Annotation
Milestones of Czech history
Summer Semester 2016 1) Czechoslovakia at the Crossroad: Between East and West.
Political, social and economic situation in Czechoslovakia, 1945-1948. The international situation and Czechoslovakia; the system of National Front; nationalization of big industry; land reform; expulsion of Sudeten Germans; situation of Hungarian minority; situation in Slovakia; the Communist coup of 25 February 1948. (16 February 2016, Michal Stehlík) 2) Czechoslovak society 1948-1953. The time of "revolution" I.
International relations at the peak of the Cold War and Czechoslovakia; political changes: Constitution of 9 May 1948; the political monopoly of the Czechoslovak Communist Party (KSČ); economic development: nationalization, new land reform, collectivization of agriculture; Czechoslovakia as part of the Soviet orbit: membership in Committee on Mutual Economic Cooperation (COMECON). Social changes and the "cultural revolution". Political persecution; opposition, persecution of churches; struggle within the KSČ and purges; resistance against the communist regime.
(23 February 2016, Michal Stehlík) 3) Czechoslovak society 1953-1960. The time of "revolution" II.
Political situation in Czechoslovakia after Stalin’s death: death of Klement Gotwald and the "collective leadership". Economic and political development 1953-1956. Antonín Zápotocký and Antonín Novotný. Varsaw Pact (1955); Czechoslovakia in 1956: domestic development and its international context. Neostalinism 1957-1960
(1 March 2016, Michal Stehlík) 4) Czechoslovakia in the "golden sixties". I.
Constitution of 11 July 1960; centralization; the regime of Antonín Novotný: political and economic development 1960-1962; political rehabilitation of the purged communist leaders and its significance; the Slovak question in the sixties; liberalization of the regime; the beginning of the reform movement in KSČ
(8 March 2016, Michal Stehlík) 5) Czechoslovak society in the sixties - "the golden age?" II.
Czech and Slovak culture in sixties: film, theatre, literature. The Limits of liberalization. 4th Congress of Czechoslovak Writers in 1967 and its significance
(15 March 2016, Michal Stehlík) 6) The reform movement of 1968 - the "Prague Spring". I¬.
Political situation in summer and autumn of 1967: the Slovak question and the split in the leadership of the KSČ; the January plenary session of the Central Committee of KSČ and the fall of Antonín Novotný (5 January 1968); Alexander Dubček as the First Secretary of KSČ; the "Program of Action" of KSČ; President Ludvík Svoboda; Slovak demand of federalization of Czechoslovakia; Gustáv Husák; the reformists and the conservatives in KSČ; other political parties and groups; abolition of censorship and the role of media; attitude of the Soviet leadership to the reform movement in the Spring of 1968. (22 March 2016, Jan Rychlík) 7) Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia (21 August 1968).
International situation in 1968; the attitude of the USSR toward the reform process in Czechoslovakia; the attitude of other Warsaw Pact countries; the Warsaw "Letter of Five" to Czechoslovak leadership; Czechoslovak-Soviet negotiations in Čierna nad Tisou; negotiations of the Communist leaders of USSR, German Democratic republic, Hungary and Bulgaria with Czechoslovak Communist leaders in Bratislava; military preparations for the invasion; "operation Danube" - the invasion of Soviet army and the armies of Hungary, Poland and Bulgaria to Czechoslovakia; passive resistance to the invasion; arrest of Czechoslovak leaders; the Communist Party extraordinary Congress in Prague-Vysočany; the capitulation of Czechoslovak leadership: the protocol of Moscow (29 March 2016, Ivan Šedivý) 8) The End of Reform movement and the Beginning of the co-called Normalization.
Situation in Czechoslovakia in the autumn of 1968; "temporal stay" of the Soviet forces in Czechoslovakia; Constitutional Law 143/1968 on Czechoslovak Federation; new offensive of Conservative forces; Jan Palach; fall of Alexander Dubček and his substitution by Gustáv Husák 17 April 1969); demonstrations on first anniversary of the Warsaw Pact invasion and the "licorise law"; end of the reform movement; massive purges of 1970 (5 April 2016, Michal Stehlík) 9) Czechoslovakia in the period of "normalization". I.
"Normalization" as terminus technicus. Czechoslovak society in the 1970s and the beginning of 1980s. The social base of the "normalization"; social policy and standard of living. Political development: "hardliners" and the "moderates": Vasil Biľak and Gustáv Husák. Economic development; "grey zone" and dissent (12 April 2016, Michal Stehlík) 10) Czechoslovak opposition and struggle against the regime of normalization.
