In the past couple of decades the social sciences have paid much
attention to the topic of boundaries and boundary regions. The present article analyses the changes in the discursive assessment of the Czech-Saxon boundary after 1989. It focuses on the transformation of the national and transnational culture and politics of history related to boundaries, cross-border regions and
cross-border interactions. The interplay of the socio-political transition with its discursive implications and the application of new methods and concepts in social sciences (boundary and identity studies, spatial turn etc.) created conditions for a significant
modification of the approach to boundaries and boundary regions. Concentrating on the public and academic discourse, the article assesses the conceptualization and representation of the
Czech-Saxon boundary in political and public rhetoric, historiography and museology. and Článek zahrnuje poznámkový aparát pod čarou
Cross-border cooperation between Czechs and Germans is currently evolving in numerous areas. In recent years, the mining tradition has become the common denominator of cross-border activities in the Ore Mountains region. The study deals with this aspect of Czech-Saxon cross-border cooperation primarily from the perspective of regional development and tourism. It focuses on the Silver Road and its role in contemporary Czech-Saxon cross-border activities. As a symbol of shared heritage, the Silver Road exemplifies the so-called spatial turn, i.e. the cultural-social dimension of cross-border
cooperation.
The article seeks to present the Silver Road as an example of cross-border cooperation in tourism/destination management and to enrich that cooperation based on a survey of local residents. It strives to determine the importance of the role in public awareness played by this specific tourism product, namely the Silver Road and the mining heritage as a whole, what Czechs and Saxons know about this local tradition and the neighbouring country’s traditions. It is concluded by summarizing the potentials and deficits of the Silver Road’s destination management.
The study presents the results of a questionnaire survey implemented in mid-2016 which focused on the mining theme and its potential for Czech-Saxon cross-border activities and cooperation. The survey targeted local residents in communities along the Silver Road. 350 questionnaires were collected in the Czech Republic and 550 in Saxony. Quota sampling was applied, with minor deviations in terms of age and distribution of the population in the Czech sample due to the Silver Road’s small geographical coverage. Since the stakeholders on both sides of the border are planning to include these sites in the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites, we need to study the attitudes of local residents to determine whether this is
lived heritage.
The article demonstrates that the mining theme plays an important role in the practice of cross-border cooperation between the Czech Republic and the Free State of Saxony. A cross-border activity with such high ambitions as UNESCO listing cannot be found elsewhere in the Czech borderland. While the Saxon side exhibits a considerably higher intensity of cross-border activities, Ore Mountains residents in both countries are little aware of the ways the mining heritage is being developed in the neighbouring country. Most of the respondents do not know the neighbouring country’s mining
heritage sites. Based on this finding, we argue that cross-border marketing communication needs to be improved, and this applies both to the Saxon institutions dealing with regional development and tourism and to entities at the level of the Karlovy Vary and Ústí nad Labem regions. Moreover, CzechTourism, as the key agency of central government responsible for marketing communication and destination management in the Czech Republic, should probably get involved in these activities as well. Finally, cross-border destination management needs to be encouraged. Bilingual activities should perhaps be undertaken because the language barrier continues to pose a relatively major obstacle to Czech-Saxon cross-border
cooperation, a fact also revealed by previous studies. In addition to these promotional activities, marketing communication needs to be elaborated more comprehensively to better tap the possibilities of new media. Inspiration can be drawn from similar activities or areas with cross-border destination management.
The Patent of Toleration of the year 1781 cleared the way for activities of two Protestant churches in the Habsburg Monarchy. In the two borderland regions chosen for analysis - the regions of Děčín and Šluknov - the Protestant inhabitants were affected by the religious influences from Saxony that acquired various forms. From the period before the year 1620 there was, exceptionally, preserved the Lutheran religion, whose followers visited churches on the Saxon side of the border. Also, the regions were continuously settled by Saxon immigrants who were not organized within the structures of the Augsburg confession. Only after the commencement of industrialization and the subsequent wave of Saxon immigration was made possible the establishment of independent Protestant choirs. Absolutely exceptional was the Lutheran choir of Saxon officials in Podmokly that was founded after railroad had been finished in 1851. Already before the year 1850 the mission of the renewed Unity of Brethren from Herrnhut instigated the popular religious movement. At the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth century, religious propaganda of the movement „Away from Rome“ (Los von Rom), in many cases supported from Saxony, found response in these regions. The typology of religious influences from Saxony and their manifestations on the Bohemian side of the border, established on the basis of the examples of Děčín and Šluknov regions, could be used for the nineteenth century also for other borderland regions inhabited predominantly by German-speaking population.