TOL STORE BY COUNTRY "Czech Republic"

Set somewhere in the Czech countryside during the 1980s, the film focuses around the village simpleton Otik and the portly farm collective truck driver who has to work with him. Along the way, viewers meet all of the often odd denizens of the village. Menzel is a masterful director as his film is both funny and endearing. The actors also do a fantastic job. What makes this film so outstanding is that it is an almost perfect reflection of rural life in this part of Europe, which anyone who has spent even a little time in the villages of e.g. the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, etc. can attest to.

In World War II Nazi occupied Czechoslovakia, a childless couple, Josef and Marie Cizek, can only watch while the Jewish family of their employers, the Wieners, are first removed from their own home to a spare room in their house by the Nazis, then removed to the far off facility of Thierenstadt. Years later, young David Wiener, the sole surviving member of that family has managed to escape and make it to the Cizeks. Although fully aware of the extreme danger of harbouring a Jew in the Third Reich, the Cizek's can not permit themselves to leave David to certain death and agree to hide him. However, this decision leads to terrible danger of discovery by the Nazis and especially their friend and Nazi collaborator, Horst Prohazka, who is attracted to Marie. With desperate cleverness and luck, the Cizeks struggle to keep the secret, even when Horst begins to suspect. In doing so, they find themselves making unorthodox choices and learning about the true nature of the people around them.

The Origins of Postcommunist Elites: From Prague Spring to the Breakup of Czechoslovakia

How is it that Czechoslovakia's separation into two countries in 1993 was accomplished so peacefully-especially when compared with the experiences of its neighbors Russia and Yugoslavia? This book provides a sociological answer to this question-and an empirical explanation for the breakup of Czechoslovakia-by tracing the political processes begun in the Prague Spring of 1968.

Gil Eyal's main argument is that Czechoslovakia's breakup was caused by a struggle between two factions of what sociologists call "the new class," which consisted primarily of intellectuals and technocrats. Focusing on the process of polarization that created these two factions-and two distinct political elites-Eyal shows how in response to the events of the ill-fated Prague Spring Czech and Slovak members of the new class embarked on divergent paths and developed radically different, even opposed, identities, worldviews, and interests. Unlike most accounts of postcommunist nationalist conflict, this book suggests that what bound together each of these factions-and what differentiated each from the other-were not national identities and nationalist sentiments per se, but their distinctive visions of the social role of intellectuals.

Gil Eyal is associate professor of sociology at Columbia University.

Steven Saxonberg focuses on three main issues in Czech politics: the development of the Czech party system, the "Klaus phenomenon," and gender issues. Recurring themes throughout the book are the role and limits of formal political institutions, the importance of social psychological elements and the lack of influence which ideology has on party politics and voting during the transitional period.

Environment and Democracy in the Czech Republic: The Environmental Movement in the Transition Process

Since a handful of environmental activists helped to bring down the communist regime in Czechoslovakia, the arena of environmental politics has offered a valuable lens on the transition process, providing a unique insight into the contradictory and highly contingent relationship between democratization and neo-liberalism.
Environment and Democracy in the Czech Republic offers a radical perspective on the democratization process, revealing the extent to which the consolidation of a politically efficacious and diverse civil society is far more complex than the earlier generation of commentators acknowledged. The environmental movement has not flourished under political democracy; its radical activists have been marginalized and targeted by the state, their ideologies and strategies compromised and their critical voice silenced. Yet the book concludes that while the mainstream environmental movement has become institutionalized and appears incapable of representing community interests, the environmental issue retains the capacity to mobilize, this time against the neo-liberal agenda of the democratic government.

This definitive account of the evolution of the Czech environmental movement since 1990 offers a radical evaluation of the institutions and practice of political democracy, and challenges some of the certainties of social movement theory. Although focused on the Czech Republic, the book will undoubtedly contribute to a better understanding of the role of environmental movements within contemporary politics throughout the world. It will be welcomed by political and social scientists with an interest in Central and Eastern Europe, and academics and students with an interest in environmental politics.

After the collapse of communism there was a widespread fear that nationalism would pose a serious threat to the development of liberal democracy in the countries of Central Europe. This book examines the role of nationalism in postcommunist development, focusing in particular on Poland the Czech Republic and Slovakia. It argues that a certain type of nationalism that is liberal nationalism has positively influenced the process of postcommunist transition towards the emerging liberal democratic order.

From Good King Wenceslas to the Good Soldier Svejk: A Dictionary of Czech Popular Culture

Roberts' book follows in the tradition of recent scholarship that seeks to emphasize the importance of popular culture and the wealth of knowledge that can be gained through an analysis of the daily lives and practices of individuals. Focusing on popular songs, movie stars, famous athletes, traditional dishes, and children's games that are second nature to every Czech, Roberts' work serves as an introduction to Czech popular culture. This dictionary is a sizeable achievement as it offers an English readership an invaluable source of information to a rich body of material that has thus far remained ephemeral. The six hundred entries are cross-referenced and allow readers to pursue particular topics in greater depth. Written in a readable style this work is easily accessible to a wide readership.

