical traditions. Keywords: Prague, city, image of the city, architecture, urbanism, memory, heritage, socialist realism, stalinism, 1950s

The presented diploma thesis is dedicated to the Czechoslovak paper money is-sued after 1948 until 1989, which is used as a source of historical memory. On paper money is mainly investigated their thematic content, which passed for their development time significant changes and that reflected important needs of the communist regime. The basic source for research this theme is paper money of defined period with taking into account the pre-war paper money because of their comparison. In addition, consideration is given to archival sources, contemporary posters, films, literature, songs, etc. The main target of this work is to determine how paper money reacted to the change of the political system after 1948 and how it was reflected by the users them-selves. It will also be monitored the rise of Soviet influence, sphere of allegorical humor and reflection of artistic community.