The politics of memory: Constructing national identity in the Czech lands, 1945 to 1948

East European Politics and Societies

Volumn 14, Issue 2, 2000, Pages 246-266

  Wingfield, Nancy M ^a  

^a Woodrow Wilson Center   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 0034414738     PISSN: 08883254     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/0888325400014002002     Document Type: Review

References (70)

1. Milan Kundera, Book of Laughter and Forgetting (New York: Penguin, 1986), 158.
2. Peter Burke, "History as Social Memory, "in Thomas Butler, ed., Memory: History, Culture and the Mind (Oxford, U.K.: Basil Blackwell, 1989), 108.
3. There was not just the loss to Nazi Germany of the German-dominated border lands in October 1938, but also the ceding of the Hungarian and Subcarpatho-Ruthenian regions, as well as the formation of the Slovak puppet state on 15 March 1939. On national memories in the modern period, see for example James Fentress and Chris Wickham, Social Memory (Oxford, U.K.: Basil Blackwell, 1992), 127-37.
4. On "otherness" and the "enemy, "see Vilho Harle, "On the Concepts of the 'Other' and the 'Enemy, '" History of European Ideas 19:1-3 (1994): 27-34.
5. See Beneš's comments at a commemorative service in Lidice on 10 July 1945, in Archiv kanceláře presidenta republiky [hereafter AKPR], sign. D 8346/47 (Lidice), mv. č. 1488, č.j. D97/45 and Svobodné slovo, 12 June 1945, 1. Lidice is the village some ten miles north of Prague whose name became synonymous with Nazi barbarism when on 10 June 1942, the Nazis executed its entire adult male population and some of its women in retribution for the assassination of Reichsprotektor Reinhard Heydrich. See AKPR, sign. 503664/49 (Odsun Němců z ̌SR) for numerous anonymous letters about the expulsion, including the one cited, dated 6 April 1946; and Svobodné slovo, 29 May 1945, 2, quoting Winston Churchill.
6. Maurice Halbwachs, Introduction to The Collective Memory (New York: Random House, 1980), 25. The literature on collective memory, which I think is instrumental to understanding the postwar creation of national communism in Czechoslovakia, has expanded exponentially during the past decade. Pierre Nora's multi-volume Les Lieux de mémoire [Realms of memory] (Paris: Editions Gallimard, 1984-1992), which draws upon the foundational works of Halbwachs and Frances Yates, is among the most ambitious projects on the topic. Recently, historians have begun attempting to construct a theoretical framework for collective memory, see for example Alon Confino, "Collective Memory and Cultural History: Problems of Memory, "American Historical Review 102: 5 (December 1997): 1386-1403; and Daniel J. Sherman, "Art, Commerce, and the Production of Memory in France after World War I, "in John R. Gillis, ed., Commemorations: The Politics on National Identity (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1994), 186.
7. Maurice Halbwachs, Introduction to The Collective Memory (New York: Random House, 1980), 25. The literature on collective memory, which I think is instrumental to understanding the postwar creation of national communism in Czechoslovakia, has expanded exponentially during the past decade. Pierre Nora's multi-volume Les Lieux de mémoire [Realms of memory] (Paris: Editions Gallimard, 1984-1992), which draws upon the foundational works of Halbwachs and Frances Yates, is among the most ambitious projects on the topic. Recently, historians have begun attempting to construct a theoretical framework for collective memory, see for example Alon Confino, "Collective Memory and Cultural History: Problems of Memory, "American Historical Review 102: 5 (December 1997): 1386-1403; and Daniel J. Sherman, "Art, Commerce, and the Production of Memory in France after World War I, "in John R. Gillis, ed., Commemorations: The Politics on National Identity (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1994), 186.
8. Maurice Halbwachs, Introduction to The Collective Memory (New York: Random House, 1980), 25. The literature on collective memory, which I think is instrumental to understanding the postwar creation of national communism in Czechoslovakia, has expanded exponentially during the past decade. Pierre Nora's multi-volume Les Lieux de mémoire [Realms of memory] (Paris: Editions Gallimard, 1984-1992), which draws upon the foundational works of Halbwachs and Frances Yates, is among the most ambitious projects on the topic. Recently, historians have begun attempting to construct a theoretical framework for collective memory, see for example Alon Confino, "Collective Memory and Cultural History: Problems of Memory, "American Historical Review 102: 5 (December 1997): 1386-1403; and Daniel J. Sherman, "Art, Commerce, and the Production of Memory in France after World War I, "in John R. Gillis, ed., Commemorations: The Politics on National Identity (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1994), 186.
