Czech Academy of Sciences, Institute of Contemporary History

This study traces the life cycle of the popular Babetta moped, produced in former Czechoslovakia (until 1992) and subsequently in Slovakia after the dissolution of the federation. Covering the period from 1969/1970 to 1999, it places the history of moped production within the broader context of the country's economic development and examines its relationship to transport history and post-socialist transformation. Primary sources for this study include professional literature and oral history, namely interviews with former factory employees. The article traces the evolution of motorcycle production, culminating in its final location in the agricultural region of southern Slovakia, where Babetta moped production flourished. The study demonstrates that the demise of the brand serves as a powerful symbol of the transformation occurred in Slovakia. Through the lens of this decline, former employees evaluate the successes and failures of the post-socialist transition.

Since the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, D.C., carried out by al-Qaeda on 11 September 2001, jihadism has been perceived by the international community as a major threat to global security and stability.Subsequent wars in Afghanistan (2001-2021), Iraq (2003-2011), and the ongoing confl ict in Syria (since 2011) have heightened Western engagement with certain jihadist groups, some of which even have targeted Western territories.Numerous analyses, scientifi c articles, and books have been published on these topics, and courses on Islamic terrorism have become integral components of university curricula, not only in security studies but also in international relations, political science, area studies, and related disciplines.However, much of the attention from Western politicians, media, and academia remains focused on the ideologies, agendas, and activities of major jihadist organisations such as al-Qaeda, the Islamic State, and Boko Haram. 1 Even though the attention of the international community was, at least for a while, focused on Mali, especially due to French involvement in the civil war in Mali in 2013 and the subsequent United Nations mission, an academic examination of not only the international response to the Mali civil war but also a comprehensive analysis of the entire troubled region would be highly benefi cial.Th us far, few books have been published in English on jihadism in North Africa and the Sahel, which underscores the signifi cance of Alexander Th urston's contribution.Th urston, an assistant professor of Political Science at the University of Cincinnati, addresses this gap with his book divided into seven chapters that delve into the territorial and political aspects of jihadist groups operating in Algeria, Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Libya, and Mauritania.While this is a new project, it builds upon the author's previous research on Boko Haram (Th urston, 2018) and Salafi sm in Nigeria (Th urston, 2016).Similar to his prior academic endeavours, Th urston demonstrates a signifi cant commitment to fi eldwork and a deep understanding of local circumstances, which renders his work not only compelling but also uniquely insightful from both African and international perspectives.

This paper maps the causes of the demographic, economic and social decline of a selected border micro-region during the last century. The decline occurred due to the location being remote, lacking natural resources and having an unsuitable industrial structure. Historical events associated with the post-war deportation of the German population and efforts to create a classless society also played a role in the decline. The results are an 87% population decrease, the demise of most companies, a very low level of human capital and unemployment reaching up to 5%. In order to comprehend the current state of the border micro-region and predict future development, it is necessary to understand the development that has occurred since approximately the middle of the nineteenth century. The European countryside is certainly not homogeneous, and different regions have shown unique mixes of positional, natural, economic and political factors. Some hope has been raised in relation to the transition to a post-productive economy, a transition that turns the remoteness of the region into an advantage. This is confirmed by the positive migration balances of the smallest municipalities in the last decade.

The article examines the post-war trajectory of the Czechoslovak politics of cultural heritage, its public presentation and circulation through the medium of non-fiction film. Specifically, it investigates the genres of ethnographic, geographic, and art films released after the political transformation in 1948 that brought the country under the direct influence of the Soviet Union. It describes the professional infrastructure and networks within which the fields of cultural heritage preservation and non-fiction cinema were operating and analyses their interactions in the realm of film production. Through the analysis of the film production background, audio-visual content itself, and related period visual ­culture, it finds a set of different narrative strategies used for public presentation of cultural heritage. These narratives are then placed in the context of the official cultural ideology. It exposes continuities that can be traced between the communist cultural politics introduced after the communist takeover in 1948 and the pre-WWII Czechoslovak cultural politics. The analysis shows the diversity within the film production whose primary goal was to celebrate and represent the national cultural heritage in and outside the country, and therefore understands these films as important tools of national and international cultural politics.

