Svaz československých novinářů
The Union of Czechoslovak Journalists

Summary/Abstract: The Union of Czechoslovak Journalists (SČSN) played an important role in control and management of mass media after the WWII. After February 1948, the journalist union went through the first wave of cleansing from unwanted members. Therefore, apart from rare exceptions, the Union worked as a reliable pillar of the Communist regime. In comparison with other voluntary social organisations, it had a different inner structure when it gave its members the possibility to get involved in various interest sections. The changes in the Czechoslovak society, obvious at the beginning of the 1960s and connected to the emphasis on the reform ideas, caused important personnel changes that culminated in an extraordinary congress of the SČSN in June 1968. The hope in a democratic and free journalist work was soon cut off by the invasion of the Warsaw Pact armies into Czechoslovakia. The Union presidency first tried to keep the continuity with the reform development, yet, in September 1969, it definitely went over into the hands of the “normalisation” supporters. Large cleansing followed, which meant a departure from multifaceted and multi-genre journalism to the writing in service of one ruling party. Following years saw a full identification of the Union with the policy of the Communist Party; only the democratisation of the situation in Czechoslovakia in November 1989 brought a radical change to the journalists’ organisation. In January 1990, the Union of Czechoslovak Journalists was disbanded, since it had, according to several of its representatives, too much of a negative burden from the Communist era. The paper also describes an important part of the pre-archive work and contacts with the State Central Archives, later National Archives. It does not avoid the archival characteristics of the Syndicate of Journalists Archive and the publishing activities of the originator.

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