9. The Communists repeatedly made this claim to reinforce the memory of the Soviet Union's historic role in the liberation of Czechoslovakia; see Rudé právo, 8 November 1945, 1.
10. See for example the front-page articles in Pravda (Bratislava), the party newspaper of the Slovak Communists, beginning in late July and continuing throughout August, publicizing the upcoming commemoration of the SNP. See "Národ vzdává čest národnímu hrdinovi, "Rudé právo, 10 November 1945, 1, for an account of the state funeral held for Šverma in Prague.
11. On Masaryk's idea of Czechs and Slovaks as two branches of one Slavic nation, see Roman Szporluk, The Political Thought of Thomas G. Masaryk (Boulder, Col.: East European Monographs, 1981), 139. In National Conflict in Czechoslovakia: The Making and Remaking of a State, 1918-1987 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1988), 154, Carol Skalnik Leff notes that two-thirds of the Czechs polled in a 1946 Gallup Survey considered the Czechs and Slovaks to be branches of the same nation.
12. On Masaryk's idea of Czechs and Slovaks as two branches of one Slavic nation, see Roman Szporluk, The Political Thought of Thomas G. Masaryk (Boulder, Col.: East European Monographs, 1981), 139. In National Conflict in Czechoslovakia: The Making and Remaking of a State, 1918-1987 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1988), 154, Carol Skalnik Leff notes that two-thirds of the Czechs polled in a 1946 Gallup Survey considered the Czechs and Slovaks to be branches of the same nation.
13. Eric Hobsbawm, Nations and nationalism since 1780: Programme, myth, reality (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press; 1990), 135.
14. The text of the Košice Agreement appeared in Czech and Slovak newspapers in the spring of 1945. The section of the agreement addressing the future Czech-Slovak relationship has been published as Document 41 in the appendix of Jozef Lettrich, History of Modern Slovakia (Toronto: Slovak Research and Studies Centre, 1985), 317-18.
15. For David's comments, see Svobodné slovo, 18 May 1945, 1; for the others, ibid., 24 May, 1945, 1.
16. For David's comments, see Svobodné slovo, 18 May 1945, 1; for the others, ibid., 24 May, 1945, 1.
17. See Leff, National Conflict in Czechoslovakia, 212-20; Karel Kosík, introduction to The Crisis of Modernity: Essays and Observations from the 1968 Era, ed. by James H. Satterwhite (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1995), 4. In A History of Slovakia: The Struggle for Survival (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1995), Stanislav J. Kirschbaum argues that Czech (and some Slovak) politicians followed a Prague-centered, "Czechoslovakist" agenda even after the downfall of communism.
18. See Leff, National Conflict in Czechoslovakia, 212-20; Karel Kosík, introduction to The Crisis of Modernity: Essays and Observations from the 1968 Era, ed. by James H. Satterwhite (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1995), 4. In A History of Slovakia: The Struggle for Survival (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1995), Stanislav J. Kirschbaum argues that Czech (and some Slovak) politicians followed a Prague-centered, "Czechoslovakist" agenda even after the downfall of communism.
19. See Leff, National Conflict in Czechoslovakia, 212-20; Karel Kosík, introduction to The Crisis of Modernity: Essays and Observations from the 1968 Era, ed. by James H. Satterwhite (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1995), 4. In A History of Slovakia: The Struggle for Survival (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1995), Stanislav J. Kirschbaum argues that Czech (and some Slovak) politicians followed a Prague-centered, "Czechoslovakist" agenda even after the downfall of communism.
20. On the basis of a subsequent population transfer agreement between Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union, those Carpatho-Rusyns in the Prešov region, which was not annexed by the Soviets, were permitted to emigrate to the Ukraine in 1947-48, where they settled mainly in the lands abandoned by those Volhynian Czechs who went to the Czech borderlands to replace the recently expelled Germans. See Paul Robert Magosci, The Rusyns of Slovakia (Boulder, Col.: East European Monographs, 1993), 94-95.
21. Zdeněk Fierlinger's speech in the Provisional Parliament, Prozatimní národní shromáždění republiky Českodovenské [Provisional National Assembly of the Czechoslovak republic], 30 October 1945, 3-4.
