Vlast, identita, zábava. Pestrá cesta jednou společenskou hrou přelomu 19. a 20. století

• Authors: Jan Mareš

Title variants

EN

Homeland, Identity, Entertainment. A Manifold Journey through one Board Game at the Turn of 19th and 20th Century

• Languages of publication: CS

Abstracts

EN

The paper focuses on the attempt of Czech nationalists to underpin the proper nationalist education of children and youth people by providing a board game that was meant to shape the understanding of what the (Czech) homeland was supposed to be. The first part of the study shows how the rules of the game were constructed. Each player had to name and describe the specificities of the place, where his token set foot; or more precisely, he had to repeat the short description which was available in the rules booklet. Some places were connected with other tasks like singing, reciting or any physical activity by means of which the children’s identity was constructed. The identity was constructed in a performative way, due to the necessity of the „constant utterances“, i. e. the repeating of facts about each place. However, it is not possible to decide what political program the game definitely matched. As a commercial item, the game rather tried to satisfy both, the older political and conservative generation, the so called Old Czech Party, and the members and constituency of the Young Czech Party. On the one hand, the game’s content, a selection and description of places on the plan, was closer to the values of the Old Czech Party. On the other hand, the frame of the game, the map of the board, was rooted in the radical nationalist politics, namely in the demands of territorialization of the Bohemian State Right.

Keywords

EN

nationalism; Bohemian Lands; tourism; childhood; performativity

Discipline

• HISTORY: HISTORY

• Publisher: Masaryk's Institute and Archives, ASCR
• Journal: Střed. Časopis pro mezioborová studia Střední Evropy 19. a 20. století. / Centre. Journal for Interdisciplinary Studies of Central Europe in the 19th and 20th Centuries.
• Year: 2013
• Volume: 5
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 9-29

Contributors

author

Jan Mareš

• Střed, redakce, Masarykův ústav a Archiv AV ČR, v.v.i., Gabčíkova 2362/10, 180 00 Praha 8, Czech Republic