Luboš Ptáček the Sudetes in Czech Cinema – a Political
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72 Luboš Ptáček Luboš PTáčEK The Sudetes in Czech Cinema – a Political Space Trapped by National and Class Stereotypes* Abstract: The theme of Czech-German co-habitation in the Sudetes, from where over two million German citizens were uprooted after the Second World War, has become one of the most politicalised themes in Czechoslovakian and then Czech cinematography. In this study, the analyses are primarily focused on motifs linked with representation of historical and present Sudetes, and development of Czech-German relations. Concretely, it focuses on nationalistic actions, the escalation of Czech-German relations after Hitler’s coming of power in Germany, conceding the Sudetes to the Reich, expelling the Germans after World War Two, the arrival of Czechs after the war, fate of ethnically- mixed families, and protection of national borders. The aim of the study is to describe changes in the discourse of film and television representations of history in Czech society following the creation of Czechoslovakia in 1918 until the present day, and interpret these in the context of political changes. In particular, I will focus on the reasons which caused the deformation and silencing of historical events linked with those in the Sudetes. The analyses conducted along the diachronic axis should prove the hypothesis that changes in the representations of history and present Sudetes correspond with changes in society, and strongly present the contemporary Czech(oslovakian) position to the 20th century history. Keyword: Sudetes, history and film, Czech-German relations, Czech cinema, ideology. Luboš Ptáček Palacký University [email protected] * this is a shortened version of “Sudety ve filmu – v zajetí nacionálních a ideologických stereotypů” EkPHRASIS, 1/2020 (the Sudetes on Film – in the Grip of National and Poetics of the Borders: Meeting ideological Stereotypes”) published in Umění mezi Points and Representational Border- alegorií a ideologií. Proměna reprezentace historie v Crossings in Contemporary Cinema českém historickém filmu a televizním seriálu (The Art pp. 72-86 Between Allegory and ideology: The Transformation of Representation of History in Czech Historical Film DOI: 10.24193/ekphrasis.23.6 and Television Series, Casablanca, 2018). Published First Online: 03 July 2020 The Sudetes in Czech Cinema – 73 a Political Space Trapped by National and Class Stereotypes Methodology the methodology is based on representing history in film in Robert Rosenstone’s books Visions of the Past: The Challenge of Film to our idea of History (1998), and History on Film/Film on History (2013). the author interprets history in a poststructuralist manner: classical historicists lock down history into narrative units based on ideological and political programs. their structure does not form the objective data, but rather linguistic rules and ideology, considering history as always being just an interpretation. Postmodern history attempts to make rules of the construction more apparent, and incorporate them phenomenologically in the analyses of historians. According to Rosenstone, visual media is a legitimate way of representation and interpretation of history. Historical film cannot be considered on the basis of comparison with written history (according to criteria of legitimacy), but as a different way to narrate the past with its own rules, similarly to re-personalisation and mediation of an emotional experience. the key element of these historical films is the relation of past to present (3). in other words, historical events are always interpreted from the point of view of the present moment. in the chapter “engaging the Discourse,” Rosenstone analyses a chosen selection of films on the theme of the Holocaust, and explores to which extent can a selection of films, similar to a selection of written works about history, is capable of presenting a wider look on historical themes. He asks in what ways these films connect to the wider discourse, and how they should be commented on and analysed (134). in a similar manner (interpretation of the present through reception of the past in film), i will approach history in this study, by mainly focusing on conventional historical film, as an overwhelming majority of films from Sudetes is shot in a conventional mode, whichi also consider symptomatic. on a conceptual level, i will assume that ideological arguments used in deformation of history are formulated more explicitly in conventional than in art films. History of the Sudetes the Sudetes is the border mountain range in Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic) where, from the Middle Ages until the year 1945, prevailed a German ethnic minority (in 1930, around 3.2 million inhabitants