"Kult čísla" jako determinanta sociálního statusu i každodennosti příslušníků základní vojenské služby v období tzv. normalizace

• Authors: Karel Altman

Title variants

EN

The "Cult of Number" as a determinant of social statute and everyday life of military service soldiers in the period od "normalization"

• Languages of publication: CS

Abstracts

EN

The length of the already completed period of military service played an unofficial but exceptionally important role in the everyday practice of a military service (MS) soldier conscripted into the army for two years (730 days). The period that was getting always shorter and that remained to their return to civilian life (the “number”) significantly or even fundamentally strengthened the real position of a MS soldier within military community in barracks premises, and especially in a partial segment thereof (at the level “platoon, company”), a part of which the MS soldier was. The number was important for creating his ongoing social statute, mainly it determined the classification of a soldier in a clearly defined category (rookie, senior on fatigue duty, old sweat, super old sweat etc.), on which his position within the community of MS soldiers was dependent. The number was a symbol of the above-mentioned variable process, and a lot of essential attributes, which left significant marks on the everyday life in barracks and outside them, related to it. The importance of this number was big enough to be called the “cult of number”.

Keywords

EN

Czechoslovak People´s Army; military service; everyday life; normalization

Discipline

• ETHNOLOGY: ETHNOLOGY

• Publisher: Czech Ethnological Society
• Journal: Národopisný věstník
• Year: 2020
• Volume: 37_(79)
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 44-70
• Document type: ARTICLE

Contributors

author

Karel Altman

• Česká národopisná společnost, z. s., Národní třída 3, 117 20 Praha 1, Czech Republic