22. Literature on the expulsion - both the unofficial, "wild" expulsion between May and November 1945, with its numerous cases of summary judgment and cruelty, and the official, "organized" transfer between January and November 1946 - of the Germans is legion. Among the best recent work in Czech is Tomáš Staněk, Odsun Němců z Československa, 1945-1947 [The expulsion of the Germans from Czechoslovakia, 1945-1947] (Prague: Academia-Naše vojsko, 1991). The most thoughtful new work on the topic in English is Eagle Glassheim's article, "National Mythologies and Ethnic Cleansing: The Expulsion of Czechoslovak Germans in 1945, "Central European History (forthcoming).
23. Literature on the expulsion - both the unofficial, "wild" expulsion between May and November 1945, with its numerous cases of summary judgment and cruelty, and the official, "organized" transfer between January and November 1946 - of the Germans is legion. Among the best recent work in Czech is Tomáš Staněk, Odsun Němců z Československa, 1945-1947 [The expulsion of the Germans from Czechoslovakia, 1945-1947] (Prague: Academia-Naše vojsko, 1991). The most thoughtful new work on the topic in English is Eagle Glassheim's article, "National Mythologies and Ethnic Cleansing: The Expulsion of Czechoslovak Germans in 1945, "Central European History (forthcoming).
24. Chebsko, 11 August 1945.
25. Foreign commentators remarked early on that the mass expulsion was not only an anti-Nazi measure but also a national one. See the numerous reports in foreign newspapers as well as newspaper clippings dating from 1946 in AKPR, sign. D10195/47 (Wenzel Jaksch). See also Okresni archiv Cheb, fond 314, kart. 89, inv. č. 518.
26. Continuing Slovak sensitivity on the issue of its Hungarian minority is reflected in recent popular publications. See for example Ladislav Deák's pamphlets, Political Profile of János Esterházy and Trianon: ilúzie a skutečnost' [Trianon: illusion and reality] (Bratislava: Kubko Goral, 1995); and Augustín Marko and Pavol Martinický, Slovak-Magyar Relations: History and Present Day in Figures(Bratislava: Signum for Slovak Society for Protection of Democracy and Humanity, 1995).
27. Volkszählung m der Čechoslovakischen Republik vom 1 Dezember 1930 [Census of the Czechslovak Republic of 1 December, 1930], vol. 98 (Prague: Čechoslovakische Statistik, 1934); Milan Kučera and Zdeněk Pavli'k, "Czech and Slovak Demography, "in The End of Czechoslovakia (Jiři Musil, ed. Budapest: Central European University, 1995), 31.
28. Volkszählung m der Čechoslovakischen Republik vom 1 Dezember 1930 [Census of the Czechslovak Republic of 1 December, 1930], vol. 98 (Prague: Čechoslovakische Statistik, 1934); Milan Kučera and Zdeněk Pavli'k, "Czech and Slovak Demography, "in The End of Czechoslovakia (Jiři Musil, ed. Budapest: Central European University, 1995), 31.
29. See the government circulars from Ministerstvo zemědělství 23 March 1945 and Ministerstvo dopravě 22 December 1945, AKPR, sign. D 2981/1947 (Němci v ČSR).
30. th Congress of the KSČ] (Prague, n.d. [1945 or 1946]).
31. th Congress of the KSČ] (Prague, n.d. [1945 or 1946]).
32. Czech and Slovak historians, including Karel Kaplan, The Short March: The Communist Takeover in Czechoslovakia, 1945-1948 (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1987), 28, have traditionally described the new settlers as the "lowest social strata" of Czechoslovak society. Such a description fails to take into account the officials - railroad, school, and the like - who migrated to the border regions to replace the former German administrators. Jiří Slama, "Das Wahlverhalten der Neusiedler in der Parlamentswahl von 1946 in Böhmen" [The electoral behavior of the new settlers in the 1946 parliamentary vote in Bohemia], Bohemia 28:2 (1987): 370, identifies the new residents as landless agricultural workers who wanted German farms. One recent guide, "Teplice: Führer durch die Stadt und Ihre Geschichte" [Teplice: A guide to the city and its history] (n.d. 1992?), also comments on the expectations of the many new settlers of "easy enrichment." The local National Committees kept detailed records on both the expellees and the new settlers and these reflect a variety of ages and occupations among the new settlers. See for example Archiv města Ústí nad Labem [hereafter AMÚL], "Seznam nespolehlivých osob … "Okresní národní výbor, inv. ć. 1213, kar. 349.
