Presentation Ms. Marsikova

IOM SUMM ER
SCHOOL ON
MIGRATION 2014
UNIVERSIT Y OF
SOUTH BOHEM IA
EMIGRATION.
FROM CZECHOSLOVAKIA TO THE CZECH REPUBLIC .
2 0 / 0 8 / 2 01 4
A N N A M A R Š Í KOV Á
HOW IS EMIGRATION FROM COMMUNIST
CZECHOSLOVAKIA RELEVANT TODAY?
THE ISSUE OF EMIGRATION IS STILL
PRESENT IN THE CZECH SETTING
 MOVIES, SERIES
 DOCUMENTARIES
 LITERATURE
 NEWSPAPER ARTICLES, INTERVIEWS
 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS in 2013…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHsCTIXNzRk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qegb-ZJaFWU
CURRENT DISCOURSE
“I always care about one and only thing, which I said
many times before the elections, long time ago, now,
and I will say it tomorrow and I will say it after the end
of elections. I care simply about electing a president,
who belongs to this country, who is a part of this
country, who spent his life here, periods difficult,
better, best, worse.”
Václav Klaus
CURRENT DISCOURSE
“In 1974, after a serious illness died my father, whom I
loved (and perhaps I did not show it to him enough) and
after August 1968 my sister Alena emigrated to
Switzerland, which did not improve my vetting report
neither. I haven´t seen her almost for two decades. I was
not even once able to travel to West since 1969 to 1985,
allegedly it was not “in the interest of the Czechoslovak
Socialist Republic” to provide me with the exit permit, as
they repeatedly told me at the Passport and Visa
Department of our police. At the same time, also Livia´s
(note – wife) sister Štefka emigrated to Australia.”
Václav Klaus
http://zpravy.idnes.cz/klausova-sestra-alena-jarochova-nezalezi-jen-na-tom-kde-clovek-zije-1fo/domaci.aspx?c=A130119_192311_domaci_brd
CAN A REEMIGRANT BECOME THE PRESIDENT OF THE CZECH REPUBLIC?
IN FAVOR
Martin C. Putna
AGAINST
Ivo Strejček
“It depends on what the person did in his/her life. And there
are people who are trying to earn money their whole life, or
have fun, and there are people who dedicate their lives to
what I call little bit pathetically the service to the
homeland.”*
“I think that from a distance, from abroad it is possible to
observe many things, but the authentic historical
experience... […] it is possible to gloss from abroad, but the
gritting one’s teeth is from here, from this history, it comes
from this country.”*
“[…] It is without doubt praiseworthy, the work and
“[…] It means to support the matters of the homeland from
achievements [that Mr. Schwarzenberg did] in abroad.
abroad, […] to lobby for it, […], to publish Czech books, to However […] also my conception is that the President of the
support exiles who are in a worse position, […]. It is exactly
Czech Republic should be a person, who was born in this
th
what Comenius and others exiles did in the 17 century,
country and, to exaggerate a little, lived through every
what Masaryk did during the WWI, what the Czech exile did
minute of its history. Established a family here, raised
during the WWII, and what the third exile did during the
children here, knows what are the sorrows and distresses of
communist era.”*
this country, understands its history, understands its
evolution.”*
“It means, those people are not somehow less Czech. On the
contrary, they are in this sense more Czech. These are the
people who were risking, these are people who deserve our
highest respect.”*
“[Try not to take into consideration that I am a politician]
[…]. I am a person who was born here, who got married
here, I have two children, I am a normal citizen of this
country, […]. I really wish that the President of the Czech
Republic knew the Czech language, that his wife spoke
Czech.”*
DISCOURSE
EMIGRATION
vs.
POLITICAL EMIGRATION
vs.
EXILE
vs.
