Syllabus
Part 1
Introduction: Czechoslovakia in European History (basic concepts, facts, figures and events; overview of Czechoslovak-American relations; Czechoslovakia’s role in international affairs; has Central European history been uniquely complicated? - clichés and stereotypes; continuity and discontinuity in Czechoslovak history; competing interpretations of history).
Required reading:
JONATHAN SUNLEY: Post-Communism. In: The National Interest, Summer 1996 (Issue 44), pp. 1-8.
LEXINGTON: Old America v New Europe, In: The Economist, February 20, 2003.
JAN JIREŠ: United States and Central Europe: A Special Relationship? Guest lecture delivered at the Middle Tennessee State University, March 3, 2009.
Part 2
The Wilsonian project and the creation of Czechoslovakia (Austria-Hungary in the World War I, Czech nationalists and their activities abroad to achieve independence; the role of Czech-Americans and Slovak-Americans; Woodrow Wilson’s project to reform international affairs, the Fourteen Points; paradoxes and contradictions of Czechoslovakia’s creation).
Required reading:
HENRY KISSINGER: Diplomacy. New York, Simon & Schuster 1994, pp. 218-245.
Declaration of Independence of the Czechoslovak Nation by its Provisional Government, October 18, 1918.
Part 3
The interwar years: small-power diplomacy in a dangerous world (Czechoslovakia as a status-quo power in European politics; Czechoslovakia in the League of Nations; Czechoslovakia’s friends and foes, the dynamic of alliances; economic expansion & the Great Depression).
Required reading:
MARY HEIMANN: Czechoslovakia: The State That Failed. New Haven, Yale University Press 2009, pp. 48-74.
OLDŘICH TŮMA, JAROSLAV PÁNEK: A History of the Czech Lands. Prague, Karolinum 2009, pp. 395-420.
Part 4
Munich Agreement: the road to World War II (the sources of the Sudeten crisis; great-power interests and Czechoslovakia in the 1930s, Czechoslovakia’s allies in the 1930s, great-power relations and the Munich agreement; the consequences of Munich, United States and the Sudeten crisis; the "second life" of Munich and the "Munich complex" in U.S. foreign policy).
Required reading:
HENRY KISSINGER: Diplomacy. New York, Simon & Schuster 1994, pp. 306-317.
MARY HEIMANN: Czechoslovakia: The State That Failed. New Haven, Yale University Press 2009, pp. 74-86.
OLDŘICH TŮMA, JAROSLAV PÁNEK: A History of the Czech Lands. Prague, Karolinum 2009, pp. 420-431.
Part 5
Czechoslovakia in World War II (the Nazi occupation of the Bohemian Crown Lands and its international consequences; the establishment of the German Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia; Czechoslovak government-in-exile and its activities to re-establish Czechoslovakia; Czechoslovak military abroad; the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich and its consequences; sliding into the Soviet orbit: the 1943 Czechoslovak-Soviet treaty; the liberation of Czechoslovakia by the Soviet and American militaries).
Required reading:
MARY HEIMANN: Czechoslovakia: The State That Failed. New Haven, Yale University Press 2009, pp. 111-149.
OLDŘICH TŮMA, JAROSLAV PÁNEK: A History of the Czech Lands. Prague, Karolinum 2009, pp. 435-458.
Part 6
The Third Republic and the road to Communist takeover (Europe and Czechoslovakia in 1945; the new superpowers and their European interests; ethnic homogenization: the expulsion of German speakers from Czechoslovakia; the communist subversion; Czechoslovakia and the Marshall Plan; the communist takeover in 1948 and its international consequences; why Czechoslovakia, why not Finland? - a comparative view).
Required reading:
HENRY KISSINGER: Diplomacy. New York, Simon & Schuster 1994, pp. 446-463.
JÜRGEN TAMPKE: Czech-German Relations and the Politics of Central Europe: From Bohemia to the EU. Palgrave-Macmillan 2002, pp. 73-94.
LONNIE JOHNSON: Central Europe: Enemies, Neighbours, Friends. New York and Oxford, OUP 2002, pp. 229-238.
Part 7
Czechoslovakia in the Cold War (emigration; terror and resistance at home; U.S. position; Czechoslovakia’s role within the Soviet Bloc).
Required reading:
MARY HEIMANN: Czechoslovakia: The State That Failed. New Haven, Yale University Press 2009, pp. 177-204.
