By providing the genuinely new „networked“ understanding of exile, this study aims to rewrite significantly the story of Czechoslovak political emigration and re-assess its functioning mostly by means of a tool so far ignored in this field: The Social Network Analysis. According to the dominant historiographical narrative, the Czechoslovak exile followed mostly political goals and was structured as an hierarchy with the Council of Free Czechoslovakia being the supreme body initially respected by most (though not by all) fractions within the exile movement across the globe. That is why the historical research, rather one-sidedly, focused upon the institutional history, biographies of political leaders and ideological debate within political parties in exile. The study argues that the traditional approach needs a substantial revision. Though initially designed as a state-like hierarchy with pyramidal decision-making procedures (with coordinating power vested in the Council of Free Czechoslovakia) the exile soon transformed itself into a horizontal and rather informal network of loosely interconnected and mutually collaborating units and individuals across the globe. The „network thesis“ is demonstrated upon the model analysis of František Váňa’s and Přemysl Pitter’s communication webs being part of the long-term research of Czechoslovak exile networks, 1948–1989.
The exile organization Opus Bonum has become more widely known by organizing the symposiums in the Bayern town Franken. Especially the first meeting in February 1978 became a milestone in the history of the association and one of the most important activities of exile after the Soviet occupation in 1968. On a common platform debated the representatives of so-called "winners" together with "losers" from February 1948, e.g. Zdeněk Mlynář and Pavel Tigrid The focus of the organization thus changed from the original cultural-religious one to a discussion meeting with a strong political accent. We will examine how and why this change occurred and how the new concept influenced Opus Bonum itself and also the Czech exile milieu in Western Europe.
The study focuses on the Prague exile of the last crowned French king Charles X in 1832–1836. It notices the popularization reflection of the king’s stay, which originated in the Czech milieu from the end of the 19th century. It arises from the memoirs of Charles’s contemporaries (including members of his exile court and Josef Rudolph of Wartburg, son of the inspector of Prague Castle, etc.), from reports of the Prague Police Directorate, a collection of reports submitted to Chancellor Metternich, from materials on the accommodation and furnishings options of Prague Castle and from the related results of art-historical research of the New Palace of the castle, where the king stayed with his family and a small court. It deals with the king’s interaction with the milieu of the Czech lands. Last but not least, it then deals with the upbringing of Charles’s grandson Henry, in which František Palacký and Joachime Barrande, among others, participated.
For the exiles, who were active co-workers of the exile organization Opus Bonum, the phenomenon of the home was one of the most important issues in life. We will examine how this fact influenced the attitudes of the Opus Bonum meeting's participants. We are interested in how much it was a conscious or, on the contrary, unreflected inspiration and whether its application in different social positions differs. We will outline the influence of the idea of a happy home on further work in exile on the examples of the priest Anastáz Opasek, lay Catholic activist Vladimír Neuwirth and art theorist Petr Spielmann.
This text captures one the lesser-described epizodes of relations between Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, i. e. the relations of these countries during the World War Two. Since 1943, agile Partyzans have become the main Yugoslav political current that the Czechoslovak exile government has dealed with and was considered by it to be competent to rule the postwar Yugoslavia. The Czechoslovaks have done so at the expense of relations with the exile régime headed by the king Petar II. In this paper, I describe the transfer of Czechoslovak focus from the exile government to the homeland-based Partyzans. An analysis of causes, context and consequences of this Czechoslovak policy is also included.
A conference on Scholars in Exile and Dictqatorships of the 20th Century took place at National Technical Museum in Prague from May 24-26, 2011 exhibited the debilitating brain drain that a resulted from the 1918 Russian Revolution, the Nazi era and post-war communist oppression. The story is grim, though not entirely negative, since significant intellectual consequences of the upheaval also occurred during those periods. and Antonín Kostlán.