Syllabus
The seminar Reading from Modern Czech History deepens and expands the knowledge from the study subject Overview of Czech History. Students will focus on the study of authentic documents related to modern Czech history and deepen their knowledge of the historical development of modern Czech society and expand their knowledge of technical terminology. Attention will be paid not only to cultural and political history, but also to social and economic or the history of everyday life, emphasis will be placed on capturing the interrelationships between the development of society, culture, politics and ideology. An important part of the seminar will also be monitoring the development of the Czech language and its changes in various historical periods. Written sources on individual nodes or questions of the historical development of the Czech lands in 19. and especially of the 20th century will not only be of an institutional nature, the analysis will also focus on contemporary journalism, correspondence and memoir literature, students will also selectively work with audiovisual materials. Individual texts intended for analysis will be selected on the basis of the professional interest of the seminar students. Part of the homework will be the reading of professional historical studies or their parts.
Thematic areas: 1. Cultural and linguistic program of the Czech national revival - the formation of a modern Czech nation 2. Czechs and Germans in Austria-Hungary - mutual cultural and political ties 3. Czech-Slovak relations - the origin and disintegration of Czechoslovakia 4. Culture and society of democratic Czechoslovakia 5. Czech places of memory - the First and Second World War 6. Life in a totalitarian state - the protectorate and the fifties 7. Golden Sixties - socialism with a human face 8. Normalization - communists and their opponents, gray zone 9. The Czechoslovak path to freedom and democracy
Annotation
The seminar follows up on the course Overview of Czech History (therefore the condition for enrolling in this course is the completion of the Overview of Czech History) and expands and deepens students' knowledge of modern Czech history. By completing the seminar, students will also deepen their ability to read and understand authentic Czech texts.
In case of school closure due to a coronavirus pandemic, teaching will be conducted remotely via electronic media.