Battle for the castle: the myth of czechoslovakia in europe, 1914-1948

Battle for the Castle examines the conscious creation and dissemination of Czechoslovakia's reputation as Eastern Europe's <"native democracy>" by its country's leaders. Since 1918, Czechoslovakia has been known as East-Central Europe's most devoted democracy, an outpost of Western values in the East. While the country has had more democratic experience than its neighbors, this book argues that the claim that Czechs are <"native democrats,>" devoted to liberal ideas, emerged from nationalist myth. Battle for the Castle tells the story of that myth's creation during the First World War, used to persuade the Great Powers to createCzechoslovakia out of pieces of Austria-Hungary. Tom%s Masaryk and Edvard Bene%s, the two academics crafting the myth and employing it for wartime propaganda, became Czechoslovakia's first president and prime minister. They tried to use the myth to outmaneuver political opponents at home and Czechoslovakia's enemiesabroad. Those enemies, and the European Great Powers, also conducted their own propaganda campaigns targeting Czechoslovakia as a symbol of the postwar order. At home, while proclaiming themselves the protectors of democracy, Masarykand Bene%s played political hardball through their powerful political machine, the <"Castle,>" and defended their legacy against their detractors. 1938 and Nazi occupation seemed to prove out the Castle myth's claims about pacifist Czechs andaggressive Germans. During the war, Bene%s remade the myth to reflect changedinternational circumstances, particularly the Soviet Union's new power. Afterthe war and the 1948 Communist takeover of Czechoslovakia, the myth entered Anglo-American historiography of Czechoslovakia and Eastern Europe. Within academic historiesof Czechoslovakia - many of them written by Masaryk's students or Castle colleagues - the myth was transmuted into fact. Introduction The Golden RepublicChapter One Myth and WartimeChapter Two The CastleChapter Three Battles of the Legend-MakersChapter Four Difficulties AbroadChapter Five A Time of Iron and FireEpilogueAbbreviations and DefinitionsNotesIndex

• ISBN: 978-0-19-984346-6
• Editorial: Oxford University
• Encuadernacion: Rústica
• Páginas: 302
• Fecha Publicación: 25/08/2011
• Nº Volúmenes: 1
• Idioma: Inglés