The Anti-communist Resistance in Czechoslovakia in a Pedagogical Perspective

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F75112779%3A_____%2F21%3A00004973" target="_blank" >RIV/75112779:_____/21:00004973 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

<a href="https://www.schoeningh.de/view/book/9783657703043/BP000017.xml" target="_blank" >https://www.schoeningh.de/view/book/9783657703043/BP000017.xml</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.30965/9783657703043_012" target="_blank" >10.30965/9783657703043_012</a>

Result language

angličtina

Original language name

The Anti-communist Resistance in Czechoslovakia in a Pedagogical Perspective

Original language description

In this chapter, we draw on a project called ‘The third resistance in a pedagogical perspective’. We pay attention to the armed anti-communist resistance in Stalinist Czechoslovakia from 1948–1953. A review of available literature finds the topic to be of only marginal interest to international academia. In the case of domestic research, we find a number of deficiencies, especially when concentrating on single case studies: a low level of attention to the conceptual grip of the topic, and often an uncritical acceptance of the way anti-communist resistance was ‘co-created’ by the political police. We propose more precision in the conceptual grip based on the approach of Einwohner and Hollander. Their approach systematically uses a nexus defined by a trio of the actors’ intent and recognition of the resistant behaviour by its target and audience. We further enhance this approach by adding a time layer. In our view, the controversy around anti-communist resistance is productive material from a pedagogical point of view. That is why we investigate the phases and shapes of the production of cultural memory in this regard, taking the birth of the term ‘third resistance’ as one example. Our analysis shows an incongruence between the widely accepted notion of collective trauma present in post-communist societies representing the memory of victims and the memory of active anti-communist resistance. The dynamic of the phenomenon after 1989 is illustrated by the legal acknowledgement of the anti-communist resistance coming only after 2010. The section of the chapter that deals with the educational application of anti-communist resistance uses the methodology of teaching using controversial approaches developed by Diana Hess and Alan McCully. Its basic principles are applied in the two subsequent case studies and include inquiry-based learning using primary and secondary sources, multi-perspective approach, uncovering moral dilemmas in historical context and leaving controversial and incongruent aspects unsmooth (not romanticising the stories). The case studies deal with the so-called Masin brothers’ case and an unarmed protest against the collectivisation of agriculture in the small Czech town of Dobruška. Both studies start with a short overview of the story and develop further using the pedagogical goals and methods associated with these pieces of material in education. Perhaps the best-known case of armed resistance by the Masin brothers is complemented by a completely different story of the non-violent protest of farmers of the Dobruška region in 1949, against violent collectivisation. While the political motives of the armed protest of the Masin brothers are unquestionable and the form of resistance was overt, in the case of Dobruška, political motives were largely ascribed to the protesters in retrospect. The reasons behind this selection are twofold: they might allow for different educational goals, and show us that violent resistance is only one type of resistant behaviour; in Czechoslovak history, in particular, rather a rare one.

Czech name

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Czech description

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Type

C - Chapter in a specialist book

CEP classification

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OECD FORD branch

60101 - History (history of science and technology to be 6.3, history of specific sciences to be under the respective headings)

Project

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Continuities

V - Vyzkumna aktivita podporovana z jinych verejnych zdroju

Publication year

2020

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Book/collection name

Violent Resistance: From the Baltics to Central, Eastern and South Eastern Europe 1944–1956

ISBN

978-3-506-70304-0

Number of pages of the result

27

Pages from-to

218-244

Number of pages of the book

457

Publisher name

Ferdinand Schöningh, Brill

Place of publication

Panderborn

UT code for WoS chapter

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