The Legacy of Dissidence. Political and Historical Thought of the Democratic Opposition in Czechoslovakia and East Central Europe

Annotation

Course title:

The Legacy of Dissidence. Political and Historical Thought of the Democratic Opposition in Czechoslovakia and

East Central Europe, 1968-1989, and its Afterlife.

Faculty:

Michal Kopeček (Institute of Czech History, Faculty of Arts, Charles University)

Course No.

AHSE0005 SP letní 2/0 Zk 21-UCD FF

AHS100448 SP letní 2/0 Zk 21-UCD FF

AHS100447 SP letní 2/0 Kv 21-UCD FF

Time and Location

Wed. 14:10-15:45, room No. 200, Faculty of Arts, Nám. J. Palacha 1

Course description:

What was the antipolitical politics or radical reformism in the 1980s and what does it mean today? Does it represent just a tentative compromise within the dissident circles, or remains to be an unfulfilled political ideal until nowadays? To what extent did the internal rift within the democratic opposition before 1989 influence the long-term controversy about the politics of memory and the so-called coming to terms with the communist past in the new born democracies in East Central Europe after 1989?

The dissidence and the broader anticommunist opposition stand for an important political mythos in the

Czech Republic and a couple of neighboring countries of East Central Europe. Its legacy, contested as it is, has left an important imprint on the political cultures of the countries in the region. The course aims to provide the students with the most important results of the hitherto research in this field of contemporary history and, at the same time, to critically scrutinize the legacy of dissidence in the contemporary public political and historical discourse.

The course is intended for Erasmus students as well as students of Czech study programs esp. in history, political science and philosophy. The classes shall usually consist of an hour lecture followed by a seminar discussion upon the compulsory reading. The evaluation shall consist from in-class active participation and discussion 25%, in-class presentation 25%, final research paper and its “defense” 50%.

Syllabus

I. Opposition, Dissidence, Second Culture, Resistance: Conceptualizations and Interpretations in the

Existing Research

II. From the Suppression of the Prague Spring to Helsinki Accords. The Rise of Human Rights

Internationalism

III. Towards Antipolitical Politics: Oppositional Streams in Czechoslovakia and Their Cultural-Political

Genesis

IV. Towards New Evolutionism and Radical Reformism: Polish Opposition in the Making

V. Disturbing the Kádárist Social Contract: The Birth of Democratic Opposition in Hungary

VI. In Search of Liberal Patriotism. National History as Critical Field and Bone of Contention

VII. The Rise of Solidarity: A Change of the Matrix

VIII. Symbolic Politics in the Underground State

IX. Czech Question Resurrected: Historical Disputes and their Political Repercussions in the Eighties

X. The Mythos of Central Europe: Emancipation Tool or Anti-nationalist Bulwark?

XI. How to Run Civil Society in the Time of Perestroika

XII. 1989: From “National Understanding” towards “War at the Top”. The Birth of Post-Communism and the

Legacy of Dissidence

Reference Literature:

Stefan Auer, Liberal Nationalism in Central Europe. London : Routledge 2004

Ivan T. Berend, Central and Eastern Europe, 1944-1993: Detour from the Periphery to the Periphery. Cambridge :

Cambridge University Press, 1996

Barbara J. Falk, The Dilemmas of Dissidence in East-Central Europe. Budapest-New York : CEU Press 2003

Pedraig Kenney, A Carnival of Revolution. Central Europe 1989. Princeton: Princeton UP 2002

Ansgar Klein, Der Diskurz der Zivilgesellschaft, Opladen : Leske & Buderich 2001

Joseph Rothschild, Return to diversity: a Political History of East Central Europe since World War II, New York :

Oxford University Press, 2000

Jacques Rupnik, The Other Europe. New York 1989

H. Gordon Skilling: Samizdat and an Independent Society in Central and Eastern Europe, Columbus : Ohio State

UP 1989

Jerzy Szacki, Liberalism After Communism, Budapest - New York : CEU Press 1995

Winfried Thaa, Die Wiedergeburt des Politischen. Zivilgesellschaft und Legitimitätskonflikt in den Revolutionen von 1989. Opladen 1996

Vladimir Tismaneanu, Reinventing Politics. Eastern Europe from Stalin to Havel, New York 1992

Vladimir Tismaneanu (ed.), The Revolutions of 1989, London – New York : Routledge 1999