The Czechoslovak Political Trials of the 1950s: Trauma and Post-memory in the Story of a Political Prisoner’s Son

2015 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 108-122
Author(s):  
Michal Louč
Keyword(s):  
Oral History ◽  
Turning Point ◽  
Severe Trauma ◽  
Political Prisoners ◽  
Limited Information ◽  
Childhood Memories ◽  
Trauma Narratives ◽  
Main Trial ◽  
Political Trials ◽  
The City

The article contributes to the historiography of the Czechoslovak communist dictatorship. The Communist takeover and stabilization of the regime were connected with various kinds of oppression including political trials. The biggest political trial in that time was that with the female politician Milada Horáková and the twelve members of her resistance group. This trial was followed by dozens of smaller local trials around the country, accusing 627 people altogether. While the main trial was carried publicly and was used extensively in the state’s propaganda, the local trials remain almost forgotten and outside the interest of Czech public. This paper will focus on one of them and its impact on my narrator and his family.Antonín Městecký jr. was a child when his father Antonín Městecký was imprisoned for 11 years after a local show trial in the city of Hradec Králové in East Bohemia. The imprisonment of his father was his strongest childhood experience; when his father returned home, the son was already an adult and they both kept silent about the traumatic past. They never discussed what really happened in the time of the father’s imprisonment, creating a severe trauma for the son. How can the turning point in someone’s life be remembered if we have only limited information?Using the methods of oral history, this paper explores how Mr. Městecký tries to deal with this gap in his family’s history by extending his childhood memories with information told to him by members of his father’s resistance group or found in books and archives. In the methodology, I will also reflect on how sharing his story with me constituted bridging the gap. His narrative contains rich accounts of life and survival as well as interesting moments and silences, revealing the complexities of trauma narratives and their effect on the descendants of former political prisoners.

Case Study: Rome's House of Memory and History: The Politics of Memory and Public Institutions

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alessandro Portelli
Keyword(s):  
Oral History ◽  
Cultural Policy ◽  
Public Institutions ◽  
Politics Of Memory ◽  
Political Events ◽  
History Of ◽  
Ambitious Program ◽  
The City

This article centers around the case study of Rome's House of Memory and History to understand the politics of memory and public institutions. This case study is about the organization and politics of public memory: the House of Memory and History, established by the city of Rome in 2006, in the framework of an ambitious program of cultural policy. It summarizes the history of the House's conception and founding, describes its activities and the role of oral history in them, and discusses some of the problems it faces. The idea of a House of Memory and History grew in this cultural and political context. This article traces several political events that led to the culmination of the politics of memory and its effect on public institutions. It says that the House of Memory and History can be considered a success. A discussion on a cultural future winds up this article.

Aachen — the Second Rome: a City as a Symbol of Power in Poetic Carolingian Texts

Istoriya ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (9 (107)) ◽  
pp. 0
Author(s):  
Maya Petrova
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Turning Point ◽  
Early Middle Ages ◽  
Poetic Tradition ◽  
Narrative Poetry ◽  
The Third ◽  
Epic Poem ◽  
The City

The paper deals the construction of Aachen as a symbol of the power of Charlemagne (742/4 — 814). It discusses the poetic Carolingian texts, which played an important role in the formation of the medieval ideology of the unity of the City and the power of its creator. It is shown that the most striking example of the statement of such a worldview is the third book (v. 1—536) of the anonymous epic poem (not fully preserved), known in the early Middle Ages under the title “Charlemagne and Pope Leo” (Karolus Magnus et Leo Papa). It is noted that this text, containing a description of the construction of the Second Rome — Aachen, influenced the subsequent Carolingian poetic tradition, serving as a turning point in the development of narrative poetry during the reign of Charlemagne.

