Meliorace v českých zemích od poloviny 19. století do konce 50. let 20. století

• Authors: Svoboda Libor

Title variants

EN

Reclamation in the Czech Lands from the Mid-19th Century to the End of the 1950s

• Languages of publication: CS

Abstracts

EN

Between 1948 and 1989, large-scale drainage and improvement works were carried out every year in the former Czechoslovakia, which ultimately completely changed the face of the Czech Lands’ landscape. Streams, rivulets, baulks, field shrubs, dirt roads, “useless” meadows and pastures, small ponds, wetlands and swamps disappeared. In its first part, the study focusses on a brief description of the development and characteristics of land reclamation in the Czech territory from the 19th century to 1948. In its second part, it pays attention to a quite short but – from the point of view of the development of land reclamation works in the former Czechoslovakia – a very important period from 1948 to the end of the 1950s. During this time the Czech countryside experienced enormous and revolutionary property and social changes as a result of totalitarian communist policies. The private sector was, with few exceptions, liquidated, agricultural production was controlled, centralized and gradually industrialised. The way was opened for massive amelioration interventions, which became one of the symbols of the Communist regime‘s rule over the Czech and Moravian countryside, was open.

Keywords

EN

Landscape intervention; land reclamation; water management; rural collectivization; communist Czechoslovakia

• Publisher: The National Institute of Folk Culture
• Journal: Národopisná revue (Journal of Ethnology)
• Year: 2023
• Volume: 33
• Issue: 4
• Pages: 275 - 287

Contributors

author

Svoboda Libor