'The 'Proton Pseudos' of Our Life After May 1945': Czech Protestants and the Expulsion of Sudeten Germans
Abstract
In this volume on violence and national reconstruction in the post-war context, the case study of the existence of Czech Protestants on the border between Czech- and German-speaking milieus offers a sort of counter-example capturing an isle of continuously non-violent relations (based on anti-violent discourse) in a sea of dramatic conflicts between two linguistic communities inhabiting the Bohemian lands until the mid-1940s. After briefly presenting the first act of this unfolding drama at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, it focuses on Protestant reactions to the post-war explosion of ethnically motivated violence, when this particular minority had to walk a fine line between its national and religious roots and also its place in the wider community of Christian churches assembled in the ecumenical World Council of Churches.
Finally, it examines some of the long-term effects of these phenomena in relation to the position of the Czech Protestant milieu in Czech society.