Publication at Faculty of Arts |
2016
Abstract
The collection of essays "What was normalization?" portrays the Czechoslovak society in late socialism in its complexity, seeking to overcome the established dichotomy of regime and opposition, perpetrators and victims. Communist dictatorship, they argue, rested as much on the external power constraints as on the internal consensus within the society.
Thus, stressing the social dimension of power, the authors challenge the interpretation of state socialism that conceives of the latter as a deviation from the allegedly natural development of national history.