Historical Films as Tools of Communist Propaganda : Contribution to the History of the Czechoslovak Cinematography at the Turn of the 1940s and 1950s
Abstrakt
The Communist rule manifested itself in the Czechoslovak cinematography in the most symptomatic way especially in the 1940s-1950s, mainly while shooting spectacular historical films that were supposed to become the important tool of the Communist propaganda and strengthen the position of the Communist Party. In the years 1954-1956 the Czech director Otakar Vávra presented in his grandiose and very expensive movies, so called "Hussite Trilogy", to the fascinated people not only the picture of the national heroes fighting against "German aggressors" from the 15th century (obvious analogy with the struggle against Germans during the Second World War), but, at the same time and mainly, the fact that the Czech and Slovak "common (or ordinary) people", the predecessors of the future Communists, raised up against the German aristocracy and against the corrupted Catholic Church already many centuries ago.
His works are, according to many experts, the best example of the Communist propaganda in the big screen during the first phase of the Communist rule in this country.