Meddling in Middle Europe: Britain And the Lands Between, 1919-1925

Addresses the much-ignored history of British policy towards Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Poland following the creation of nation states in Central Europe at the end of the First World War. Lojko convincingly argues that the absence of trust in the new political settlement and the discrediting of the tradional channels of diplomacy resulted in British influence in the region.

Gripping human drama. Sumptuous period epic. Glorious celebration of the music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. This marvelous winner of eight Academy Awards(R) portrays the rivalry between the genius Mozart (Tom Hulce) and the jealous court composer (Best Actor Oscar(R) Winner F.Murray Abraham) who may have ruined Mozart's career and shortened his life.

Composer: Leopold Antonin Kozeluch, Josef Myslivecek, Frantisek Ignac Antonin Tuma
Conductor: Josef Valch
Orchestra: Suk Chamber Orchestra

The Romani Movement: Minority Politics And Ethnic Mobilization in Contemporary Central Europe

"The Roma (Gypsies) are traditionally dispersed, possess few resources and are devoid of a common 'kin state' to protect their interests. They have often suffered from widespread exclusion and institutionalized discrimination. Politically underrepresented and lacking popular support amongst the wider populations of their host countries, the Roma have consequently become one of Europe's greatest 'losers' in the transition towards democracy." Against this background, the author examines the recent attempts of the Roma in Central Europe and their supporters to form a political movement and to influence domestic and international politics. On the basis of first-hand observation and interviews with activists and politicians in the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia, he analyses connections between the evolving state policies towards the Roma and the recent history of Romani mobilization.

The EU's Transformative Power: Europeanization through Conditionality in Central and Eastern Europe

Between 1989 and 2004, the EU's conditionality for membership transformed Central and East Europe. The EU had enormous potential power over the whole range of domestic politics in the candidate countries. However, the EU was able to use that power at a few key points in the process leading to their accession. The EU's long-term influence worked primarily through soft power and through voluntary rather than coercive means. During the membership preparations, the EU built many different routes of influence into the candidate countries' domestic policy-making through 'Europeanization'. The Central and East Europeans voluntarily took on the Union's norms and methods, guided by the European Commission, in a massive transfer of policies and institutions. However, the EU missed important opportunities to effect change as well. The EU's Transformative Power explores in detail how the EU used its influence to control the movement of people across Europe, through both coercive use of conditionality and voluntary methods of Europeanization.

A bittersweet comedy starring the great Vlastimil Brodský as Fanda, an old man who refuses to grow up. Despite pleas from his exasperated wife who wants him to make serious decisions about the future, Fanda ignores the nagging and spends his days seeking amusement and adventure.

Ethnic Bargaining: The Paradox of Minority Empowerment

Ethnic Bargaining introduces a theory of minority politics that blends comparative analysis and field research in the postcommunist countries of East Central Europe with insights from rational choice. Erin K. Jenne finds that claims by ethnic minorities have become more frequent since 1945 even though nation-states have been on the whole more responsive to groups than in earlier periods. Minorities that perceive an increase in their bargaining power will tend to radicalize their demands, she argues, from affirmative action to regional autonomy to secession, in an effort to attract ever greater concessions from the central government.

The language of self-determination and minority rights originally adopted by the Great Powers to redraw boundaries after World War I was later used to facilitate the process of decolonization. Jenne believes that in the 1960s various ethnic minorities began to use the same discourse to pressure national governments into transfer payments and power-sharing arrangements. Violence against minorities was actually in some cases fueled by this politicization of ethnic difference.

Jenne uses a rationalist theory of bargaining to examine the dynamics of ethnic cleavage in the cases of the Sudeten Germans in interwar Czechoslovakia; Slovaks and Moravians in postcommunist Czechoslovakia; the Hungarians in Romania, Slovakia, and Vojvodina; and the Albanians in Kosovo. Throughout, she challenges the conventional wisdom that partisan intervention is an effective mechanism for protecting minorities and preventing or resolving internal conflict.

Divide and Pacify: Strategic Social Policies and Political Protests in Post-Communist Democracies

Despite dramatic increases in poverty, unemployment, and social inequalities, the Central and Eastern European transitions from communism to market democracy in the 1990s have been remarkably peaceful. This book proposes a new explanation for this unexpected political quiescence. It shows how reforming governments in Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic have been able to prevent massive waves of strikes and protests by the strategic use of welfare state programs such as pensions and unemployment benefits. Divide and Pacify explains how social policies were used to prevent massive job losses with softening labor market policies, or to split up highly aggrieved groups of workers in precarious jobs by sending some of them onto unemployment benefits and many others onto early retirement and disability pensions. From a narrow economic viewpoint, these policies often appeared to be immensely costly or irresponsibly populist. Yet a more inclusive social-scientific perspective can shed new light on these seemingly irrational policies by pointing to deeper political motives and wider sociological consequences.