Irreconcilable Differences?

Irreconcilable Differences? PDF Author: Michael Kraus
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 9780847690213
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 372

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Book Description
This unique volume brings together a multi-disciplinary group of scholars as well as Czech and Slovak decisionmakers who were personally involved in the events leading up to the separation of Czechoslovakia. Asking whether the dissolution was inevitable, the contributors bring a range of different approaches and perspectives to bear on the twin problems of democratic transitions in multinational societies and ethnic separatism and its origins. The blend of analysis and insider experiences will make this book invaluable for all concerned with nationalism and ethnicity, democratization, and transitions in Eastern Europe.

Irreconcilable Differences?

Irreconcilable Differences? PDF Author: Michael Kraus
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 9780847690213
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 372

Get Book Here

Book Description
This unique volume brings together a multi-disciplinary group of scholars as well as Czech and Slovak decisionmakers who were personally involved in the events leading up to the separation of Czechoslovakia. Asking whether the dissolution was inevitable, the contributors bring a range of different approaches and perspectives to bear on the twin problems of democratic transitions in multinational societies and ethnic separatism and its origins. The blend of analysis and insider experiences will make this book invaluable for all concerned with nationalism and ethnicity, democratization, and transitions in Eastern Europe.

The End of Czechoslovakia

The End of Czechoslovakia PDF Author: Jiří Musil
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
In this book, scholars and practitioners from both sides of the divide, Czech and Slovak, as well as experts from the United States and France, seek to explain why, after the collapse of the communist regime, Czechoslovakia split into two separate states. In trying to interpret the causes and processes of a modern state's peaceful disintegration, the authors, though addressing the subject from their own viewpoints, have used an analytical, non-evaluative approach. The study also seeks to fulfil other objectives--both theoretical and practical. On the one hand, the Czechoslovak experience is used to explore the concepts and instruments of European integration as a whole, and the theory of contemporary nationalisms; on the other, it could well have some practical policy implications for those countries facing similar problems.

Democracy's Defenders

Democracy's Defenders PDF Author: Norman L. Eisen
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780815738213
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 170

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Book Description
A behind-the-scenes look at how the United States aided the Velvet Revolution Democracy's Defenders offers a behind-the-scenes account of the little-known role played by the U.S. embassy in Prague in the collapse of communism in what was then Czechoslovakia. Featuring fifty-two newly declassified diplomatic cables, the book shows how the staff of the embassy led by U.S. Ambassador Shirley Temple Black worked with dissident groups and negotiated with the communist government during a key period of the Velvet Revolution that freed Czechoslovakia from Soviet rule. In the vivid reporting of these cables, Black and other members of the U.S. diplomatic corps in Prague describe student demonstrations and their meetings with anti-government activists. The embassy also worked to forestall a violent crackdown by the communist regime during its final months in power. Edited by Norman L. Eisen, who served as U.S. Ambassador to the Czech Republic from 2011 to 2014, Democracy's Defenders contributes fresh evidence to the literature on U.S. diplomatic history, the cold war era, and American promotion of democracy overseas. In an introductory essay, Eisen places the diplomatic cables in context and analyzes their main themes. In an afterword, Eisen, Czech historian Dr. Mikulás Pesta, and Brookings researcher Kelsey Landau explain how the seeds of democracy that the United States helped plant have grown in the decades since the Velvet Revolution. The authors trace a line from U.S. efforts to promote democracy and economic liberalization after the Velvet Revolution to the contemporary situations of what are now the separate nations of the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

Czechoslovakia

Czechoslovakia PDF Author: Abby Innes
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 9780300090635
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 372

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Book Description
Analyzes the causes, process, and consequences of Czechoslovakia's 1993 separation into the new independent states of Czech and Slovakia.

Czecho/Slovakia

Czecho/Slovakia PDF Author: Eric Stein
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
ISBN: 9780472086283
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 420

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Book Description
DIVDescribes the peaceful breakup of the Czechoslovak Federation /div

The Dissolution of Czechoslovakia

The Dissolution of Czechoslovakia PDF Author: Charles River Editors
Publisher: Independently Published
ISBN: 9781096284109
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 134

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Book Description
*Includes pictures *Includes a bibliography for further reading On New Year's Day 1993, Czechoslovakia broke into two separate countries, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Thus ended one of the creations brought about by the Treaty of Versailles after World War I, and as a country that had existed for just under 75 years, Czechoslovakia spent most of its time under the tyranny of fascism or communism. Of course, the country's origins go back far longer than the 1910s, and they were complex and convoluted. The very geography of central Europe meant this territory had been conquered and occupied many times over the course of history, and for much of the modern era, the area belonged to much larger empires, including the Holy Roman Empire, the Austrian Habsburg Empire, and finally the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Nevertheless, two distinct ethnicities had come to make up the bulk of the territory's inhabitants: the Czechs, predominantly in the areas of Bohemia and Moravia, and the Slovaks, in Slovakia. Both peoples had their own Slavic-based languages, but the languages were similar enough to be mutually intelligible. Despite any ethnic similarities, the country that formed in 1918 among the ashes of the Austro-Hungarian Empire was by no means a "nation-state" as most people understand that term. In fact, much of the territory which bordered Germany was inhabited by ethnic German speakers, including one of Prague's most famous sons, the writer Franz Kafka. One of the 20th century's most celebrated authors spoke German as his first language. As such, the lands that became Czechoslovakia had usually existed in some kind of supranational system where identity was allowed to be relatively fluid. Czechoslovakia would also play a crucial role in bringing about World War II, a sign that the area's nationalism, which ultimately split Czechoslovakia apart in 1993, had long spelled danger in a place where so many groups competed for power. The presence of German speakers would serve as a pretext for Hitler's acquisition of the Sudetenland, creating a crisis ahead of history's deadliest war and serving as a harbinger of things to come. The Dissolution of Czechoslovakia: The History of the Central European Nation from Its Founding to Its Breakup examines how the multicultural nation was founded, the inherent tensions there, and how it eventually came apart. Along with pictures of important people and places, you will learn about Czechoslovakia like never before.

