Czechs Against the Elites and All Things Foreign: Intercultural Communication in Vlastimil Vondruška's Populist History
Abstract
One of the ways in which ideas about the clash of cultures are formed is through reflections about the past. People who ponder on contemporary problems and form their opinions on them always relate these issues to their knowledge of history.
Therefore, this chapter deals with ideas about past intercultural encounters that are present in Czech society. It offers a case study of the creation and presentation of the body of work written by a single author, Vlastimil Vondruška.
This example is used to illustrate the role social reflections on the past can play in the context of contemporary intercultural communication problems, and what dangers Vondruška's populist history poses for the development of intercultural dialogue. Its immense popularity has enabled him to present himself as a "historian and writer", i.e. a public intellectual who is entitled to comment on all current social issues.
Being an author of historical detective stories and novels creates a false impression of his historical credentials and expertise, which lends him the authority to speak about social issues using misleading historical parallels. In this role, he propagates explicit political populism, xenophobia and nationalism.
Vondruška thus offers no real solution to intercultural dialogue. His false historical analogies, based on the principle that all of history is constantly repeating itself, actually imply that no new solutions can be found in the area of intercultural dialogue.