33. Czech and Slovak historians, including Karel Kaplan, The Short March: The Communist Takeover in Czechoslovakia, 1945-1948 (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1987), 28, have traditionally described the new settlers as the "lowest social strata" of Czechoslovak society. Such a description fails to take into account the officials - railroad, school, and the like - who migrated to the border regions to replace the former German administrators. Jiří Slama, "Das Wahlverhalten der Neusiedler in der Parlamentswahl von 1946 in Böhmen" [The electoral behavior of the new settlers in the 1946 parliamentary vote in Bohemia], Bohemia 28:2 (1987): 370, identifies the new residents as landless agricultural workers who wanted German farms. One recent guide, "Teplice: Führer durch die Stadt und Ihre Geschichte" [Teplice: A guide to the city and its history] (n.d. 1992?), also comments on the expectations of the many new settlers of "easy enrichment." The local National Committees kept detailed records on both the expellees and the new settlers and these reflect a variety of ages and occupations among the new settlers. See for example Archiv města Ústí nad Labem [hereafter AMÚL], "Seznam nespolehlivých osob … "Okresní národní výbor, inv. ć. 1213, kar. 349.
34. In "National Memory: The Duty to Remember, the Need to Forget, "Society 32:6 (September/October 1995), Ronald Koven discusses French adversaries who want "only a single, certified National Memory [of the Second World War] - their own, of course." Historians of postwar Czechoslovakia helped in the propagation of a "new" history of the border regions by writing "Czech" rather than "Bohemian" history. See Jan Křen, Die Konfliktgemeinschaft: Tschechen und Deutsche, 1780-1918 (Munich: Old enbourg, 1996), 19. On the lack of historical continuity in border regions with overwhelmingly new populations, see Milan Augustin, "Sudetská zemé a mladá česka generace/Das Sudetenland und die junge tscheche Generation" [The Sudetenland and the young Czech generation] in Češi a Němci ztracené dějiny?/Tschechen und Deutsche verlorene Geschichte? [Czechs and Germans: lost history?] (Prague: Nadace Bernarda Bolzana/Ackermann Gemeinde, 1995), 294-98.
35. In "National Memory: The Duty to Remember, the Need to Forget, "Society 32:6 (September/October 1995), Ronald Koven discusses French adversaries who want "only a single, certified National Memory [of the Second World War] - their own, of course." Historians of postwar Czechoslovakia helped in the propagation of a "new" history of the border regions by writing "Czech" rather than "Bohemian" history. See Jan Křen, Die Konfliktgemeinschaft: Tschechen und Deutsche, 1780-1918 (Munich: Old enbourg, 1996), 19. On the lack of historical continuity in border regions with overwhelmingly new populations, see Milan Augustin, "Sudetská zemé a mladá česka generace/Das Sudetenland und die junge tscheche Generation" [The Sudetenland and the young Czech generation] in Češi a Němci ztracené dějiny?/Tschechen und Deutsche verlorene Geschichte? [Czechs and Germans: lost history?] (Prague: Nadace Bernarda Bolzana/Ackermann Gemeinde, 1995), 294-98.
36. In "National Memory: The Duty to Remember, the Need to Forget, "Society 32:6 (September/October 1995), Ronald Koven discusses French adversaries who want "only a single, certified National Memory [of the Second World War] - their own, of course." Historians of postwar Czechoslovakia helped in the propagation of a "new" history of the border regions by writing "Czech" rather than "Bohemian" history. See Jan Křen, Die Konfliktgemeinschaft: Tschechen und Deutsche, 1780-1918 (Munich: Old enbourg, 1996), 19. On the lack of historical continuity in border regions with overwhelmingly new populations, see Milan Augustin, "Sudetská zemé a mladá česka generace/Das Sudetenland und die junge tscheche Generation" [The Sudetenland and the young Czech generation] in Češi a Němci ztracené dějiny?/Tschechen und Deutsche verlorene Geschichte? [Czechs and Germans: lost history?] (Prague: Nadace Bernarda Bolzana/Ackermann Gemeinde, 1995), 294-98.
