František Palacký jako místo historické paměti se zvláštním zřetelem k Moravě
František Palacký as a Place of Historical Memory with Special Reference to Moravia

Summary/Abstract: The author, inspired by Pierre Nora, focuses on busts, statues and monuments of the prominent Czech historian and politician František Palacký (1798–1876), who was also called the “Father of the Czech nation”. He pays special attention to Moravia where Palacký was born in Hodslavice, Wallachia. The artefact installations in public space culminated when the foundation stone of his stately monument was laid (1898) and then unveiled in Prague (1912). Between 1876 and 1912 this type of founding new places of memory was connected with the Czech national festivals. The elements of (pseudo)religious rituals and theatre performances including various stage effects and spontaneous interactions between performers and spectators belonged to these events. The emphasis was on ideological agitation for the benefit of common aims. It was completed by welcomed elements of relaxing folk entertainment. Their aim was fulfilled when they roused the sense of fellowship among the participants which could be later recalled. After 1918 Palacký started to appear newly as a place of memory, especially in the names of different types of schools. Palacky University in Olomouc (1947) is the most important one. He can be seen in banknotes (1934, 1993). He was an entirely unacceptable symbol of the Czech national identity for German Nazis. In the communist ideology Palacký ranked among important but not the top position characters in their understanding of great progressive traditions of Czech people. The 200th anniversary of his birth (1998) confirms the trend that his position in the Czech historical memory is urgently confronted with parallel, competition and displacement of different semantic codes which people encounter in public life and the mass media in larger extent. Recently, Palacký also appears on the internet as a place of memory. The internet influences our ideas and opinions more actively, even if it is in the form of variable collage (le bricolage). It opens a wide range of entirely new interpretational possibilities for construction of historically relevant facts.

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