Crossing a Bridge of Memory: Historical Memory and Populist Rhetoric in the Czech and Slovak Republics, 1990-2004
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- From the first protests of the Velvet Revolution in November 1989 to the present day, leaders of the Czech and Slovak Republics have invoked historical memory in their political messaging. The recent success of populist parties in Europe has provoked a great deal of scholarship, and prompted questions about the history of populism across the continent, including the Czech and Slovak Republics. This study asks the question: How have politicians used historical memory and populist rhetoric in the Czech and Slovak Republics after the fall of communism? Through archival research and interviews, buttressed by existing literature, this work examines Czech and Slovak politics in the first half of their post-communist life to date: from 1990 to 2004. This thesis concludes that during this period, Czech and Slovak politicians used different rhetorical strategies in accordance with the most pressing political challenges they each faced. Historical memory was a resource that all politicians drew upon, but historical memory was utilized in populist rhetorical structures only when the political challenge in question was one which required politicians to divide, or distinguish between, two groups said to hold different ideologies. Examples include the 1990-1992 Czech political debate over the communist regime’s legacy, and the 1992 and 1994 campaigns of Slovak Prime Minister Vladimír Mečiar. In contrast, populist rhetoric was not employed when the challenge at hand was one which required politicians to build accord in service of pursuing a shared ideal future, namely that of European Union membership. This paper concludes by exploring future avenues for research on this and related topics.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Date created | 2019 |
Creators/Contributors
| Author | Gardner-Gill, Ben |
|---|---|
| Advisor | Grzymala-Busse, Anna |
Subjects
| Subject | historical memory |
|---|---|
| Subject | populism |
| Subject | political rhetoric |
| Subject | Czech Republic |
| Subject | Slovakia |
| Subject | Vladimír Mečiar |
| Subject | Václav Klaus |
| Subject | Miloš Zeman |
| Subject | Stanford Department of History |
| Subject | CDDRL |
| Genre | Thesis |
Bibliographic information
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- User agrees that, where applicable, content will not be used to identify or to otherwise infringe the privacy or confidentiality rights of individuals. Content distributed via the Stanford Digital Repository may be subject to additional license and use restrictions applied by the depositor.
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (CC BY).
Preferred citation
- Preferred Citation
- Ben Gardner-Gill. Crossing a Bridge of Memory: Historical Memory and Populist Rhetoric in the Czech and Slovak Republics, 1990-2004. Stanford Digital Repository, 2019. Available at: https://purl.stanford.edu/vf264cn6143
Collection
Stanford University, Fisher Family Honors Program in Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law. (CDDRL)
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- Contact
- bengardnergill@gmail.com
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