REFUGEES
E M I G RATI ON – P OLI T I CA L E M I G RATI ON – E X I LE – RE F UG E E S
Not only the reason(s) behind the emigration itself is
important for being perceived as a refugee/political
emigrant/emigrant etc. The differentiation is based on
the individual´s activities in his/her new country and
their relation to the homeland, such as the
involvement in anti-communist movements, publishing
of the samizdat literature etc. (and probably more
importantly the level and intensity of activities, or the
visibility of involvement).
E M I G RATI ON – P OLI T I CA L E M I G RATI ON – E X I LE – RE F UG E E S
This categorization (made by the public, researchers or
even emigrants themselves) then leads to the
attribution of certain social, political or economic
status.
“While the word ‘emigration’ is by majority of Czechs
understood as a denomination of more or less
voluntary abandonment of home from economic
reasons, the term ‘exile’ contains much higher moral
and ideological quality”
Jiří Pernes
WE WANT A PRESIDENT WHO HAS
ALWAYS BEEN WITH US…
http://www.novinky.cz/domaci/290712-komudaji-v-prezidentske-volbe-hlas-janda-hradilek-cipatrasova.html
http://aktualne.centrum.cz/domaci/politika/clanek.phtml?id=518447
http://aktualne.centrum.cz/domaci/
politika/clanek.phtml?id=518447
EMIGRATION IN AN ONLINE DISCUSSION
Contribution
Implications of argument
Michal Pražák, Česká Lípa
And what does it have to do with the article on flooding? And be aware that 
you emigrated voluntarily. Water took everything away from them whether
they wanted or not.*
Jaroslav Končák, Prostějov

Emigration from Czechoslovakia was voluntary
Emigrants from Czechoslovakia were cowards
leaving the country/homeland in difficult period
Only a coward and a characterless person leaves his/her country in its worst
moments – and in addition makes him/herself look as a poor person.*

Tom Bukovský, Polná

Emigrants are pretending to be martyrs
Dana Braumann... well, if someone is fleeing own homeland as a coward and
then adopt a surname of Heydrich´s tribe, s/he can´t be surprised by

anything.*
Josef Kulich, Praha
Emigrants are traitors
Communists did not take you anything. Only you took everything from 
yourself. Emigration is a voluntary decision, not an unexpected natural

disaster!!! You went to seek something better, so shut up. You are good for a
beating-up. I am a peaceful person, but I hate bullshits like this.*
Blanka Klempířová, Nové Město na Moravě

I don´t know under what circumstances you “had” to emigrate, but if it was
your decision, don´t mention it here now!!! I don´t like when every emigrant, 
who out of his/her own will “sought something better” is now pretending to be 
a martyr!!! (And it was you who left the family and friends here.)*
Emigrants from Czechoslovakia were cowards
leaving the country/homeland in difficult period
Emigration from Czechoslovakia was voluntary
Emigrants are opportunists seeking something better
Emigrants are opportunists seeking something better
Emigrants are pretending to be martyrs
Emigrants are to be blamed for abandoning family
Contribution
Implications of argument
Eva Šetinová, Nejdek
First, it does not belong in here and second, it was only your mistake, your 
pity. You could have stayed here as every decent person.*
Božena Vytasilová, Praha
Emigration from Czechoslovakia was voluntary

It is a question whether someone emigrated voluntarily or not. He could have
serious reasons, such as a bad “vetting report”, […]. There were adventurers 
among emigrants, but also the elite of the nation and it was a huge loss for the
society. Me personally, I would not take the risk, because I would harm the 
rest of my family at home, even though I was quite skilled in languages. […]*
Blanka Adámková, Praha
There are differences among emigrants
[As a reaction to Jaroslav Končák] You are a very silly person – you have no 
idea how some people suffered here – their children could not attend schools,
they were monitored and harassed by StB – I fully approve that people were
fleeing for their lives – and I regret up until now that I didn´t do it as well.*
People had the right to emigrate, because they were
threatened by the regime
Emigration of national elite was a loss for society
Emigration harmed family
WHY IS THE ISSUE
OF EMIGRATION STILL PRESENT?
