The Czech Black Book
Author: Historický ústav (Československá akademie věd)
Publisher:
Published: 1969
Total Pages: 324
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis is an hour-by-hour account of the fall of Czechoslovakia by Warsaw Pact armies in 1968.
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The Czech and Slovak Republics
Author: M. Mark Stolarik
Publisher: Central European University Press
Published: 2017-01-01
Total Pages: 380
ISBN-13: 9633861543
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe essays in the book compare the Czech Republic and Slovakia since the breakup of Czechoslovakia in 1993. The papers deal with the causes of the divorce and discuss the political, economic and social developments in the new countries. This is the only English-language volume that presents the synoptic findings of leading Czech, Slovak, and North American scholars in the field.The authors include two former Prime Ministers of the Czech Republic and Slovakia, eight leading scholars (four Czechs and four Slovaks), and eight knowledgeable commentators from North America. The most significant new insight is that in spite of predictions by various pundits in the Western World that Czechia would flourish after the breakup and Slovakia would languish, the opposite has happened. While the Czech Republic did well in its early years, it is now languishing while Slovakia, which had a rough start, is now doing very well. Anyone interested in the history of the Czech and Slovak Republics over the last twenty years will find gratification in reading this book.
Cleansing the Czechoslovak Borderlands
Author: Eagle Glassheim
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
Published: 2017-01-26
Total Pages: 386
ISBN-13: 0822981947
DOWNLOAD EBOOKIn this innovative study of the aftermath of ethnic cleansing, Eagle Glassheim examines the transformation of Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland from the end of the Second World War, through the Cold War, and into the twenty-first century. Prior to their expulsion in 1945, ethnic Germans had inhabited the Sudeten borderlands for hundreds of years, with deeply rooted local cultures and close, if sometimes tense, ties with Bohemia's Czech majority. Cynically, if largely willingly, harnessed by Hitler in 1938 to his pursuit of a Greater Germany, the Sudetenland's three million Germans became the focus of Czech authorities in their retributive efforts to remove an alien ethnic element from the body politic—and claim the spoils of this coal-rich, industrialized area. Yet, as Glassheim reveals, socialist efforts to create a modern utopia in the newly resettled "frontier" territories proved exceedingly difficult. Many borderland regions remained sparsely populated, peppered with dilapidated and abandoned houses, and hobbled by decaying infrastructure. In the more densely populated northern districts, coalmines, chemical works, and power plants scarred the land and spewed toxic gases into the air. What once was a diverse religious, cultural, economic, and linguistic "contact zone," became, according to many observers, a scarred wasteland, both physically and psychologically. Glassheim offers new perspectives on the struggles of reclaiming ethnically cleansed lands in light of utopian dreams and dystopian realities—brought on by the uprooting of cultures, the loss of communities, and the industrial degradation of a once-thriving region. To Glassheim, the lessons drawn from the Sudetenland speak to the deep social traumas and environmental pathologies wrought by both ethnic cleansing and state-sponsored modernization processes that accelerated across Europe as a result of the great wars of the twentieth century.
Czechs, Germans, Jews?
Author: Kateřina Čapková
Publisher: Berghahn Books
Published: 2012
Total Pages: 298
ISBN-13: 0857454749
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe phenomenon of national identities, always a key issue in the modern history of Bohemian Jewry, was particularly complex because of the marginal differences that existed between the available choices. Considerable overlap was evident in the programs of the various national movements and it was possible to change one's national identity or even to opt for more than one such identity without necessarily experiencing any far-reaching consequences in everyday life. Based on many hitherto unknown archival sources from the Czech Republic, Israel and Austria, the author's research reveals the inner dynamic of each of the national movements and maps out the three most important constructions of national identity within Bohemian Jewry - the German-Jewish, the Czech-Jewish and the Zionist. This book provides a needed framework for understanding the rich history of German- and Czech-Jewish politics and culture in Bohemia and is a notable contribution to the historiography of Bohemian, Czechoslovak and central European Jewry.
The Xenophobe's Guide to the Czechs
Author: Petr Berka
Publisher: Xenophobe's Guides
Published: 2008
Total Pages: 0
ISBN-13: 9781902825236
DOWNLOAD EBOOKAll roads lead to Czechia The Czechs seem to believe that the Earth is the center of the Universe, Europe is the centre of the Earth, and Czechia is at the centre of Europe. Reality Czechs The ability to put up with a situation adjusting as needs must has been elevated to an art form. Chuckling Czechs Czech humor is distinguished by mad screams, breast and thigh slapping, and uncontrollable braying. Top of the Czech list The Czechs would like to be seen as the cauldron in which all that's good from West and East melts; and if not the best, then at least one of the top nations in the world.
A Czech Dreambook
Author: Ludvík Vaculík
Publisher: Charles University in Prague, Karolinum Press
Published: 2019-10-01
Total Pages: 576
ISBN-13: 8024638525
DOWNLOAD EBOOKIt’s 1979 in Czechoslovakia, ten years into the crushing restoration of repressive communism known as normalization, and Ludvík Vaculík has writer’s block. It has been nearly a decade since he wrote his last novel, and even longer since he wrote the 1968 manifesto, "Two Thousand Words,” which the Soviet Union used as one of the pretexts for invading Czechoslovakia. On the advice of a friend, Vaculík begins to keep a diary: "a book about things, people and events.” Fifty-four weeks later, what Vaculík has written is a unique mixture of diary, dream journal, and outright fiction – an inverted roman à clef in which the author, his family, his mistresses, the secret police and leading figures of the Czech underground play major roles.
