Making Sense of the Violent Past

War Veterans' Organizations in Post-Stalinist Czechoslovakia

Bibliographic Data

ID4941527
AuthorsNatali Stegmann (University of Regensburg, corresponding author)
Year2023
Volume82
Issue1
Pages28-47
Publication date2023-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSlavic Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0037-6779 • E-ISSN: 2325-7784
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/slr.2023.100
OpenAlexW4385549751
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited6

The article examines the de-Stalinization of war veterans' organizations in Czechoslovakia. Building on testimonies and journalistic works concerning the victims of Stalinist purges and persecution and the attempts to rehabilitate them, the author elaborates her argument with the case study of the prominent war victims' organization "Association of Antifascist Fighters". During Stalinism, all veterans who had not fought side by side with the Soviet Union were treated with suspicion and often expelled from the veterans' association. In the framework of the reform socialist experiment of the 1960s, the country's Stalinist heritage of violence was largely rejected. What made the Czechoslovak reform socialist approach unique was its distancing from the Soviet influence on Czechoslovak communist tradition. In this way, Stalinism, and the violence that accompanied it, was turned into a Soviet matter, while the national communist tradition was to be cured of the effects of this influence

Argument (complex analysis · Communism · Economic history · Persecution · Political science · Politics · Soviet union · Spanish Civil War · Eastern European Communism and Reforms · European history and politics · Historical Geopolitical and Social Dynamics · History · Law · Medicine

Tools

Open DOIOpen Access