 IMPORTANCE OF EMIGRATION
• NUMBERS OF EMIGRANTS?
• DEMOGRAPHIC COMPOSITION?
• APPROACH TOWARDS EMIGRATION?
NUMBERS OF EMIGRANTS
 The Communist coup in February of 1948 caused new flows of
emigration. The Soviet occupation in August 1968 further
reinforced emigration.
 According to rough estimations approximately 550 000 people
left the country between 1948 and 1989 (Pehe 2002: 23,
Murad 2003: 100).
 Unreliable statistics
 Population census
DEMOGRAPHIC COMPOSITION
 Highly -skilled professionals and representatives of the
Czechoslovak intelligence and elite who did not leave after
1948 formed a large part of post-1968 emigration.
“Many top-flight ar tists, writers, journalists, athletes and former
politicians had to go into exile. Some of them worked actively in
exile on weakening the communist regime; many tried in various
ways to help people who had decided to stay in communist
Czechoslovakia.”
(Pehe 2002: 23)
APPROACH TOWARDS EMIGRATION
THE UNIVERSAL DECARATION
OF HUMAN RIGHTS (1948)
Article 13.
 (1) Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and
residence within the borders of each state.
 (2) Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his
own, and to return to his country.
APPROACH TOWARDS EMIGRATION
THE RIGHT TO EMIGRATE WAS DECONSTRUCTED AND
BECAME PROBLEMATIC, AS THE RIGHT TO IMMIGRATE
HAS ALWAYS BEEN QUESTIONED
OFFICIAL APPROACH:
TOOLS OF PROPAGANDA
 LEGAL FRAMEWORK
 BORDER PROTECTION
 PRACTICAL CONSEQUENCES – EMIGRANTS
 PRACTICAL CONSEQUENCES – FAMILIES
 DISCOURSE
 POSTERS AND PICTURES
 T V BROADCAST
 PRINTED MEDIA , LITERATURE, ART
LEGAL FRAMEWORK
“A plethora of laws against the gathering of information,
subversive connections, treasonable disloyalty, sabotage,
subversive organization of a group and agitation, resistance to
government measures, unlawfully crossing borders, rowdiness,
rioting, forming an organization with illegal goals, illegal
contacts (talking to foreigners) and defamation of the state
(including political jokes) were used ver y effectively against
those who would not conform, par ticularly the young. The
principle was one of divide and rule on both external
international and internal national levels.”
James Aulich and Marta Sylvestrová
LEGAL FRAMEWORK
 Law n° 231/1948 Sb. on protecting the Democratic People´s
Republic defined the “unauthorized abandonment of the
territory of the Republic and refusal of return after the
appeal” (§40) as a criminal act against the international
relations
LEGAL FRAMEWORK
 Directive on adjustment of legal relations of the Czechoslovak
socialist republic towards citizens staying in abroad without
permission of Czechoslovak authorities (1977)
LEGAL FRAMEWORK
 Resolution of the government of the Czechoslovak Socialist
Republic related to the approval of the above mentioned
directive
 The government required among others to:
 prevent the unauthorized abandonment of the republic
 form a hostile public opinion towards the unauthorized abandonment
of the republic
 systematically overcome fixed illusions in minds of people about life
conditions in capitalist states
BORDER PROTECTION
“Permanent disabling of the crossing of state borders to the
capitalist world using whatever means, including firearms,
electric barbed wires, dogs etc. The border protection was
of ficially presented mainly as a protection against the
external enemies. However, in order to understand the
reality, it was enough to see the direction of the bending of
the electric fences upper parts, and what was the direction
of the border zone or the plowed soil belts” (PRUŠA, 2011 ,
p.297)
BORDER PROTECTOIN
 Frontiers were surrounded by barbed wires, electrical wires
and other types of barriers and guarded by patrols, border
guards with dogs, police and soldiers.