37. See Kundera on the Prague Spring and the phenomenon of socially organized forgetting: Book of Laughter, 7.
38. Svobodné slovo, 23 May 1945, 1.
39. The literature on this topic is vast. See Bohumil Černý, et. al., Češi Němci odsun. Diskuse nezávislých historiků [Czechs, Germans, expulsion. Discussion of the independent historians] (Prague: Academia, 1990). Moreover, the decision of the Czech Constitutional Court in Brno on 9 March 1995 to let stand the decrees that served as the legal basis for both the postwar seizure of German and Magyar property and for the expulsion of the Germans and Magyars generated a wide-ranging discussion on the topic in both the Czech Republic and Germany. See articles, editorials, and letters to the editor in Lidové noviny, Rudé právo, and Süddeutsche Zeitung.
40. Czechoslovak Ministry of Information and Public Culture, "The Constitution of the Czechoslovak Republic, "trans. by F.O. Stein (Prague: Orbis, 1948).
41. Burke, "History as Social Memory, "108.
42. Nazi German place naming was governed by the "Ausf.-Anw. zur VO. über die Benennung von Strassen, Plätzen und Brücken, "Ministerial-Blatt des Reichs- und Preussischen Ministeriums des Innern [Ministerial paper of the imperial and Prussian ministry of the interior], Jahr 4/100 Nr. 30, Berlin, 26 July 1939, 152. Copy in AKPR, sign. T1170/21 (Praha-obec a magistrát), č.j. T30 1/39. In Prague, the slow changing of place names to bring them into conformity with the language ordinance was a source of irritation to the Reichsprotector. See other documents in T 1170/21, dating from 17 June and 27 September 1940. This naming and renaming of streets has been so pervasive in the history of Prague that some residents of the capital facetiously claim that one byway has been christened "Street of Political Error. "See also Kundera on the fate of Černokostelecká Avenue, Marshal Foch Avenue, Stalin Avenue, finally Vinohrady Avenue, all the same street, Book of Laughter, 158.
43. Nazi German place naming was governed by the "Ausf.-Anw. zur VO. über die Benennung von Strassen, Plätzen und Brücken, "Ministerial-Blatt des Reichs- und Preussischen Ministeriums des Innern [Ministerial paper of the imperial and Prussian ministry of the interior], Jahr 4/100 Nr. 30, Berlin, 26 July 1939, 152. Copy in AKPR, sign. T1170/21 (Praha-obec a magistrát), č.j. T30 1/39. In Prague, the slow changing of place names to bring them into conformity with the language ordinance was a source of irritation to the Reichsprotector. See other documents in T 1170/21, dating from 17 June and 27 September 1940. This naming and renaming of streets has been so pervasive in the history of Prague that some residents of the capital facetiously claim that one byway has been christened "Street of Political Error. "See also Kundera on the fate of Černokostelecká Avenue, Marshal Foch Avenue, Stalin Avenue, finally Vinohrady Avenue, all the same street, Book of Laughter, 158.
44. One of the interesting aspects of the relative improvement of relations between the Czechs and the Germans they expelled is the Czech willingness to permit the Germans to maintain some of their former cemeteries in the border regions - for a fee.
45. AKPR, sign. 128663/52 (Pomníky a památníky), memorandum from the Okresní akčni výbor NF spolu s výborem pro zřízení památníky RA a všemi složkami NF ve Výškově, 25 May 1952.
46. See Alan Radley, "Artefacts, Memory and a Sense of the Past, "in David Middleton and Derek Edwards, eds., Collective Remembering (London: Sage Publications, 1990), 57; and Avner Ben-Amos, "Monuments and Memory in French Nationalism, "History and Memory 5:2 (Fall/Winter 1993): 51.
47. See Alan Radley, "Artefacts, Memory and a Sense of the Past, "in David Middleton and Derek Edwards, eds., Collective Remembering (London: Sage Publications, 1990), 57; and Avner Ben-Amos, "Monuments and Memory in French Nationalism, "History and Memory 5:2 (Fall/Winter 1993): 51.
48. "Zákon na ochranu republiky" [Law for the defense of the republic], Sbírka zákonů a nařzení statu československého [Collection of laws and decrees of the Czechoslovak state], 50/1923 (Prague, 1923), 207-17.
49. Kundera speaks of "disappeared" statues of Masaryk, too: "After T.G. Masaryk, who is known as the liberator-president (all his monuments without exception have been demolished) …" (Book of Laughter, 158). On disappearing statues, including both those of Joseph Stalin and Masaryk, see also Vladimír Macura, Masarykové boty a jiné semi(o)fejotony [Masaryk's shoes] (Prague: n.p., 1993); and in general Zdeněk Hojda and Jiří Pokorný, Pomníky a zapomníky [Monuments and forgetting], 2nd ed. (Prague: Paseka, 1997).
