Czechoslovakia in Global History. Czechoslovakia and Central Europe's Global Entanglements during the Cold War

Syllabus

2 October

Introduction. What is Global History?     9 October

Central Europe and the World before the Great War   16 October

The Czechoslovak First Republic between Anti-colonialism and Colonial Fantasies   23 October

Decolonization and the Global Cold War   30 October

Students and Workers. Immigration to Czechoslovakia from the Third World   6 November

Communist Geneva. Prague-based International Organizations and the Anti-colonial Network   13 November

Exporting Socialism. Czechoslovak Experts and Developmental Projects   20 November

Promoting National Liberation. Czechoslovak Secret Services and their Activities in the Third World   27 November

Socialist Modernity and Cultural Diplomacy. Promoting Socialism between Business and Solidarity   4 December

Détente and the Normalization   11 December

From the Neoliberal Turn to the Global 1989   18 December

The Czech Republic in the Globalized World    

Annotation

The course concerns with the reinterpretation of Czech, Czechoslovak and Central European history in the global framing. Focusing on the post-war era, the individual lectures will offer a perspective on Cold War Czechoslovakia that is different from the traditional European-centred views.

The course shows that the processes of decolonization, modernization and globalization were important not only in the West and in the Global South but also in the state socialist countries in the East. Showing the processes and relations in the longue durée, the course also examines the roots of Central Europe’s global entanglements and its role in the new post-Cold War world.