Publication details
Growing up as Vicar´s Daughter in Communist Czechoslovakia : Politics, Religion and Childhood Agency Examined
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| Year of publication | 2018 |
| Type | Chapter of a book |
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| Description | The chapter introduces resistance towards communist regime and ideology as lived and experienced by a thirteen year old daughter of a protestant minister, growing up in a small boarder town in socialist Czechoslovakia during the 1980´s. Autoethnographic material, composed mainly of original diary entries and letters to a Russian penfriend is commented upon, using an anthropological lens, and set against theatre framework of Marc Abélés and the perspective of a serious play by Pierre Bourdieu. Sunday sermons, smuggling goods and ideas, restrictive school movement practices, a Pioneer theatre and a school theatrical play are but few examples of short life episodes with satirical potential the author had chosen to reflect upon her socialist childhood. These show some of the channels, through which the dissent culture penetrated into the life of children and how children themselves helped to spread such form of resistance into the wider society, thus playing an active role in undermining the regime. The school institution is portrayed as a stage, where most of these acts take place; school personnel, as well as pupils and their parents are envisioned simultaneously and interchangeably as protagonists, directors and spectators of the play, in which theatre is often perceived as reality and vice versa. |