Two outstanding Catholic politicians, Jan Šrámek and Bohumil Stašek, members of the People’s Party, and their political activities in Czechoslovakia between the two world wars are examined and compared in the study. Their personal and political career reflects not only the peripeteia of the political and religious situation in the First Czechoslovak Republic, characterized by a strong influence of the secularization and anti-Catholic wave existing in the country, but also the regional differences between Bohemia and Moravia. Their common denominator consisted in the efforts aimed at improving the negative view of Catholicism in the nation’s eyes. In spite of these common efforts, however, each of them chose to follow a different way in practical political work. Šrámek compressed the Catholic political program in the narrow limits of short-time and often defensive solutions, and was able to achieve a compromise even with his ideological opponents, which helped the Party score important political points, but it was also a target of criticism by some Catholic circles. Stašek differed from Šrámek by his endeavor to formulate clear ideological concepts and rather offensive political ideas that were often based on the Pope’s revival program for the Church. These features gave later rise to ideological differences between the People’s Party Members and resulted in a political and power struggle inside that party of political Catholicism.
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The Munich Agreement represents one of the most fundamental events in modern Czech history. Because of the topic´s resonance amongst the public, it also became an important part of propaganda during the ensuing Communist regime. The political instrumentalization of the Munich events was utilised to provide ideological support and justification of both the internal and external political initiatives of Communist power. This study aims to analyse the ways and means of reflection of these historical events in Rudé právo as the principal press propaganda organ of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. The manner in which the consequences of the Munich Agreement were reported in this daily paper represented one of the ideological constants on which the regime based its legitimacy. Its editorials stereotypically assessed the consequences and causes of the Munich Agreement as evidence of the inability of the non-Communist parties to defend the independence and sovereignty of the state and to justify the alliance with the Soviet Union. Yet, understandably, external circumstances changed throughout the forty year existence of Communist supremacy during which constant reminders of 1938 Munich were invoked. The culmination of these propaganda efforts is particularly evident in the 1950s and in the first half of the 1960s. However, the year 1968 is another important milestone, when, after the August invasion, Rudé právo attempted to restore the positive image of the Soviet Union through the pro-regime interpretations of the Munich trauma. Following the conclusion of the December 1973 Agreement between the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic and the Federal Republic of Germany, which also addressed the disputed issues concerning the interpretation of the Munich Agreement, propaganda aspects did somewhat retreat into the background and Rudé právo and other Communist mass media devoted themselves primarily to the historical contexts of this event, although intentional reflections on the Munich of 1938 continued to be used for propaganda purposes, also.
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This study deals with the life story of Bishop Joseph Hlouch in the context of the dramatic political, social and religious changes of the 20th century – during the interwar Czechoslovak Republic, in the post-war period and during the existence of the Communist regime from its takeover in 1948 to the period of “normalization” after the Warsaw Pact invasion.
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