Národní prostor a krajina jako zdroj národní identity (Na příkladu jedinečného přírodního fenoménu: řeky Vltavy)
The national space and landscape as a source of national identity (with respect to a unique natural phenomenon: the Vltava River)

Summary/Abstract: The notion of space has recently been a frequent topic in contemporary historiography, ethnology and anthropology. The examination of space is also important in the analysis of national movements. Theorists specializing in this field agree that members of a nation not only live in a certain space, but also appropriate it in a specific way. National territory itself became important in the 19th century, the era when modern European nations were formed. The national community generally believed that the national landscape had the capacity to reflect the notional soul of the nation and its mentality, that is, its way of thinking and behaving. For the Czech nation, the Vltava River fulfilled the role of national river. The land-locked Czechs even saw the Vltava as a substitute for the sea. The Vltava also became a kind of artery linking the Czech countryside and Prague. By the late 1800s, the Vltava, a river flowing through important Czech towns, past castles and chateaus, had already begun to symbolize Czech historical memory. After the establishment of the Republic, the former imperial river became a national river. The national aspirations of First Republic engineers are evident in their construction designs. In the period of the Second Republic and the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, the Vltava symbolized the fate of the Czech nation, deprived after the Munich Agreement of its borderland headwaters and mountains. After the liberation of Czechoslovakia in May 1945, the era of optimistic national construction and megalomania returned again. Work was renewed to complete the Vltava Cascade. However, it seems that the sense of national pride gradually disappeared from society. The Vltava thus became more a symbol of the polluted environment. However, the alarming state of the environment became one of the main drivers of the political and social change in 1989.

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