The Precious Legacy
Author: Státní židovské muzeum (Czech Republic)
Publisher: New York : Summit Books ; Washington [D.C.] : Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service
Published: 1973
Total Pages: 930
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOK"The collection of the Czechoslovak State Jewish Museum in Prague is a unique respository of historic artifacts, artistic rarities, and cultural memories. These objects document the vitality and significance of Czech Jewry, which has flourished for a millennium at the crossroads of East and West and is the oldest continuous Jewish community in Europe. One hundred fifty-three local Jewish communities in Bohemia and Moravia were devastated during the Holocaust, and thus the Prague Museum bears eloquent testimony to a world virtually snuffed out just one generation ago. This book brings to American audiences their first glimpse of this extraordinary collection of Judaica in conjunction with an exhibition that is touring our nation's major museums under the auspices of the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service. The unparalleled size and scope of the Prague collection-- some 140,000 treasures in all-- derive from an ironic twist of fate. From 1942 to 1945, the Nazis confiscated Jewish possessions of artistic and historical value throughout Bohemia and Moravia, and while the Jews of these lands were deported to captivity and death, these artifacts were shipped to Prague. There the Nazis intended to establish a "museum to an extinct race," a pathological "research" and propaganda "institute" that would justify to the world the "Final Solution to the Jewish Question." While nearly all of European Jewry vanished during the Holocaust, Prague was spared from wartime destruction, as was the collection of Judaica that by war's end filled eight historic Jewish sites and more than fifty warehouses throughout the city. Teams of distinguished scholars from the United States and Czechoslovakia participated in the research and writing of this text, which includes studies of the historic and religious legacy of Czech Jewry as well as a catalogue of the landmark exhibition "The Precious Legacy." The volume is magnificently designed, depicting beautiful textiles, oil paintings, glassware, porcelain, precious metals, printed books and illuminated manuscripts in 75 full-color and 150 black-and-white illustrations. These photographs and essays together bear witness to the continuity and beauty of Jewish culture, a tradition that sanctifies life and transcends tragedy and death" --Back cover.
Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic in World Politics
Author: Ladislav Cabada
Publisher: Lexington Books
Published: 2011
Total Pages: 243
ISBN-13: 0739167332
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe book focuses on the description and analysis of the historical formation of the Czechoslovak and Czech positions in the international system during the course of the 20th century. The first part of the book presents a brief outline of the history of Czechoslovak foreign policy between the First World War and the end of the Cold War. The authors focus on the key periods and turning points in the role of the small Central European state in the international system as well as on the significant actors formulating Czechoslovak foreign policy from the inside and influencing it from the outside. The second, analytical part of the book focuses on the key issues connected to the change of the position of Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic after 1993 in world politics, and on the formulation of Czech foreign policy priorities and strategies in the globalized world after the end of bipolar confrontation. The authors analytically investigate the activities of the Czech Republic in (Central) European regional integration processes and the integration of the state in the global system of development cooperation. A great deal of attention is paid to the key political actors of the Czech foreign policy discussion and their impact on the formulation of foreign policy goals. Special attention is paid to the dilemmas of Czech foreign policy: the hesitation between the role of a small state and a medium power and also the span of Czech foreign policy between Atlanticism, anti-Americanism and Europeanization.
History of Czechs in America
Author: Jan Habenicht
Publisher:
Published: 1996
Total Pages: 608
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis valuable resource book was written by Dr. Jan Habenicht of Chicago and published by the Hlas Publishing company of St. Louis in 1910. The research of Dr. Habenicht included extensive travel across the entire United States and writing thousands of letters. It was translated into English by Miroslav Koudelka, a member of CGSI, and edited and arranged by Paul M. Makousky, Publication Chair of CGSI. The book has 595 pages (8 1/2" x 11"), is bound by a hardcover and features a beautifully finished metallic blue and white jacket containing a photograph of the Dvorak family in the raspberry field in Minnetonka Township, Minnesota on the front and the Vasko family on their farm near Sun Prairie, Wisconsin on the back. Additions to the book include an index to the illustrations (276 of them), a foreword to the English edition by Paul M. Makousky, a list of the Czech fraternal organizations (appendix II), maps of the 14 states with the largest Czech populations (appendix I), a complete surname index (over 2,400 names), a geographical name index, and a biography of the author. Even if you don't find your family name(s) in this book, it is very valuable in describing the living conditions and experiences of our Czech forbearers from the mid 1800's to 1910. This book provides the most extensive description of Czech life; in religion, among fraternal organizations, in the press, in theater, and in the struggle for maintaining the Czech heritage versus becoming part of the American melting pot. An index listing all surnames in History of Czechs in America was added as a feature to the English edition.
Made in Czechoslovakia
Author: Ruth A. Forsythe
Publisher: Wallace-Homestead Book Company
Published: 1982-01-01
Total Pages: 72
ISBN-13: 9780915410828
DOWNLOAD EBOOKFirst published in 1982, this now-classic book did much to awaken an interest in the glass and pottery made in Czechoslovakia from 1918 to 1938. Highlights include 763 items illustrated in excellent color. The categories feature cased art glass, candy baskets, perfume bottles, puff boxes, lamps, jewelry, and novelties. In addition, there are sections on opaque, crystal, and colored transparent glass, as well as pottery, porcelain, and semi-porcelain. Included is a brief history of Czechoslovakia and a chapter illustrating 37 different trademarks. An up-to-date price guide accompanies the book.
