Topography of revolutionary traditions. On the topic of the area of Hussite Czechoslovakia in 1948-1955

The area of Czechoslovakia was ascribed various politically relevant, among others also historical, qualities by the discourse during the period of the Czechoslovak Stalinism. Such attributes caused that interpretations of a state or national area, respectively, became tools as far as the forming of social-political reality of Czechoslovak citizens was concerned. These attributes were also involved in creation of collective identities, loyalties or historical awareness. The text is primarily focused on the period from the establishment of the communist dictatorship up to the first half of the 1950s. In respect to the topic, it deals with references to the Hussite movement. Southern Bohemia became the subject of the communist intense space formation interest after the February 1948. This region was presented as a cradle and the most actual stage of the Hussite movement which had become eternally impressed in the Southern Bohemian soil. Communist propaganda also dedicated great attention to the Western Bohemia as it had at first neighboured with the American occupation zone of the post-war Germany and subsequently with the Federal Republic of Germany. The border determining the historical-political form of the whole area was emphasized when the topic of the Western Bohemia region´s area was treated. Czech space formation tendencies also involved Slovakia as the Hussite past had been ascribed also to the southern Slovak region of Gemer. These discussed regions became an important constituent of narrations about the past and social-political reality of Czechoslovakia after February 1948 which was presented as continuation of this past. They were to support the progressive image and historical legitimacy of the communist power.