Nepohodlné vzpomínky a ozvuky ticha. Problematické implikace reemigrace Čechů z Jugoslávie a odsunu Němců z Československa
Inconvenient Memories and Echoes of Silence. Problematic Implications of the Post-War Re-Immigration of Czechs from the Yugoslavia and the Expulsion of Germans from Czechoslovakia

Summary/Abstract: This study deals with dissonant memory processes through the example of post-war displacements of population – 1) voluntary (re)emigration of Czechs from Yugoslavia, who replaced the original German population in the Czechoslovak borderlands, and immanently also 2) of those forcibly displaced “silenced Others”. The text observes the practice of silencing inconvenient memories and shows, through the example of the participants in the post-war (re)emigration to Czechoslovakia, how this complex memory legacy is approached. Taking Czech families displaced from Yugoslavia as an example, the research on the generational transmission of family memory offers replies through the identification of narrative strategies which they used and which lead to their cumulative victimization. This practice demonstrates historical implications – power dynamics reflecting the complex stage of the post-war social, cultural and political development in Czechoslovakia. I believe that considering historical implications allows us to problematize the established unproductive binary oppositions and analytical categories (perpetrators vs. victims; voluntary vs. forced migration), and last but not least, it suggests possible ways of bringing the silenced memory of those forcibly displaced – the “silenced Others” to mind.

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