“Water Will Smooth and Level Everything Anyway.” The Lipno Reservoir and Its Role in Building of the Post-War Czechoslovak Borderlands Cover Image

„Stejně vše zahladí a srovná jednou voda.“ Vodní dílo Lipno a jeho role v budování poválečného československého pohraničí
“Water Will Smooth and Level Everything Anyway.” The Lipno Reservoir and Its Role in Building of the Post-War Czechoslovak Borderlands

Author(s): Eliška Švarná
Subject(s): History, Energy and Environmental Studies, Local History / Microhistory, Environmental interactions, Post-War period (1950 - 1989)
Published by: AV ČR - Akademie věd České republiky - Masarykův ústav
Keywords: Czech borderlands; expulsion of Germans; great works of socialism; environmental history; water; industrialization

Summary/Abstract: The study follows the works of Eagle Glassheim dedicated to the post-war development of the Most region, which resulted in the devastation of the local environment in the 1970s and 1980s. It inquires about how the new regional identity of the settlers was formed in the area of present-day Lipno, to what extent it was affected by the industrial development of the locality and howit influenced the attitude of the locals to the inhabited landscape.In comparison with Glassheim’s conclusions, the study explains the different consequences ofthe post-war development of the Lipno region. Despite extensive industrial interventions in thelandscape, the region became a popular and sought-after tourist destination. A fundamentalrole in this development is attributed to water as a natural landscape element with the ability toerase traces of artificial interventions in the landscape, as well as unwanted cultural and historicaltraces of the original German settlement.

  • Issue Year: 15/2023
  • Issue No: 1
  • Page Range: 44-74
  • Page Count: 31
  • Language: Czech