Tanec mezi vejci – memento mocnostem Mnichovský impuls ve výtvarném umění (1938–1945)
Walking on Eggshells – a Memento to the Four Powers: The Munich Agreement Reflected in the Fine Arts, 1938–45

Summary/Abstract: The Munich Agreement of late September 1938 represented the culmination of the activity of the Sudeten German Party of Konrad Henlein (1898–1945) and the efforts of Adolf Hitler to break apart democratic Czechoslovakia. The gradual destruction of Czechoslovak independence and freedom came to a peak with the occupation of the country by Nazi Germany beginning on 15 March 1939. The Western powers’ policies of appeasement, together with the Czechoslovak Government, played the fundamental role in the creation of the German vassal state known as the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. It left conflicting feelings amongst members of the public, including artists, who until that time had boldly declared their anti-German stance and were prepared to carry on the fight against the German regime. Bohemian artists, German as well as Czech, reacted to the new circumstances with ‘cultural emigration’: by means of drawing, caricature, photomontage, painting, and sculpture, they expressed, independently of their hitherto artistic views, a sharp critique of the political scene. Using a kind of original Christian iconography that has been made current, together with historicizing scenes and folk traditions, they did not conceal their disappointment with the Munich betrayal. Freedom in Czechoslovakia went underground, where it continued to exist in the form of artists’ statements, refusing to abandon democratic opinions.

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