IDENTITA MODERNÍCH MĚSTSKÝCH SVĚTŮ (PŘÍKLAD PRAHY V OBDOBÍ OD ŠEDESÁTÝCH LET 19. STOLETÍ DO TZV. SAMETOVÉ REVOLUCE (1989))

• Authors: Blanka Soukupová

Title variants

EN

Identity of modern urban worlds (As exemplified by Prague in the period from the 1860s to the so-called Velvet Revolution (1989))

• Languages of publication: CS

Abstracts

EN

The identity of every modern nation city arose not only from its history and traditions, but primarily from delimiting itself in relation to other, different, foreign identities. This delimitation naturally had not only politico-social and cultural repercussions, but also its symbolic level (including the language one). Prague, the capital of the Czech lands, from the 1860s unequivocally a Czech city, had, in its modern history, to delimit itself in relation to states on whose territory it was located. At the same time, however, Prague represent, until 1941, the space where fates of the Czech majority and the German and Jewish structured majorities (mainly they were people who assimilated; from the 1890s the Zionist ideology began to have influence in Prague) met and merged. Jewish Orthodoxy was the minority orientation. This merge of three elements, typical of a number of Central European cities, ended with the tragedy of Jewish transports during the Second World War and the expulsion (from May 1945) and displacement (from January 1946 to the end of that year) of the Prague Germans. The ethnic variety of Prague during the interwar period was supplemented by Ukrainian, Russian and Byelorussian anti-Bolshevik inclined emigration. In contrast to the pre-war situation, after the Communist Revolution of February 1948, Prague was a nationally virtually homogeneous city. The second pillar of Prague identity (alongside its relation to the state) thus created a range of manifestations of national polarization which appeared on the socio-political level, the cultural-political level and also in daily life. The Czech Germans were thus the most important group compared to whom the Czechs nationally delimited themselves. Except during the Hitler period, respect for the Germans from Germany prevailed. In the era of the Sovietized city, then, the construct of the missing internal national enemy was replaced by the construct of the enemy imperialist camp compared to which the exemplary socialistic Prague was forced to define itself with no less intensity. As the third cornerstone of Prague identity one can consider Europeanness, in which, however, until the end of the monarchy, Germany represented all of European though, from the end of the 1860s, nascent Czech foreign politics counted on the cooperation of France and Russia. Until the tragic post war division of Europe into East and West the old continent was connected with progressive values and traditions of which every Praguer was to be proud. Europe was considered a society of equal nations without regard to their size and Prague itself was considered the heart of Europe, actually an intermediary between West and East Europeanness. The fourth important pillar of Pragueness became the relation of the city to modernization; this pillar, however, was connected to the critics of national politics of the previous state.

Keywords

EN

IDENTITY; CITY OF PRAGUE; NATIONALITIES; TRADITION; MODERNISATION; HISTORY; CZECH REPUBLIC; EUROPE

• Publisher: Institute of Ethnology, Slovak Academy of Sciences
• Journal: Slovenský národopis (Slovak Ethnology)
• Year: 2013
• Volume: 61
• Issue: 4
• Pages: 338 – 350

Contributors

author

Blanka Soukupová

• Univerzita Karlova v Praze, Fakulta humanitních studií, U kříže 8, 158 00, Praha 5-Jinonice, Czech Republic