Worlds of ordinariness: Oral histories of everyday life in communist Czechoslovakia

• Authors: Rosie Johnston
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

Just how ordinary was everyday life during normalization in Czechoslovakia? In their discussions of the lives of “ordinary people,” historians have underplayed the fear and secrecy present in the daily experiences of Czechs and Slovaks in the late communist period. In linking writings by dissidents to Czech and Slovak oral histories in the collections of the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library, I seek to problematize the dissident/ordinary person dichotomy used in recent historiography, and argue that the chasm between these two apparently opposite groups has been exaggerated. Through an analysis of the themes of family, education and mobility, I will show that domestic life was not an escape from politics, but was in itself politicized. From audiovisual interviews, I will glean normalization-era memories of the need for what Václav Havel called “silence” and “mystification”-in the classroom, in the pub and in the home.

Keywords

EN

Czechoslovakia; education; emigration; family; normalization; NCSML; oral history

• Publisher: Sciendo
• Journal: Human Affairs
• Year: 2013
• Volume: 23
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 401-415

Dates

published

2013-07-01

online

2013-06-28

Contributors

author

Rosie Johnston

• National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library

References

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Identifiers

DOI

10.2478/s13374-013-0137-1