The violence of Czechoslovak youth at the end of state socialism: Security risk and a topic of social critique
Abstract
This article focuses on discourse-mapping and analysis of youth violence and delinquency in the late period of state socialism in Czechoslovakia. It is based on sources of journalistic articles, security reports, popular culture and subcultural production.
Author is interested in the content and extent of the topic, he focuses on relations between subcultures themselves on one hand and subcultures and majority society on the other. In detail he examines the late 1980s topic of “promotion of fascism and cult of violence” and racism among Czechoslovak punks and skinheads.
He questions how the topic of youth violence was explained in the late 1980s journalistic and security analysis. As a conclusion he draws attention to the existence of two parallel paradigms in his sources.
He observes continuity before and after 1989 in antiziganism. In general he argues against generalizing view of alternative youth as “islands of liberty”.