Gradual formation of opposition against the regime after 1970; Helsinki Final Act and its significance for the oppositional movement, Charter 77, underground and Václav Havel. Opposition in the Czech republic and Slovakia: similarities, differences and cooperation between them. (19. April 2016, Michal Stehlík) 11) Czechoslovak society in 1980s and the period of "perestojka"
The crisis of the Communist bloc at the beginning of 1980s; Michail Gorbačov and Czechoslovak version of "perestrojka". Personal changes 1987-1988. Economic development. Grow of the opposition and new oppositional groups. Demonstrations in 1988; cooperation with opposition in other Communist countries. (26 April 2016, Michal Stehlík) 12) "Velvet Revolution and the fall of Communist regime (1989).
International situation at the beginning of 1989: situation in Poland, Hungary, GDR, the Baltic republics of the USSR. Political situation in Czechoslovakia at the beginning of 1989: the Palach’s week, memorandum "several sentences". Demonstration on 17 November 1939 and its consequences; Civic forum in the Czech Republic and Public Against Violence in Slovakia. Negotiations about transfer of power. Transitional coalition government; President Václav Havel. (3 May 2016, Jan Rychlík) 13) "Velvet Divorce" - the end of Czechoslovakia.
Political and economic development 1990-1992: election in June 1990 restitution of democracy and capitalism. The end of COMECON. The retreat of Soviet army from Czechoslovakia, dissolution of Warsaw Pact. Differences in the Czech and Slovak Republic. The split of the Civic Forum and Public Against Violence. Civic democratic Party (ODS) of Václav Klaus and Movement for Democratic Slovakia (HZDS) of Vladimír Mečiar. The principle of "Minority veto". Elections of 5-6 June 1992 and their consequences; political agreement of ODS and HZDS about the "velvet split". The split of Czechoslovakia. The relations between independent Czech and independent Slovak Republic (10 May 2016, Jan Rychlík)
Literature:
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KAPLAN, Karel: The Overcomming of the Régime Crisis after Stalin’s Death in Czechoslovakia, Poland and Hungary. Köln : Index, 1986.
KIRSCHBAUM, Stanislav Joseph: A History of Slovakia. The Struggle for Survival. New York - London : St. Martin Press, 1995 (2nd ed. New York : Plagrave Macmillan, 2005).
KRAUS, Michael - STANGER, Allison (eds.): Irreconcilable Differences? Bowder, New York, Oxford : Rpwman and Litzlefield Publishing House Inc., 2000.
MAMATEY, Victor - LUŽA, Radovan: A History of Czechoslovak Republic 1918-1948. Princeton : Princeton University Press, 1973 (available also in French and German).
MANOVÁ, Elena (ed.) A Concise History of Slovakia. Bratislava : HÚ SAV, 2000.
MUSIL, Jiří (ed.): The End of Czechoslovakia. Budapest - New York: Central European University Pess (CEU), 1995.
RYCHLÍK, Jan: Collectivization in Czechoslovakia in Comparative Perspective. In: IORDACHI, Constantin - BAUERKÄMPER, Arnd (eds.): The Collectivization of Agriculture in Communist Eastern Europe. Budapest - New York, 2014, pp. 181-210.
RYCHLÍK, Jan: The ‘Velvet Divorce‘ of Czechoslovakia, 1989-1992. In: BAKKE, Eliasabeth - PETERS, Ingo (eds.): Twenty Years since the Fall of Berlin Wall. Berlin : Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag, 2011, pp. 159-178 (available also in German: RYCHLÍK, Jan: "Das Majorisierungsverbot und die Samtene Scheidung der Tchechoslowakei 1989-1992. In: ALDGASSER, Frnaz - MALÍNSKÁ, Jana - RUMPLER, Helmut - VELEK, Luboš (eds.): Hohes Haus! 150 Jahre moderner Parlamentarismus in Österreich, Böhmen, der Tschechoslowakei und der Republik Tchechien im mitteleuropäischen Kontext. Wien : Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2015, S. 353-368).
SKILLING, Harry Gordon: Czechoslovakia’s Interrupted Revolution. Princeton : Princeton Unviversity Press, 1976.
SKILLING, Harry Gordon: Charter 77 and human rights in Czechoslovakia. London : G. Allen and Unwin, 1981.
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STOLARIK, Mark M. [ed.]: The Prague Spring and the Warsaw Pact Invasion of Czechoslovakia, 1968. Forty Years Later. Mande;ein, Illionis : Bolchazy-Carduci Publishers Inc., 2010.
TEICH, Mikuláš - KOVÁČ, Dušan - BROWN, D. Martin (eds.): Slovakia in History. Cabridge : Cambride University Press, 2011, pp. 229-390.