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, 1968-1995.

Faculty:

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

Time and Location

Wed. 10:50-12:25, room No. 10, Faculty of Arts, Nam. 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. The Lesson of the 1968 Prague Spring: Consolidation Regimes, Towards New Gradualism, Departures from Marxism

III. Change of the Frame: Helsinki Accords, Human Rights and New Oppositional Strategies: Legalism, Dialogue (democracy within opposition), Parallel Polis, Anti-politics

IV. Human Right Facing a National Past: Critical Debates on Recent History, Revival of National Political Traditions, Formulating Civic Patriotism

V. Change of the Frame: Solidarity as Social Movement, Political Opposition, National Liberation Resistance

VI. Strategy Debates in the Times of Crisis - Underground Solidarity, Czechoslovak and Hungarian Opposition: Politics of Consensus vs. Anti-Totalitarian Crusade

VII. Politics of Memory in the 1980s Opposition

VIII. The Mythos of ‘Central Europe’: Emancipation Tool or Anti-nationalist Bulwark?

IX. Perestroika and the Return of the ‘Political’ in the Second Half of the 1980s

X. The 1989 I: Exist Strategies and Political Futures at the Round Tables

XI. The 1989 II: From ‘National Understanding’ towards "War at the Top". The Birth of Post-Communism and the Legacy of Dissidence

XII. First Clashes in the Post-Oppositional Spectrum - Early Politics of History, Lustrations

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

Jonathan Bolton: Worlds of Dissent: Charter 77, The Plastic People of the Universe, and Czech Culture under Communism, Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press 2012

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