Paradygmat czeskiego bohatera narodowego – wokół filmu Roberta Sedláčka Jan Palach

Czech national hero paradigm – around Robert Sedláček’s film Jan Palach In my article, I would like to reflect on the paradigm of Czech heroism based on the film by Robert Sedláček (2018) Jan Palach, which is a fact-based tale of a twenty-year-old student at the Charles University in Prague, who on January 16, 1969 self-immolated in Wenceslas Square in the centre of Prague in protest against aggression of the Warsaw Pact forces on Czechoslovakia and the growing apathy of Czechoslovak society. I will think about how his image is constructed in a film more than fifty years after his death. I will place my considerations in the context of the tradition of presenting the Czech hero in humanistic literature and the activities of official state institutions, as well as in relation to mythological structures, through which I will capture the most important elements of the composition of Robert Sedláček’s film. As a consequence, my fundamental research question will remain not only the question of the very construction of the hero, but also this construction in relation to other ideas of national heroes in contemporary Czech culture. Streszczenie W swoim artykule chciałbym się zastanowić na paradygmatem czeskiego bohaterstwa na podstawie filmu Roberta Sedláčka Jan Palach (2018), będącego opartą na faktach opowieścią o dwudziestojednoletnim studencie Uniwersytetu Karola w Pradze, który 16 stycznia 1969 roku dokonał samospalenia na placu Wacława w centrum Pragi, w proteście przeciwko agresji wojsk Układu Warszawskiego na Czechosłowację i narastającej apatii czechosłowackiego społeczeństwa. Zastanowię się nad tym, w jaki sposób konstruowany jest jego obraz w dziele filmowym niemal pięćdziesiąt lat po jego śmierci. Swoje rozważania umieszczę w kontekście refleksji nad czeskim bohaterem narodowym w literaturze humanistycznej w odniesieniu do działalności oficjalnych instytucji państwowych oraz do struktur mitologicznych, poprzez które uchwycę najistotniejsze elementy kompozycji filmu Roberta Sedláčka. W konsekwencji moim zasadniczym pytaniem badawczym pozostanie nie tylko kwestia samej konstrukcji bohatera, ale również jej relacja do innych wyobrażeń bohaterów narodowych we współczesnej kulturze czeskiej.

TRADE UNION MOVEMENT IN THE FIRST CHECHOSLOVATSKIY REPUBLIC IN THE PERIOD FROM 1918 TO 1924

The economic development and political structure of Czechoslovakia after the end of the First World War are analyzed. The attention is focused on the peculiarities of the functioning of trade unions in the republic. Specific features of the trade union movement are defined - fragmentation and influence of political parties. The process of implementation by trade unions of its direct functions - mediation between large capital and workers, improvement of the status of employees - is highlighted.The methods of Czechoslovak trade unions' implementation of these functions are described, which can be divided into three groups: direct actions, instruments of social reconciliation, auxiliary measures. It is noted that the influence of trade unions during 1918-1924 as a speaker of the interests of the workers increased significantly. This is evidenced by the statistics of the won labor disputes and successful strikes of employees. However, the fragmentation of trade unions, which eventually intensified, did not allow a dialogue between the worker and the state more rational, which eventually led to a decrease in the intensity of the strike movement and a decrease in the level of trust in trade unions in the working environment.The main cause of this phenomenon was the disparity of the Czechoslovak society due to national, religious and political heterogeneity.

Two Chords of Apocalypse. La Saletta and The Sign of Power by Jan Zahradnicek

The article is concerned with two major poetic works by the Czech author Jan Zahradníček from 1947 and 1951. In this very diffi cult period, he created two fundamental texts in which he expressed his skepticism about the development of the post-war Czechoslovak society dominated the communist regime. These poetic compositions, however, remain a unique testimony to the attempt to defend an endangered conservative attitude and to offer a diagnosis of the time, characterized by a great social optimism, on the one hand, and an awareness of destruction, on the other.

Rozhlasové Reportáže Josefa Laufera z Mistrovství Světa Ve Fotbale 1934 a Jejich Ohlas v Československu

The present paper focuses on how the Czechoslovak society received and reacted to the live radio broadcasting of FIFA World Cup in 1934. The public listening to the running commentaries raised the interest in sports among new social strata and in new geographic areas of the then Czechoslovakia. Radio broadcastings undoubtedly provoked a higher sensibility of listeners, as the example examined in this paper of the spread of rumours concerning the death of several Czechoslovak players, proved. The last part of the present paper looks at how the broadcasting of FIFA World Cup became a Czechoslovakian site of memory.