"Peace Dam in the Bohemian Forest": Lipno-Waterwork and Its Role in Building the Czechoslovak Post-war Borderland
Abstract
The paper emphasizes one of the specifics of Lipno-Waterwork: its placement in the region of South Bohemia on the very border with Austria. Until the end of the 1940s, the region was perceived primarily as a backward agrarian area, moreover, severely affected by the post-war displacement of the indigenous German population. The location at the imaginary border of "two worlds" even more underlined the symbolism of Lipno as a "dam of peace". Restrictions joined with the surveillance of state borders, especially the inaccessibility of the lake's right bank, predetermined the specific development of the area in the following decades, which impacts are still visible today.
The paper wants to answer the following questions: What role did the waterwork construction play in the resettlement of the area and in creating a new regional identity? Did it represent a way to deal with the former German character of the area? Finally, what role did Lipno-Dam play as part of the Iron Curtain - as a building on the very border of the capitalist and socialist world?