State and Society in Communist Czechoslovakia ─ Transforming the Everyday from Wwii to the Fall of the Berlin Wall

Across central and eastern Europe after World War II, the newly established communist regimes promised a drastic social revolution that would transform the world at great pace and pave the way to a socialist future. Although many aspects of this utopian project are well known such as fast-paced industrialisation, collectivisation and urbanisation the regimes even sought to transform the ways in which their citizens interacted with each other and the world around them. Using a unique analytical model based on an amalgam of anthropology, sociology, history and extensive archival research, award-winning scholar Roman Krakovsk here considers the Czechoslovakian attempt to 'reinvent the world' 'time' and 'space' included in this all-encompassing way. Ranging from WWII to the fall of the Berlin Wall, his innovative analysis variously considers the impact of Stakhanovism, the impossible-to-achieve production targets intended to assert socialism's future potential; the attempt to replace Sunday's Christian attributes with socialist ones; and the profound changes brought about to the public and private spheres, including the culture of informing and the ways this was circumvented. Across a wide range of case studies Krakovsk demonstrates both the far-reaching extent of the communist vision and the inherent flaws and contradictions that gradually destabilised it. This in-depth perspective is vital reading for all scholars of twentieth century history and politics.

Roman Krakovsk is a lecturer at the University of Geneva. He received his PhD in 2012 from the Universit Paris-Sorbonne and won a number of awards for his doctoral thesis, among them the Prix dhistoire sociale and the Fraenkel Prize in Contemporary History.