Abstract
How was the life and music of Antonín Dvořák employed in the war as well as post-war propaganda in particular? How did the image of Antonín Dvořák change during the time, depending on the ideology of interpreter? "Propaganda is the management of collective attitudes by the manipulation of significant symbols." These symbols are used by propaganda makers to affirm or redefine public attitudes and opinions. Every nation, or rather cultural group, shares certain common cultural values.
Antonín Dvořák is world known composer, played and loved all over the world. At the same time, music of Antonín Dvořák is without any doubt a symbol for Czech nation.
Composer has been presented as a protector of our values, model of Czechness, a national composer. Ideologists and propaganda makers of all sorts employed this symbolic value.
During Nazi occupation of Protectorate Bohemia and Moravia, for most of the Czechs, music of Dvořák became a symbol of hope for brighter tomorrows and the reassurance of their cultural identity. At the same time, composer's life was interpreted by Nazi ideologists as a positive illustration of collaboration with great German nation.
Dvořák's successes in German and German friends were pointed out. After the end of the World War 2 and Communist coup in Czechoslovakia in 1948 the name of Antonín Dvořák was used once again.
To involve the composer into socialist realism ideology and aesthetics, it was necessary to reinterpreted music and life of Antonín Dvořák. Component of realism, revolutionary, progressiveness or were sought in Dvořák's oeuvre.