This thesis analyses the position of the Czech National Front in late-normalisation Czechoslovakia. The National Front brought together authorised political parties and various mass organisations. It was a critical legitimizing instrument of the authoritarian government of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia during the communist period. T he thesis outlines the attempt of the Czechoslovak communists to meet the demands of democratisation during the period of perestroika in the late 1980s by the more active National Front and its associated organisations. Archival documents of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia and the National Front, together with contemporary media, show how important propaganda role the more active Czech National Front was to play. The reality was that the Communists did not allow other parties and organisations associated with the National Front to have a fundamentally greater share of political power until November 1989. Paradoxically, it was only at the end of 1989 that the Czech National Front really sought an independent position in the political system. But by then the National Front had only a few months of political life left.
The paper deals with the post-November development of media coverage of the anniversary of the end of the World War II and related socio-political contexts. With the sociology of sources, it tries to find actors who were essential for the formation of media texts during the anniversary. Subsequently, the work attempts to describe the historian’s changing position as a source of expert knowledge in media texts related to the end of World War II, especially in connection with politicians, historians and witnesses’ presence in media texts. The work also tries to define the historian’s role in today’s mass media production and describe historian’s communication possibilities in today’s media logic.
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