Abstract
Post-war Czechoslovakia preferred to rely on water resources in its energy policy. This study analyses the role of art and media in the country's communication of its turn to hydropower. Rivers are approached as environtechnical landscapes that can (re)defijine modern national identities since they served as lines of communication, economic commodities, and a representational medium, helping to conceptualize ideas of the nation.
Accordingly, media and art relating to the construction of dams supported the circulation of knowledge and exploited the symbolic potential of dams as energy sources and as a solution to the national trauma associated with the lack of access to the sea. Industrial fijilms about hydropower contributed to understanding the profound economic paradigm shift from capitalist to socialist order and signifijicantly shaped ideas on the possibilities of turning nature into a source of energy.