considered themselves of German nationality) (Majewski, 217). the first modern transformation of relations arose with the formation of Czechoslovakia in 1918 when the Germans suddenly became a repressed minority in a country they did not want to live in. the situation escalated after Hitler came to power (1933), and peaked during the signing of the Munich Agreement (1938), when the Sudetes were relegated to Germany. After the war followed a spontaneous and illegal expulsion (masked by agreements of the winning parties) based on the principle of collective guilt. the post- 74 Luboš Ptáček war position of ethnic Germans and Hungarians was legally defined by the Benes decrees,1 resulting in confiscation of property, loss of Czechoslovakian state citizenship, annulment of the German university and German technical colleges. Citizens of German nationality could only keep the Czechoslovakian citizenship if they proved they had never caused harm to the Czech and Slovakian state, actively participated in the fight for freedom, or had suffered under Nazi terror. Between 1948 and 1989, the Czech closed-off borders created, alongside the Federal Republic of Germany, a part of the iron Curtain between the eastern and western political blocs. the historical context is described by many historians, namely Adrian von Arburg (2001), and František čapka, lubomír Slezák, and Jaroslav Vaculík (2005). Fear of German revenge due to the expulsion was an important part of communist propaganda, similarly to the vision of a new “better” life, which should have happened after the German expulsion and communist takeover. After the repression of Prague Spring in 1968, one of the key ideological arguments became the threat of “German revanchism,” formulated in an ideologically binding text lessons of Crisis Development (1988), which justified the presence of Soviet armies in Czechoslovakia and emphasised the justness of the ideological dogmata: the undeniable leading role of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (kSč) within society. The history of the Sudetes before and after the creation of Czechoslovakia in 1918 is not recorded by Czech historical films; instead, a smaller group focuses on the actions in 1938 before and after the Munich Agreement.2 the largest group of films (and later television series) focuses on events linked to the exile and expulsion of Germans after the end of the war, with the arrival of new settlers and security at the western border. in films shot right after the war, the past and present of the war merge, but after the war and the expulsion of the Germans, they are presented as historically definite, closed events. the films about the Sudetes starting from 1918 until the present day can be divided according to discursive changes of history representation to the following periods: − Films before the German annexe of the Sudetes (1938); − Nazi films after the annexe of the Sudetes (1938–1945); − Films justifying the expulsion of the Germans (1945–1948); − Dogmatic communist films emphasising a class viewpoint over the nationalistic, and focusing on the ‘threat of German revanchism’ (1950s); − Allegorical revisionist films (shot in framework of the communist system, 1960s and 1980s); − Neo-dogmatic films (confirming, occasionally varying themes of dogmatic films, mostly films shot in the 1970s during normalisation); − Freely revisionist films shot after 1989. During the 1930s, several films were shot contemporarily in the Sudetes, where filmmakers chose one of two locations: wild mountainous areas and spa cities. the Czech The Sudetes in Czech Cinema – 75 a Political Space Trapped by National and Class Stereotypes film from borderland mountains Ze světa lesních samot (From the World of lonely Forests, dir. by Miroslav Josef krňanský, 1933), linked Czech-German village melodramas shot in Czech and German versions V cizim reviru / Der Wilderer vom Egerland (on A Foreign Ground, dir. by Vladimír Majer and Walter kolm-Veltée, 1934); Jana / Jana, das Mädchen aus Bohmerwald / Jana, a Girl from the Bohemian Forest, dir. by emil Synek and Robert land, 1935). the bilingual setting is portrayed as culturally united. An attractive spa backdrop of the town Mariánské lázně (Marienbad) appears in a co-production Czech- German comedy Tisíc za jednu noc / Tausend für eine Nacht (Thousand for one Night, dir. By Jaroslav Svára and Max Mack, 1932); karlovy Vary (karlsbad) appears partially in the comedy Uličnice (Hoyden, dir. by Vladimír Slavínský, 1936). German-Czech relations are not considered; they are situationally interchangeable comedies from higher societal classes, and Sudetes spas only create an attractive international background. Between 1938 and 1945 there were no Czech films situated in the Sudetes. the cohabitation of Czechs and Germans from the perspective of a German