Syllabus
Oral exam
The examination is a 30 minutes individual oral exam based on a pre-assigned topic relating to the course syllabus. The syllabus has a size of approximately 550 pages. The exam starts with a 10 minutes presentation by the student covering the assigned topic. This presentation is followed by a dialogue between the student and the examiner.
Readings:
ASH, Timothy Garton. History of the Present: Essays, Sketches, and Dispatches from Europe in the 1990s. New York: Random House, 2000. (TBC pages)
BOLTON, Jonathan. World of Dissent. Charter 77, The Plastic People of the Universe, and Czech Culture under Communism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2012. (TBC pages)
BREN, Paulina. The Greengrocer and His TV. The Culture of Communism after the 1968 Prague Spring. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press 2010. (TBC pages)
KENNEY, Padraic, A Carnival of Revolution: Central Europe 1989 (Princeton University Press, 2003)
JUDT, Tony. Postwar. A History of Europe since 1945. New York: Penguin, 2005. (TBC pages)
KILBURN, Michael - VANĚK, Miroslav. The Ecological Roots of a Democracy, In Human Rights Dialogue, 2004, vol. 2, no. 11, p. 8 - 36.
KRAPFL, James Herbert. Revolution with a human face: politics, culture and community in Czechoslovakia 1989--1992. Berkeley: Kalligram, 2009. (TBC pages)
MARK, James. The Unfinished Revolution. Making Sense of the Communist Past in Central-Eastern Europe. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2011. (TBC pages)
VANĚK, Miroslav. A Development of a Green Opposition in Czechoslovakia and the Role of its International Contacts, In HORN, Gerd Rainer - KENNEY, Padraic (eds.). Transnational moments in 20th century. Lanham - Boulder - New York - Toronto - Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. 2004. s. 173 - 188.
VANĚK, Miroslav. Those Who Prevailed And Those Were Replaced: Intervievinw On Both Sides of A Conflict. In: Donald A. Richtie (ed.), The Oxford Handbook Of Oral History. Oxford University Press 2011, pp. 37-50.
VANĚK, Miroslav - MÜCKE, Pavel. Velvet Revolutions: An Oral History of Czech Society. New York - Oxford, Oxford University Press 2016, 264 p.
Course timetable: 1. "Normalization" in Czechoslovakia. Power, opposition and society 2. The world and Europe in the late 60´s and early 70´s. 3. Beginning of "normalization" and the first phase of the opposition. 4. Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, cleansing power elite. 5. Charter 77. 6. Everyday life in the countries in "Eastern Bloc" (economy, environment, education, health. Society in the 70´s and 80´s in Czechoslovakia). 7. Socio-pathological phenomena 70 and 80 years. "Escape to privacy ', cottage subculture, drug addiction, alcoholism and others. 8. Opposition movements in Eastern Europe and Czechoslovakia and 80´s. 9. Young generation during the 80s, "islands of freedom". 10. Communist party in the late 80´s. 11. Student´s movement and the student strike in November 1989. 12. From January demonstrations in Prague in January 1989 to November 1989.
Annotation
This course is concerned with the so-called normalisation period of Czechoslovak history (1968 - 1989) in the historical and anthropological perspective, giving an overview of political elites, the opposition, youth activities, and also various types of "escapes to privacy", in particular the country cottage trend, etc. Lectures will be extended to the international context, especially the common history of the former State the socialist bloc and decision-making powers, the USSR and the USA.
The course also aims to introduce the theoretical issues concerning the employment of various research methods in contemporary history research.