Média, moc slov a management paměti Šumavy
Media, the Power of Words and the Management of Šumava's Memory

Summary/Abstract: In his book "Politika lesa: Debata o Národním parku Šumava v letech 1991–2010" [The Forest Politics: The Debate on the Šumava National Park in 1991–2010] (Prague, Filozofická fakulta Univerzity Karlovy 2022), linguist Michal Hořejší embarks on a critical discursive analysis of a vast corpus of more than seven thousand media texts concerning the administration and functioning of the Šumava National Park during the 1990s and 2000s. Established in the euphoria that followed the fall of the communist regime, the vast nature park soon became the subject of intense public debate in connection with the overpopulation of the bark beetle, which devastated large forest areas. The central controversy revolved around whether the “bark beetle calamity” (kůrovcová kalamita) required large-scale logging operations or whether the forest should be allowed to regenerate without human interference. The debate brought together a diverse range of actors – politicians, journalists, scientists, environmental activists, and park officials. The reviewer appreciates the semantic analysis of how the participants treated the key concepts of the debate and how the media space was transformed as a result. Hořejší has also shown how the literary work of the Czech-German author Karel Klostermann (1848–1923) influenced contemporary perceptions of the region’s identity. By uncovering the deep entanglement of ecological, political, and cultural memory, Hořejší reveals how the debate over forest management became, at its core, a contest over collective memory.

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