The Historical Emergence of Replication

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Haim Goren
Keyword(s):  
Sea Level ◽  
Turning Point ◽  
Field Work ◽  
Dead Sea ◽  
Critical Importance ◽  
Additional Insight ◽  
Precise Location ◽  
Work Analysis ◽  
The City ◽  
Insight Into

This chapter explores the importance of replication for a crucial historical turning point, when new and progressive scientific measurements of physical locations were being developed. Revisiting a location is of necessary and critical importance when replicating research in the lab or the field, but identifying a precise location can be surprisingly problematic. Geography includes the study and identification of where objects are located and how they are arranged in space. Whether identifying spreads of emergent diseases or distribution of genetically distinct populations, we use maps and topographic contours. The maps used today are the result of over a millennium of repeated field work, analysis, and interpretation that provides additional insight into the process of replication. In this chapter, this process of geographic replication and its criteria of success are illustrated with two examples: the repeated mapping of the city of Jerusalem and the attempt to measure accurately the elevation of the Dead Sea relative to sea level. These examples also reveal multiple motives for repeated exploration and study.

scholarly journals The "Art" of the Right to the City: Interdisciplinary Teaching and Learning in Pointe-St-Charles

2016 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 387-418 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathleen Vaughan ◽  
Emanuelle Dufour ◽  
Cynthia Hammond
Keyword(s):  
Community Engagement ◽  
Oral History ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Right To The City ◽  
Interdisciplinary Teaching ◽  
Concordia University ◽  
The Right ◽  
Oral History Interview ◽  
The City ◽  
Teaching Initiative

What does it mean for artists within academia to make art, teach and learn with and in community, in particular the challenged and challenging Montreal neighborhood of Pointe-St-Charles? This article addresses community engagement in "The Point" from the perspectives of a doctoral student and two instructors involved in "The Right to the City" (TRTC), a three-year, interdisciplinary, placed-based teaching initiative of Concordia University (Montreal). Showcasing the student’s graphic novella, based on the oral history interview of a longtime resident, this article affirms the importance of reciprocity—learning with rather than about—within academic and artistic outreach.

Moose Jaw’s Tunnel Vision: Mystery, History, and the Construction of “Canada’s Most Notorious City”

2021 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
pp. 54-83
Author(s):  
Ashleigh Androsoff
Keyword(s):  
Turning Point ◽  
Tourist Attraction ◽  
Tunnel Vision ◽  
Award Winning ◽  
The City ◽  
Incorrect Information

The Tunnels of Moose Jaw is a tourist attraction that presents an award-winning but highly problematic interpretation of Moose Jaw’s early 20th-century history. This article explains how the Tunnels of Moose Jaw constructed a successful and compelling presentation of local legends centered around the claim that “notorious” Chicago-based gangster Al Capone hid out beneath Moose Jaw during Prohibition. With scant evidence to prove this and other claims, the attraction has blurred the lines between “history” and “legend.” Unfortunately, the attraction’s focus on incorrect information has made it difficult for Moose Jaw’s residents and visitors to understand what aspects of the city’s history are truly noteworthy. This article argues that the Tunnels of Moose Jaw and its many local supporters successfully boosted the city’s economy, confidence, and reputation at a crucial turning point in the late 20th century, but did so by presenting the city and its history as something other than what it really is.

Speaking to the ‘Hard Men’: Masculinities, Violence and Youth Gangs in Glasgow, c. 1965–75

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Angela Bartie ◽  
Alistair Fraser
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Identity Formation ◽  
Oral History ◽  
Lived Experiences ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Youth Gangs ◽  
Masculine Identity ◽  
Popular Representations ◽  
Oral History Interviews ◽  
The City

This chapter unites perspectives from history and sociology in excavating the lived experiences of everyday masculinities and violence that lie behind the persistent image of the Glasgow ‘hard man’, while also interrogating popular representations of the ‘hard city’. Drawing on oral history interviews with individuals involved in violent territorialism – specifically through street-based ‘gangs’ of young men – c. 1965-1975, it contrasts popular representations of the Glasgow ‘hard man’ with the lived experiences of those living and working in the city at that time. Focusing specifically on Easterhouse, it highlights the prominence of ‘the street’ in narrative accounts of masculine identity formation for young working-class men and links this to the specific social, cultural and economic composition of the locale. Overall, it argues that such ‘street’ masculinities should be understood in historical context, recognising the influence of local cultures of machismo on the persistence of forms of masculine identity.