 282 people died on the border between 1948 and 1989. 145
people were killed directly by the border guards, another 96
died because of the electric and barbed wires. 16 people
committed suicide shortly before or after their capture. One
man was shred by dogs. Among ‘victims of the border’ were
also children (Lustigová 2004, Šulc 2004).
PRACTICAL CONSEQUENCES OF
EMIGRATION – EMIGRANTS
 Property loss
 Loss of citizenship
 No return policy (with exceptions)
PRACTICAL CONSEQUENCES OF
EMIGRATION – FAMILIES
 Imprisonment
 Restrictions on travelling
 Monitoring of activities
 Questioning by the StB
 Limitations at work (the risk of discharge or degradation)
 Limitations in studies (prohibition)
 Monitoring of communication (calls, letters and packages). In
1971 , postal fees were increased by 260% within noncommunist countries (Diamant 1995: 39).
POSTERS AND PICTURES
“The principle was one of divide and rule on both external
international and internal national levels. The visual rhetoric,
while passionate, was traditional and programmatic and would
have been familiar to any nineteenth -centur y socialist, with its
images of heroic revolutionaries, mythical monsters, snakes, fat
capitalists and triumphant workers.”
James Aulich and Marta Sylvestrová
TREACHEROUS EMIGRATION SERVES WESTERN IMPERIALISTS
PROPAGANDA
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKoQMrjDYZE
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGpnyH0H8uY
PROPAGANDA
The aim of the socialist propaganda was to disseminate the
belief that “only a fool may wish to escape from the best
political regime in the world” and that one who did it is a
characterless materialist.
(The quotation of a border guard who arrested a man moving in
the borderland (in Navara 2006: 44)).
IMPACT OF PROPAGANDA?
NOTION OF
EMIGRATION AS
BETRAYAL OF NATION
IS APPEARING
FREQUENTLY
PERCEPTION OF EMIGRATION
The ambivalence
Czechoslovakia:
in
the
perception
of
emigrants
in
the
“On the one hand, emigrants are a source of national pride in
that they demonstrate that Czechs can become successful even
in the competitive West. Czechs point out with distinct
satisfaction that people like Tomáš Baťa, Miloš Forman, and
Robert Maxwell are or were once Czechs and that in the 1930s
Chicago had a Czech mayor. On the other hand, any comparison
of the situation in their old homeland with their experiences in
the West, which of ten implies criticism of many practices with
Czechs at home take for granted, is detested. Emigrants are
expected to display supreme loyalty to the nation.”
Ladislav Holý
EMIGRATION AS BETRAYAL
“The government´s attitude to emigration was straightforward:
it was a betrayal of the countr y, the nation, or socialism.
Although people may not have always agreed with what the
Par ty construed as being betrayed (par ticularly if it was
socialism), the notion of betrayal was not culturally alien to
them. It was an appropriate gloss for abandoning the whole of
which one was inherently a par t – a morally despicable act
paralleling the violation of the Christian Fif th Commandment:
‘Honour thy father and mother’.”
Ladislav Holý
HOW CZECH ARE WE?
OPINIONS OF CZECH STUDENTS AND READERS OF
LIDOVÉ NOVINY AND LIDOVKY.CZ
 Donath Business & Media, Přítomnost ("Presence")
and Lidové noviny (Lidové Daily) in cooperation with
MRThink
 Results of a survey (July – September 2012)
 5 212 students + 4 340 readers of Lidové noviny
IF YOU COULD CHOOSE TO BECOME A CITIZEN OF ANY
COUNTRY IN THE WORLD, WHICH ONE WOULD YOU
CHOOSE?
Students (15 398 answers in total from 5 212 respondents)
Czech Republic
Great Britain
Switzerland
USA
France
Canada
Germany
Australia
Sweden
Norway
New Zealand
Austria
Italy
Spain
Finland
The Netherlands
Japan
Slovakia
Denmark
Ireland
IF YOU COULD CHOOSE TO BECOME A CITIZEN OF ANY
COUNTRY IN THE WORLD, WHICH ONE WOULD YOU
CHOOSE?
