THE CELEBRATIONS OF THE END OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR IN THE “MOST AMERICAN” CITY IN EUROPE
THE CELEBRATIONS OF THE END OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR IN THE “MOST AMERICAN” CITY IN EUROPE

Summary/Abstract: This article aims to provide an interpretation of the annual public event entitled the “Liberation Festival” in the City of Pilsen, Czech Republic. The Liberation Festival is a celebration of the city’s liberation by the American Army during the Second World War. Our paper is presented as a dramaturgical analysis of this event. More specifically, we have focused our efforts on two main categories of interpretation. In the first (called the “production of discourse”), we attempt to analyze the processes of (re)production of political discourse related to this public event. In keeping with this line of interpretation, we also make efforts to identify the main discourse that was produced or reinforced during the Liberation Festival. The second interpretation strain is called the “organizational line of the Liberation Festival”. In this branch of argumentation, we attempt to provide examples and characteristics of strategies and practices that can be utilized by state apparatuses to create their perception as a guarantor of security for those observing. The main finding of our paper is based on the fact that public ceremonies (such as the Liberation Festival) can fulfill the role of medium and serve to spread actual political discourse and to propagate the adoration of actual societal normative order and the positive portrait of state apparatuses. Our article thus can be viewed as a contribution to the debate concerning issues of political discourse and its reproduction through the eyes of the public.

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