Jan Hus na komunistické tribuně
Jan Hus on a Communist grandstand

Summary/Abstract: Randák, Jan. V záři rudého kalicha: Politika dějin a husitská tradice v Československu 1948–1956 (České dějiny, vol. 9.) Prague: Nakladatelství Lidové noviny and Faculty of Arts of the Charles University, 2015, 404 pp., ISBN 978-80-7422-373-0 and 978-80-7308-597-1. In the reviewer’s opinion, the monograph In the glare of the red chalice: The politics of history and the Hussite tradition in Czechoslovakia 1948–1956 provides a consistent in sight into how the tradition associated with preacher and church reformist Jan Hus (1370–1415) and the subsequent Hussite movement was made use of in Czechoslovakia under the Communist rule between 1948 and 1956, i.e. during the period which the author defines as the era of Czechoslovak Stalinism. The author sets the topic in the context of the politics of history which had been intensively applied in the Czech Lands since the 19th century. Since seizing power in 1948, the Communists were using the instrumentalized Hussite tradition for their own historical legitimization, presenting the Hussites as predecessors of the victorious struggle for social justice and national freedom, which was successfully concluded only in February 1948. In the reviewer’s opinion, the book has succeeded in showing how the Hussite cult was reflected in the official ideology, school education, or cultural policy, the tools that were used to spread it, and the forms of its ritualization.

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