The typical Czech: concept of the "Czech ethnic type" between the expert knowledge and the public imagery of the interwar Czechoslovakia
Abstract
A search for "ethnic types", defined in terms of specific physical and psychical characteristics of different ethnic groups, formed an important agenda of professional anthropology in Central and East European region since the second half of the 19th century. In the case of Czech anthropology, the notion of the "Czech type" first emerged in 1880s -1890s in the context of the nation building, to reappear again with new meanings and importance after the WWI.
In the nascent Czechoslovak republic, the search for "ethnic types", particularly for the "Czech type ", became an important part of the new state's politics of ethnicity and the ideology of Czechoslovakism. This paper examines the long history of searching for the Czech ethnic type, debating not only formation of the expert knowledge and methodology but also the public imagery of the "typical Czech".
Throughout the 1920s -1930s, speculations about the supposedly typical Czech or about the physiognomy of a typical Czech women filled pages of popular newspaper. Tracing how the popular use of the concept cha llenged the expert discipline of anthropology and its position in society will be one of my questions.
Another set of questions will aim at the notion of the typical Czech itself. I will ask how the normative Czech body integrated notions of gender, racial and class difference.
By discussing the normative Czech, the presentation should give an insight both into the ideology of Czechoslovakism and into the ideology of health, beauty and able -bodiedness that formed a backbone of the interwar Czech nationalism .