"Beautiful, happy, socialist Prague" : The official representation of the Czech metropolis during Stalinism
Abstract
The article deals with the staging of the image of Prague as a "socialist city" in the first half of the 1950s. The official visual representation of the city is analysed on the basis of a large body of period photographs used in the studied period on the front pages of Nová Praha [New Prague], the bulletin of the city national committee, in newly published tourist guides and in picture publications.
After February 1948, the construction and depiction of the physical space of the capital city was subordinated to the ideological interests of the Czechoslovak Communist Party. The building of "New Prague" became the subject of a large-scale campaign launched in December 1950 by Party ideologue Gustav Bareš and supported by representatives of city and state administration.
Official photographs encountered by residents and visitors on many levels worked intensively with symbols and attributes reflecting the period's dynamic situation in Prague. Under the umbrella motif of "building efforts", contemporary conveniences of Socialism (work brigades, landmarks, new construction, etc.) were joined by selected historical monuments.
As such, the Stalinist vision of "New Prague" apparently paradoxically yet very closely combined elements of tradition and modernity and became a distinct expression of the longing to achieve a qualitatively higher type of social order.