Lidovky.cz (12 649 answers in total from 4 340 respondents)
Czech Republic
Switzerland
Great Britain
USA
Canada
Germany
Sweden
France
Australia
Norway
Austria
New Zealand
Slovakia
The Netherlands
Italy
Denmark
Finland
WHAT IS THE REASON FOR YOU TO STAY
A CITIZEN OF THE CZECH REPUBLIC?
Students (5 091 respondents) Lidovky (4 164 respondents)
I have my family here
I am used to it here
There is a beautiful nature here
I like it in the Czech Republic
My language is spoken here
The Czech Republic has many unique
historic monuments
There are people as me living here, I
have what to talk about with them
I think, that I am doing well here
I am proud of the Czech Republic
Other reason
TO WHAT EXTENT DO YOU FEEL PROUD/ASHAMED
OF THE CZECH REPUBLIC?
Students (4 975 respondents) Lidovky (4 107 respondents)
I am very proud
I am rather proud
I am neither proud nor ashamed
I am rather ashamed
I am very ashamed
SITUATION AFTER 1989
 In contradiction with expectations of emigrants who dreamed
of the return to the country and of the reunion with their
friends and families, the reception by the society was
inconsistent, sceptical, cold, even deprecatory. The opinion of
Jiří Dientsbier, then minister of foreign af fairs, that “no one
had to leave the country in 1968” was accepted as a general
of ficial approach.
SITUATION AFTER 1989
 No voting right during elections in 1990
 No right to draw a pension
 No heritability
 Once lost citizenship was not granted automatically
 Re-integration
PARADOXES OF EMIGRATION FROM
COMMUNIST CZECHOSLOVAKIA (PAST)
 Borders protected the state by preventing people from leaving
 Emigration was prevented, but disidents and other publicly
involved people were forced to leave
 Emigration did not influence only emigrants themselves, but
family members who stayed even more
 Communist propaganda was trying to convince people that
only a fool may escape from the best countr y in the world, but
the current discourse used by people is that emigrants did not
suffer during the Communism with us and they don´t know
how it was
PARADOXES OF EMIGRATION FROM
COMMUNIST CZECHOSLOVAKIA (PAST)
 The basic propagandist rhetoric was claiming that emigrants
are only imperialists´ servants and that they had no reason to
leave the country, because in the West people are living
terrible lives. Yet, the nowadays accusations outlined above
are based on claims that emigrants left the nation in troubles
and lived carefree in the wealth of the Western states.
PARADOXES OF EMIGRATION FROM
COMMUNIST CZECHOSLOVAKIA (PAST)
 Not only the same culture (the knowledge of language or
history etc.) but also the same ‘level’ or ‘intensity’ of culture
is required in order to be seen as a member of Czech nation.
 In the eyes of Czechs, who live in the Czech Republic all their
lives, in emigration the originally acquired (Czech) culture
fades and is substituted with an ‘imported’ culture which is
not recognized as Czech.
PARADOXES OF EMIGRATION FROM
COMMUNIST CZECHOSLOVAKIA (PAST)
 Communist propaganda was using those, who were forced by
the regime to leave against their will, as one of the tools of
campaign against those, who emigrated against the will of the
regime.
IMPLICATIONS FOR CZECH SOCIET Y
(FUTURE)
 Perception of emigrants (economic opportunists) vs. perception
of immigrants (economic opportunists?)
 Issue of acceptance
ISSUE OF ACCEPTANCE
Graph: What is important for not being perceived as a foreigner?
To speak Czech
To work in the Czech Republic
To know Czech history, culture
To have the citizenship
To live here at least 10 years
To particip. in the local soc. activ.
To marry a Czech
To buy a house, flat here
To have fair skin
(CVVM 2012)
very
important
rather
important
not so
important
not
important
doesn´t
know
ALIENATION FROM A NATION AS A WAY
HOW TO BECOME "THE OTHER"?
THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION