<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">

<p>The remarkably dynamic history of the small Czech town of Jáchymov provides the possibility of tracing memory, forgetting and recalling through constant rewriting and negotiation – both of a place of the individual memories, as well as the hierarchy of the events which are worthy of being remembered, and those that would rather be forgotten. German, Soviet, and Czech presence here cross with the spa and military nature of this place and its martyrological memory, on one side of the transfer of the German population shortly after World War II, and on the other one the political prisoners of the 1950s, who were forced into slave labor in the local uranium mine. All of these layers still remain today – referring to the title of the book by Karolina Ćwiek-Rogalska – remembered in Jáchymov's summer landscape, in which the air is breaking the image of reality, making it fluid, and somewhat elusive. And it is this variety of the layers of memory, recalling, and oblivion, which I would like to identify and describe in my article.</p>
</abstract>

The remarkably dynamic history of the small Czech town of Jáchymov provides the possibility of tracing memory, forgetting and recalling through constant rewriting and negotiation – both of a place of the individual memories, as well as the hierarchy of the events which are worthy of being remembered, and those that would rather be forgotten. German, Soviet, and Czech presence here cross with the spa and military nature of this place and its martyrological memory, on one side of the transfer of the German population shortly after World War II, and on the other one the political prisoners of the 1950s, who were forced into slave labor in the local uranium mine. All of these layers still remain today – referring to the title of the book by Karolina Ćwiek-Rogalska – remembered in Jáchymov's summer landscape, in which the air is breaking the image of reality, making it fluid, and somewhat elusive. And it is this variety of the layers of memory, recalling, and oblivion, which I would like to identify and describe in my article.

Jáchymov: Borders of Oblivion

Journal of Nationalism, Memory & Language Politics

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

{"article-title":"Jáchymov: Borders of Oblivion"}

The remarkably dynamic history of the small Czech town of Jáchymov provides the possibility of tracing memory, forgetting and recalling through constant...

Jáchymov: Borders of Oblivion

Publié en ligne: 07 nov. 2023

Pages: 184 - 202

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/jnmlp-2023-0007

Mots clés
memory, oblivion, Jáchymov, the expulsion of Germans from Czechoslovakia

© 2023 Robert Kulmiński, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Jáchymov: Borders of Oblivion

Publié en ligne: 07 nov. 2023

Pages: 184 - 202

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/jnmlp-2023-0007

Mots clésmemory, oblivion, Jáchymov, the expulsion of Germans from Czechoslovakia

© 2023 Robert Kulmiński, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Mots clés
memory, oblivion, Jáchymov, the expulsion of Germans from Czechoslovakia