Commemorating War in Public Space: The Case of the Ostrava Battlefield
Commemorating War in Public Space: The Case of the Ostrava Battlefield

Summary/Abstract: Combat operations of 1945 in the Ostrava region ranked among the largest and most important military encounters of World War II in the Czech Lands. Immediately after the war, the first sites of memory appeared spontaneously. During the 1950s and 1960s, ‘institutionalisation of memory’ can be witnessed, based on the narrative of ‘liberation’ and ‘Slavic brotherhood’ of the Czech and Soviet population. The discussion of historians and writers about wartime controversies, which started in the era of ‘destalinisation’, had no important impact on the commemorative practise. After the invasion of the Warsaw Pact armies in 1968, authorities attempted to use the narrative of ‘liberation’ t the o improve the public opinion of the Soviet Union. Museums were expected to play a leading role in this process. After the fall of the Communist regime in 1989, attempts to reconsider the narrative of ‘liberation’ appeared. A strong counter-narrative developed amongst the population of the Hlučín region, whose ancestors served in German armed forces. Nevertheless, the traditional post-communist narrative of ‘liberation’ remains quite strong in the region.

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