Socialismus na filmovém kotouči
Socialism on Film

Summary/Abstract: Sune Bechmann Pedersen. Reel Socialism: Making Sense of History in Czech and German Cinema since 1989. Lund: Lund University Press, 2015, 328 pp. In this work of comparative history, which was originally written as his dissertation at Lund University, the Danish historian Sune Bechmann Pedersen focuses on the creation of the meaning of the Communist past in Czech and German films since the Changes beginning in late 1989. His stated aim is to explain the relationship between the Communist past, post-Communist cinematography, and ‘history culture’ (Geschichtskultur) in Germany and the Czech Republic. Rather than its analysis of the individual films, what the reviewer finds most interesting about the book is the author’s having placed the films in the context of contemporary debates. Despite the absence of television series in his analysis and his lack of knowledge about some important Czech publications on the topic, the author has, according to the reviewer, produced an interesting and useful comparative work that offers a fresh look from outside with a broad scope.

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