Abstract
Since the 19th century, Czech opera used themes from history and mythology to foster national identity. In the 20th century, the Czech national classics, and especially the works by Bedřich Smetana, where mobilized every time the Czech nationhood appeared to be threatened.
This was the case after the Munich Agreement of 1938 and the following Nazi occupation, and again after the Warsaw Pact invasion of 1968. In this paper, I am primarily concerned with how newly composed operas on historical themes reacted to these events.
I will concentrate, in particular, on two works performed at the Prague National Theatre, an institution with a strong symbolic link to Czech nationhood: _Zuzana Vojířová_ by Jiří Pauer and _Mistr Jeroným_ by Ivo Jirásek. I will demonstrate how the political uses of operatic retellings of history changed over time, from raising national awareness through topical depictions of the past (1930s through 1960s), to a generic form of nationalism in the period of "normalization" that was characterized by a sense of timelessness (1970s and 1980s).
As I will point out, the stage interpretation of the Czech national classics followed a similar trajectory. I will situate my discussion in relation to recent scholarship that explores the role of theatre and opera in (re)telling history (Rokem 2000, Schneider 2001, Renihan 2020).
At stake here, more generally, are the different configurations of the relationship between past and present, and their uses for the purposes of both resistance and propaganda within the context of two different forms of political totality: Nazism and Communism.