The Prague Spring and the Warsaw Pact Invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968

The Prague Spring and the Warsaw Pact Invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 PDF Author: Günter Bischof
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 9780739143049
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 534

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Book Description
On August 20, 1968, tens of thousands of Soviet and East European ground and air forces moved into Czechoslovakia and occupied the country in an attempt to end the "Prague Spring" reforms and restore an orthodox Communist regime. The leader of the Soviet Communist Party, Leonid Brezhnev, was initially reluctant to use military force and tired to pressure his counterpart in Czechoslovakia, Alexander Dubccaron;ek, to crack down. But during the summer of 1968, after several months of careful deliberations, the Soviet Politburo finally decided that military force was the only option left. A large invading force of Soviet, Polish, Hungarian and Bulgarian troops received final orders to move into Czechoslovakia; within twenty-four hours they had established complete military control of Czechoslovakia, bringing and end to hopes for "socialism with a human face."

The Fall

The Fall PDF Author: Steven Saxonberg
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134435142
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 453

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Book Description
With a foreword by Seymour Lipset, Hoover Institution and George Mason University, USA The Fall examines one of the twentieth century's great historical puzzles: why did the communist-led regimes in Eastern Europe collapse so quickly and why was the process of collapse so different from country to country? This major study explains why the impetus for change in Poland and Hungary came from the regimes themselves, while in Czechoslovakia and East Germany it was mass movements which led to the downfall of the regimes.

Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic in World Politics

Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic in World Politics PDF Author: Ladislav Cabada
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 0739167332
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 243

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Book Description
The book focuses on the description and analysis of the historical formation of the Czechoslovak and Czech positions in the international system during the course of the 20th century. The first part of the book presents a brief outline of the history of Czechoslovak foreign policy between the First World War and the end of the Cold War. The authors focus on the key periods and turning points in the role of the small Central European state in the international system as well as on the significant actors formulating Czechoslovak foreign policy from the inside and influencing it from the outside. The second, analytical part of the book focuses on the key issues connected to the change of the position of Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic after 1993 in world politics, and on the formulation of Czech foreign policy priorities and strategies in the globalized world after the end of bipolar confrontation. The authors analytically investigate the activities of the Czech Republic in (Central) European regional integration processes and the integration of the state in the global system of development cooperation. A great deal of attention is paid to the key political actors of the Czech foreign policy discussion and their impact on the formulation of foreign policy goals. Special attention is paid to the dilemmas of Czech foreign policy: the hesitation between the role of a small state and a medium power and also the span of Czech foreign policy between Atlanticism, anti-Americanism and Europeanization.

Cleansing the Czechoslovak Borderlands

Cleansing the Czechoslovak Borderlands PDF Author: Eagle Glassheim
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
ISBN: 0822981947
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 386

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Book Description
In this innovative study of the aftermath of ethnic cleansing, Eagle Glassheim examines the transformation of Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland from the end of the Second World War, through the Cold War, and into the twenty-first century. Prior to their expulsion in 1945, ethnic Germans had inhabited the Sudeten borderlands for hundreds of years, with deeply rooted local cultures and close, if sometimes tense, ties with Bohemia's Czech majority. Cynically, if largely willingly, harnessed by Hitler in 1938 to his pursuit of a Greater Germany, the Sudetenland's three million Germans became the focus of Czech authorities in their retributive efforts to remove an alien ethnic element from the body politic—and claim the spoils of this coal-rich, industrialized area. Yet, as Glassheim reveals, socialist efforts to create a modern utopia in the newly resettled "frontier" territories proved exceedingly difficult. Many borderland regions remained sparsely populated, peppered with dilapidated and abandoned houses, and hobbled by decaying infrastructure. In the more densely populated northern districts, coalmines, chemical works, and power plants scarred the land and spewed toxic gases into the air. What once was a diverse religious, cultural, economic, and linguistic "contact zone," became, according to many observers, a scarred wasteland, both physically and psychologically. Glassheim offers new perspectives on the struggles of reclaiming ethnically cleansed lands in light of utopian dreams and dystopian realities—brought on by the uprooting of cultures, the loss of communities, and the industrial degradation of a once-thriving region. To Glassheim, the lessons drawn from the Sudetenland speak to the deep social traumas and environmental pathologies wrought by both ethnic cleansing and state-sponsored modernization processes that accelerated across Europe as a result of the great wars of the twentieth century.