OLDŘICH TŮMA, JAROSLAV PÁNEK: A History of Czech Lands. Prague, Karolinum 2009, pp. 493-519.
Part 8
The 1960s liberalisation, the 1968 Warsaw Pact invasion and the Czechoslovak "normalisation" (the 1960s liberalisation in Czechoslovakia and its domestic and international sources; the Prague Spring and its international context ; the Warsaw Pact invasion of August 1968 and its international consequences; impact on the Soviet reputation; Soviet motives behind the intervention; the "Normalization" regime in Czechoslovakia; the 1975 Helsinki Accords and the anti-Communist opposition in Czechoslovakia).
Required reading:
OLDŘICH TŮMA, JAROSLAV PÁNEK: A History of Czech Lands. Prague, Karolinum 2009, pp. 539-565.
Part 9
The idea of Central Europe and its revival in the 1980s (Western Europe x Eastern Europe; the revival of the idea of Central Europe as an instrument to undermine the bipolar division of Europe; the critics of the idea of Central Europe; the influence of the idea of Central Europe on the post-1989 Czechoslovak foreign policy).
Required reading:
MILAN KUNDERA: The Tragedy of Central Europe. In: The New York Review of Books, April 26, 1984 (Volume 31, Number 7), pp. 1-14.
TONY JUDT: The Rediscovery of Central Europe. In: Daedalus, Winter 1990 (Volume 119, Number 1), pp. 23-51.
TIMOTHY GARTON ASH: The Puzzle of Central Europe. In: The New York Review of Books, March 18, 1999 (Volume 46, Number 5), 1-12.
Part 10
The Spring of Nations 2.0: Czechoslovak "Velvet Revolution" in the context of the decline and fall of the Soviet Bloc (Czechoslovakia in the 1980s - comparison with other Soviet Bloc countries; opposition activity and their support from abroad; Gorbachev’s failed attempt to reform the Soviet Union; the 1989 Velvet Revolution in comparison with regime changes in other Soviet Bloc countries).
Required reading:
TIMOTHY GARTON ASH: The Magic Lantern: The Revolution of ’89 Witnessed in Warsaw, Budapest, Berlin and Prague. Vintage Books 1993, pp. 78-122.
OLDŘICH TŮMA, JAROSLAV PÁNEK: A History of Czech Lands. Prague, Karolinum 2009, pp. 569-584.
Part 11 1990-1992: Czechoslovak foreign policy in the new Europe ("Return to Europe": integration with the West and assuming Western identity as the supreme goal of the new Czechoslovak foreign policy; United States and the post-communist Central Europe; Central European regional cooperation; the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact; the dissolution of Czechoslovakia and its international dimension).
Required reading:
MARY HEIMANN: Czechoslovakia: The State That Failed. New Haven, Yale University Press 2009, pp. 307-324.
RONALD ASMUS: Opening NATO’s Door: How the Alliance Remade itself for a New Era. New York, Columbia University Press 2002, pp. 3-17.
PAUL G. LEWIS: Central Europe since 1945. London, Longman 1994, pp. 296-299.
Part 12
Concluding discussion: Czechoslovakia as a failed state? (Was the Wilsonian Project a mistake? What role did Czechoslovakia play in the 20th-century European politics? What should have been done differently? Final papers in-class presentation).
Annotation
Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic have often been at the epicentre of European politics, though mostly as mere objects of great-power relations.
The creation of independent Czechoslovakia in the aftermath the First World War was a part of President Wilson’s ambitious project to reform international politics. For the rest of the interwar period, Czechoslovakia was one of the most active members of the Wilsonian League of Nations.
In the late 1930s, the tense Czech-German relations resulted into a major crisis, which was one of the precursors of World War II. The 1939 German occupation of Czechoslovakia prompted Britain and France to guarantee Polish security, which eventually led them to declare war on Germany.
Ten years later, the communist coup in Czechoslovakia accelerated the formation of NATO. The Soviet invasion of 1968 to crush the Prague Spring irreparably discredited Soviet communism worldwide. The 1989 "Velvet Revolution" is often invoked as the model for peaceful transition to democracy and the 1992 "Velvet Divorce" as the example of a peaceful solution of nationalist ambitions. The integration of the Czech Republic (and other Central European countries) into NATO and the European Union has been a major international issue of the past twenty years.