50. Kundera speaks of "disappeared" statues of Masaryk, too: "After T.G. Masaryk, who is known as the liberator-president (all his monuments without exception have been demolished) …" (Book of Laughter, 158). On disappearing statues, including both those of Joseph Stalin and Masaryk, see also Vladimír Macura, Masarykové boty a jiné semi(o)fejotony [Masaryk's shoes] (Prague: n.p., 1993); and in general Zdeněk Hojda and Jiří Pokorný, Pomníky a zapomníky [Monuments and forgetting], 2nd ed. (Prague: Paseka, 1997).
51. Kundera speaks of "disappeared" statues of Masaryk, too: "After T.G. Masaryk, who is known as the liberator-president (all his monuments without exception have been demolished) …" (Book of Laughter, 158). On disappearing statues, including both those of Joseph Stalin and Masaryk, see also Vladimír Macura, Masarykové boty a jiné semi(o)fejotony [Masaryk's shoes] (Prague: n.p., 1993); and in general Zdeněk Hojda and Jiří Pokorný, Pomníky a zapomníky [Monuments and forgetting], 2nd ed. (Prague: Paseka, 1997).
52. In 1945, the Czechs destroyed the statue of German composer Richard Wagner, erected on a pedestal in the square in 1930 to replace one of Habsburg emperor Joseph II which Czechs had toppled in autumn 1919. The pedestal then stood empty again until 1962, when a statue of the Czech national composer Bedřich Smetana was put up, only to be replaced in 1971 by a statue of Gottwald. The pedestal has again been empty since 19 January 1991, when following repeated defacement in the wake of the Velvet Revolution, Gottwald was unceremoniously carted off to the city dump. Lidové noviny, TV and R insert, 25 September 1993, 4.
53. On the inscription, see Muzeum města Ústí nad Labem, negative collection; on how a monument can acquire various connotations, see Ben-Amos, "Monuments and Memory, "History and Memory, 51.
54. See AKPR, sign. 504840/49 (Pomníky a památníky), 105094/49, 509999/49 for a discussion of the reconstruction of the statue of the dead miner.
55. This pedestal had originally been designed for a statue of Emperor Joseph II which stood there from 1913 to 1920. Since 1989, a second inscription, "To the Victims of Communism, "has been added to the pedestal-memorial.
56. Okresní archiv Karlových varech, měst NVKV, kart. 38, Okresní národní výbor v karlových varech, "Odstranění symbolů, pomniků, oznacění a podpřípomnajících dobu nesvobody."
57. Rumor has it that since 1989, many of the busts of Gottwald, formerly found in public buildings, have begun to grace Czech country cottages, a variety of postcommunist garden gnome.
58. See "Přehled dosud realizovaných pomníků a památníků významným událostem (přehled všech plastik, majících politický charakter - mimo pomníky a památníky funkcionářům KSČ a MDH, busty a pamětní desky)" in AMÚL, Okresní Národní Výbor [hereafter ONV], 1945-1954, inv. č. 959, k. 255. In Prague, Soviet Tank 23 -which had long since ceased to remind residents of their liberation by the Russians in 1945, but rather served as a reminder of the Warsaw Pact invasion in August 1968 -has been removed. It became the focus of much public debate in late April 1991, after art student David Černý gave it a coat of pink paint, and was eventually relocated to the military museum, Lidové noviny (Prague) and Mladá fronta dnes (Prague), 28 April-18 May, 1990.
59. See Barry Schwartz, "Social Change and Collective Memory: The Democratization of George Washington, "American Sociological Review 56 (April 1991): 221-22.
60. AKPR, sign. 310204/50 (Pomníky a památníky), inv. č. 2231.
61. See William Cohen, "Symbols of Power: Statues in Nineteenth-Century Provincial France, "Comparative Study of Society and History 3 (1989): 495; and Eric T. Jennings, "Monuments to Frenchness? The Memory of the Great War and the Politics of Guadeloupe's Identity, 1914-1945, "French Historical Studies 21:4 (Fall 1998): 561-92. On ceremonies for the unveiling of statues, see the reports of various okresní akční výbory NF during the late 1940s and early 1950s in AKPR, sign. 128663/52 (Pomníky a památníky). On monuments, meaning, and the construction of state socialism, see Rubie S. Watson, "Memory, History, and Opposition: An Introduction, "in Rubie S. Watson, ed., Memory, History, and Opposition (Santa Fe, N.M.: School of American Research Press, 1995), 4; and Emil Brix and Hannes Stekl, ed., Der Kampf um das Gedächtnis: Öffentliche Gedenktage in Mitteleuropa [The struggle for memory: public commemoration days in Central Europe] (Vienna: Böhlau, 1997).
