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Jáchymov: Borders of Oblivion Cover

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.

Language: English
Page range: 184 - 202
Published on: Nov 7, 2023
Published by: Charles University, Faculty of Social Sciences
In partnership with: Paradigm Publishing Services
Publication frequency: 2 issues per year

© 2023 Robert Kulmiński, published by Charles University, Faculty of Social Sciences
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.