Text je reakcí na studii Pavla Balouna a Jaromíra Mrňky, nazvanou „Tábory pro darebáky, povaleče a cikány“. Příspěvek k výzkumu politiky a praxe kriminalizace „práce se štítícího“ obyvatelstva za druhé republiky a protektorátu (1938–1942), která byla otištěna v časopise Dějiny – teorie – kritika. Jeho nepřehlédnutelnou část tvořila řada polemických poznámek k pracím jiných historiků, které byly vedeny z pozice tzv. angažovaného dějepisectví. Autor reaguje především na dvě základní, kritizující připomínky P. Balouna a J. Mrňky: Proč nepovažuje zřízení pracovních útvarů v říjnu 1938 za projev fašizující ideologie českých politických elit. A jak se údajně prohřešil tvrzením, že v létě 1942 se již oproti předchozímu období plně prosadil nacistický rasový přístup k romskému obyvatelstvu. Pro tento účel zařazuje obě výtky do širších faktografických souvislostí, které vedly k jeho interpretacím. Současně se vyjadřuje k diskurzivním praktikám obou autorů, jež jsou prezentovány jako snaha o otevření nové debaty k tématu genocidy Romů a Sintů ve sledovaném období. V této souvislosti proto upozorňuje, že jejich přístup k historii kárných pracovních táborů a tzv. sběrných táborů je výrazně etnocentrický.

Conversazione con il fotografo Olivo Barbieri sullo statuto delle immagini e il suo rapporto con la parola e la letteratura. A partire da Flippers (1977- 1978), proseguendo con la partecipazione a Viaggio in Italia (1984) e con le serie Artificial Illuminations (1980-2014), Virtual Truths (1996-2002), site specific_ (2003-2013), Parks (2006-2015), Real Worlds (2008-2013), Olivo Barbieri conduce un’originale riflessione sulla quantità di realtà presente nei sistemi di vita contemporanei e su quanto la nostra percezione sia in grado di assorbirne. Presente con le sue opere nei principali musei e collezioni del mondo, è inoltre attento e appassionato curatore di cataloghi e libri fotografici. Keywords: Olivo Barbieri, Letteratura e fotografia, Libro fotografico, Fototestualità.

ABSTRACT Cuba’s accession to the Comecon in 1972 opened an opportunity for the Socialist Bloc countries to involve citizens of the Caribbean island in their respective labor migration programs. Since the end of the 1970s, thousands of Cubans annually were coming to Czechoslovakia to work; since 1981, hundreds of them arrived annually in Hungary, too. The article contextualizes the labor migration program in both countries and offers groundwork on this topic hitherto unstudied. It also addresses issues such as working and housing conditions, salary policies, social life and social interaction of Cuban guestworkers with local populations. The text covers mostly the 1980s and is framed by the intergovernmental agreements on the employment of Cubans. The authors suggest that labor migration programs in the Socialist Bloc were triggered by factors similar to those in the West (especially labor shortage) and that some of the accompanying social phenomena in the ‘capitalist’ and ‘socialist’ world were not dissimilar.

In this article we discuss two phases in the evolution of global environmental programs, namely the Man and Biosphere Programme and the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme, with the aim of showing their hidden diplomatic ambitions from both US and Soviet perspectives. In the 1960s and 1970s, Soviet views on the biosphere prevailed thanks to the influence of Soviet scientists in the International Council of Scientific Unions and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. In the 1980s, the domination of this field by US scientists ushered in the establishment of Earth system science as a new research trend based on Earth observation technologies. We argue that despite the influence of Soviet ecologists in directing international coordination of research on the biosphere, Earth system science did not set in a trajectory of environmental cooperation. This outcome can be explained if we take the environmental and ecological turn that arose during the Cold War as being intertwined with political concerns and national interests in both the US and the USSR. Security, scientific diplomacy, and geopolitical issues limited East-West collaboration on the interdisciplinary study of the earth, which instead turned into a sort of cooperative antagonism. The transition from biosphere studies to Earth system science reveals a changing strategy toward environmental problems, which in turn reflects changes in Cold War policy. This essay is part of a special issue entitled Science Diplomacy, edited by Giulia Rispoli and Simone Turchetti.

Roman Krakovský’s State and Society in Communist Czechoslovakia presents a multi-faceted social and cultural history of state socialism in Czechoslovakia from its dawn in the early postwar years to...