> COH > Grant projects

current:
 

Cottagers: Social Aspects of a s Subculture in Everyday Life Studies in the So-Called Normalization Period.
GA AV ČR B 800630704, funded with 356 tis. Kč, 2007-2009

The principal theme of the suggested research project represents the analysis of cottage dweller subculture, which spread massively around Czechoslovakia in the second half of 20th century. The project focuses on developments and spreading of this specific phenomenon during the normalization era with special regards to its influence on every day´s life of Czechoslovak citizens at that time. Cottaging as a form of recreation is not typical only in Czechoslovakia, but also in other European countries. Summer or weekend houses are spread in France, Switzerland, Spain or Scandinavia. In the western Europe cottaging had a different character, the main difference was its social exclusivity. In Czechoslovakia everyone could have a cottage and in a certain period (70s and 80s) cottages were even scarce commodities.

Social and Political Aspects of Existence and Development of Independent Music Genres and Trends in the Czech Republic from the sixties until 1989.
GA AV ČR A 800630604, funded with 1.205 mil. Kč, 2006-2009

The project as submitted aims to make our knowledge on penetration of new music forms and genres, rock music in particular, into Czech millieu, their local distribution and enrichment by original production from sixties until 1989. Its priory target is to follow how did this type of music affect two or three generations of young people, how was affected their style of life and their approaches under the conditions of totalitarian regime, which despised the existence and attempted to deny it by ideological arguments, while attempting to limit these phenomena by means of power. The applicant aims also to specify how the development proper did interconnect with the growing trends and tendencies of independent thinking and demonstration inside the younger generation of Czech society.

concluded:

An Investigation in the Czech Society of the „Normalization“ Era: Biographic Narrations of Workers and Intelligentsia.
GA ČR 409/06/0878, funded with 1.842 mil. Kč, 2006-2008

The research project as submitted aims was to realize interviews with members of the “less-visible“ strata groups of the Czech population during the so-called „normalization“ era by means of oral history method. Principal attention was drawn to development and changes in opinion and attitude of the working class as well as the intelligentsia towards the normalization regime. Narrators from the worker professions were selected among those working in small as well in large enterprises, in various field of industry. Members of intelligentsia, i.e. university graduates were recruited among teachers, physicians, scientists, artists, justice apparatus, or former management. Due attention was paid to an appropriate regional dispersion as well as generation stratification of these parts of population. Collection, archive keeping and the subsequent analysis and interpretation of these interviews (narrations) was considered as an urgent task due to higher age of potential narrators; if unrecorded, the recent history research would be impoverished of their irreplaceable experience. During the project were finally recorded 113 inverviews – 61 with „working-class“ members a 51 with „inteligentsia-class“ members. From the gender point of view were interviewed 59 male-narrators and 54 female-narrators.

Political Elites and Dissent During the Period of the So-Called Normalization - Biographic Interviews.
GAČR 409/02/1156, funded with 2.777 mil. Kč, 2002-2004

The main aim of the project was to obtain biographical stories of some ex-communistic officials and dissidents. The narrators were given a list of topics and the team who conceived it tried to draw near not only the life stories of the narrators, but also the ways and means of communistic regimes, the places and situations which involved political decisions, perhaps even the ways of communication between the dissidents (opossition groups) of various alignments both in the center and in the regions. The communists‘ or dissidents‘ narrations threw new lights on matters such as their every day’s life, leisue activities, family and friendships, individual activities and hobbies. The interviewers wanted to know how the narrators from both groups spent their „normal“ days, how they experienced their everyday’s life, how their office influenced their personal and family life or their relations and friendships outside work, their material status or life-style in general.

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Students in the Period of the Fall of Communism - Life Stories
GA AV ČR A 9063601, funded with 893 000 Kč, 1996-1998

Students played a key role during the fall of communism in the Czech Republic. They belonged to a generation which didn’t experience the Prague spring and wasn’t traumatized by the defeat and the consequent depression and resignation. Its relation towards the regime and the dissent was also influenced by the generation factor. The existing researches paid considerable attention to students, but their motives and attitudes were never sufficiently explained.
The aim of the project was to analyse the motives and causes of this generation’s behaviour, its mentality, family and social background, values, previous alignment and experience. C. 100 interviews with students which embrace all their lives were used to make these facts clear.

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Youth Culture and the Road to Civil Society
GA AV ČR A 9063901, funded with 2.567 mil. Kč, 1999-2001

What was the social climate in Czechoslovakia during the two decades of the period known as „normalization“, some of whose elements were gradually radicalized by the youth? The aim of the proposed project is to define and analyze the antagonism and tensions that had the greatest effect on young people. Disinclined to become involved in official politics, the young generation spontaneously became ever more interested in informal and active participation in the development of society. Though they saw their activity as an alternative and not as opposition to the existing system, they tried – often with success – to achieve a gradual expansion of the space in which to realize this. In these cultural, ecological and sports activities, young people spontaneously came together in groups whose activities, attitude, and mutual relations increasingly approached the standard conception of civil society. The proposed project aims to chart out these little island of independence, and to describe and analyze their common features and importance for initiating the revolutionary changes of 1989.

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Czech exulants and emigrés
The Burch Fellows Program, funded with 10 000 $, 2001

A shared project of COH and CHP (Collegium Hieronymi Pragensis in Prague). It involved the realisation of 29 interviews with Czech citizens who went to exile (especially after the 1948 and 1968) and decided to return back to Czechoslovakia (the Czech Republic) during the 90s.

supplementary publication grants:

Winners? Vaquished? Political Elites and Dissent During the Period of the So-Called Normalization - Historical Interviews.
GA AV ČR E 800630513, funded with 150 000 Kč, 2005
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The Oral History Method in the Contemporary History
GA AV ČR E 8063401, funded with 83 000 Kč, 2004
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People and the Community of Charta 77
GA AV ČR E8063304, funded with 57 000 Kč, 2003
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A Hundred Students‘ Revolutions
Open Society Found 1999, funded with 250 000 Kč, 1999
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