The originality of the “estate topos” in the A.N. Tolstoy’s novel “Peter the First”

2020 ◽  
pp. 262-272
Author(s):  
Anna S. Akimova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Everyday Life ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Childhood Memories ◽  
Research History ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Peasant Household ◽  
History Of ◽  
Ancient Times ◽  
Poor Peasant ◽  
The City

Moscow is the city which united the characters of A.N. Tolstoy’s novel “Peter the First”. Kitay-Gorod is the space where the action of the first book is mainly set. In the novel Tolstoy showed in great detail the everyday life of the city and its inhabi- tants. According to the I.E. Zabelin’s research (“History of the city of Moscow”) in late 17 — early 18 th centuries Moscow was like a big village that is why Tolstoy relied on his childhood memories about the life in the small village Sosnovka (Samara Region) describing the streets of Moscow. The novel begins with the description of a poor peasant household of Brovkin near Moscow, then Volkov’s noble estate is depicted and Menshikov’s house. The space of the city is expanding with each new “address”. Moscow estates, and in particular, connected with the figure of “guardian, lover of the Princess-ruler” V.V. Golitsyn, in Tolstoy’s novel are inextricably linked with the character’s living and with the life of the country. The description of the palace built by Golitsyn at the peak of his career is based on the Sergei Solovyov’s “History of Russia in ancient times”. Golitsyn left it and went to his estate outside Moscow Medvedkovo and from there in exile.

scholarly journals From city streets to suburban woodlands: the urban planning debate on children's needs, and childhood reminiscences, of 1940s–1970s Helsinki

Urban History ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Veera Moll ◽  
Hanna Kuusi
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Urban Planning ◽  
Childhood Memories ◽  
Independent Mobility ◽  
World War ◽  
Rapid Urbanization ◽  
Outdoor Activities ◽  
City Structure ◽  
High Level ◽  
The City

AbstractFinnish children today enjoy a relatively high level of independent mobility. This article discusses how different urban planning professionals defined children's needs in a post-World War II Helsinki that was undergoing rapid urbanization, and how these discourses relate to childhood memories of the time. The emphasis on family by the planning professionals led to major changes in the city structure, including developed play areas, safer streets and shorter distances to schools. This study suggests that a dominant understanding of the importance of outdoor activities has contributed to the relatively stable level of independent mobility of the children in Helsinki.

Discovering dimensions of research ethics in doing oral history: going public in the case of the Ghent orphanages

2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 294-306 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lieselot De Wilde ◽  
Griet Roets ◽  
Bruno Vanobbergen
Keyword(s):  
Research Ethics ◽  
Oral History ◽  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Ethical Challenges ◽  
Going Public ◽  
Historical Interpretation ◽  
Staff Members ◽  
History Of ◽  
The City ◽  
Second World

In this article, we argue that research ethics in the doing of oral history research are inadequately addressed in the existing body of research. Although oral history researchers have paid considerable attention to procedural ethical issues, there is currently a lack of attention on situational research ethics in the doing of oral history. We address particular ethical challenges that we experienced while reconstructing the history of three remaining orphanages after the Second World War in the city of Ghent (a city in Flanders, the Dutch speaking part of Belgium) by drawing on oral history research from former orphans and ex-staff members. Their rather surprising, yet pertinent, questions enabled us to discover the political nature of research ethics, and prompted us to engage in ‘going public’. We discuss the complexities of our attempt to provide a ‘questionable’ historical interpretation for the ambiguous history of these childhood institutions in the recent past.

A View from the Muslim Arabic Press, 1928: The International Missionary Conference in Jerusalem

Exchange ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 180-205
Author(s):  
Deanna Ferree Womack
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Sensitivity ◽  
Turning Point ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Local Response ◽  
British Mandate ◽  
City Of God ◽  
Missionary Movement ◽  
International Missionary Council ◽  
The City

This essay situates the 1928 meeting of the International Missionary Council (imc) in Jerusalem in the historical context of British Mandate Palestine. Mission historians represent this conference as a turning point in the ecumenical missionary movement because delegates rejected Euro-centrism and demonstrated openness to partnerships with members of other faiths. Beyond the gates of the conference grounds where British soldiers stood guard, however, Palestinian Muslims and Christians expressed a different view of this gathering in the city of God. Arabic newspapers covered the widespread protests against the meeting, but imc publications gave little attention to this local response. Blinded by the inspiring Biblical scenery below, John Mott and other imc leaders failed to exhibit the sort of cultural sensitivity many delegates advocated behind the closed doors of their hilltop conference.

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