62. See William Cohen, "Symbols of Power: Statues in Nineteenth-Century Provincial France, "Comparative Study of Society and History 3 (1989): 495; and Eric T. Jennings, "Monuments to Frenchness? The Memory of the Great War and the Politics of Guadeloupe's Identity, 1914-1945, "French Historical Studies 21:4 (Fall 1998): 561-92. On ceremonies for the unveiling of statues, see the reports of various okresní akční výbory NF during the late 1940s and early 1950s in AKPR, sign. 128663/52 (Pomníky a památníky). On monuments, meaning, and the construction of state socialism, see Rubie S. Watson, "Memory, History, and Opposition: An Introduction, "in Rubie S. Watson, ed., Memory, History, and Opposition (Santa Fe, N.M.: School of American Research Press, 1995), 4; and Emil Brix and Hannes Stekl, ed., Der Kampf um das Gedächtnis: Öffentliche Gedenktage in Mitteleuropa [The struggle for memory: public commemoration days in Central Europe] (Vienna: Böhlau, 1997).
63. See William Cohen, "Symbols of Power: Statues in Nineteenth-Century Provincial France, "Comparative Study of Society and History 3 (1989): 495; and Eric T. Jennings, "Monuments to Frenchness? The Memory of the Great War and the Politics of Guadeloupe's Identity, 1914-1945, "French Historical Studies 21:4 (Fall 1998): 561-92. On ceremonies for the unveiling of statues, see the reports of various okresní akční výbory NF during the late 1940s and early 1950s in AKPR, sign. 128663/52 (Pomníky a památníky). On monuments, meaning, and the construction of state socialism, see Rubie S. Watson, "Memory, History, and Opposition: An Introduction, "in Rubie S. Watson, ed., Memory, History, and Opposition (Santa Fe, N.M.: School of American Research Press, 1995), 4; and Emil Brix and Hannes Stekl, ed., Der Kampf um das Gedächtnis: Öffentliche Gedenktage in Mitteleuropa [The struggle for memory: public commemoration days in Central Europe] (Vienna: Böhlau, 1997).
64. See William Cohen, "Symbols of Power: Statues in Nineteenth-Century Provincial France, "Comparative Study of Society and History 3 (1989): 495; and Eric T. Jennings, "Monuments to Frenchness? The Memory of the Great War and the Politics of Guadeloupe's Identity, 1914-1945, "French Historical Studies 21:4 (Fall 1998): 561-92. On ceremonies for the unveiling of statues, see the reports of various okresní akční výbory NF during the late 1940s and early 1950s in AKPR, sign. 128663/52 (Pomníky a památníky). On monuments, meaning, and the construction of state socialism, see Rubie S. Watson, "Memory, History, and Opposition: An Introduction, "in Rubie S. Watson, ed., Memory, History, and Opposition (Santa Fe, N.M.: School of American Research Press, 1995), 4; and Emil Brix and Hannes Stekl, ed., Der Kampf um das Gedächtnis: Öffentliche Gedenktage in Mitteleuropa [The struggle for memory: public commemoration days in Central Europe] (Vienna: Böhlau, 1997).
65. Connerton, How Societies Remember, 9-10.
66. Kundera, Book of Laughter, 158.
67. Masaryk's speech of 22 December 1918 has been widely reprinted. Havel made his remarks in a speech at the Karolinum of the Charles University in Prague on 17 Feb-ruary 1995.
68. "Introduction, "Collective Remembering, 10.
69. Ernest Renan's "Qu'est-ce qu'une nation?" [What is a nation?] (1882) has been republished in Homi Bhabha, ed., Nation and Narration (London: Routledge, 1990).
70. See Derek Saver's account of how Franz Kafka and his lover-translator, Milena Jesenská, are commemorated today with Café Milena located above the Franz Kafka Center on Old Town Square (Staroměstské náměstí), "The Language of Nationality and the Nationality of Language: Prague 1780-1920, "Past and Present 153 (November 1996): 210.