The Pilsen Revolt of 1953

This book examines the Pilsen revolt in Czechoslovakia in 1953, a confluence of several individual, mutually incompatible protests, through which different parts of society reacted to the currency reform using different cultural traditions. The author analyzes how each protest brought their own alternative authorities into public space.

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This book analyzes the first of the vast popular uprisings in the countries of Eastern Bloc—the revolt of West Bohemian City of Pilsen against the currency reform on June 1, 1953. The text is the first complex critical monograph on this topic. In the methodological field the research is inspired by the theories of so-called new social movements. Therefore, the book frames the Pilsen revolt into the context of previous protest actions that had taken place in the examined region after the establishment of communist dictatorship in Czechoslovakia. Thus, the text deals with all the conflicts occurred within the years 1948–1953. This method enables the author to study several protest cultures which operated on a long-term base in various parts of the society and which—each of them in a different way—affected the course of the Pilsen revolt. So, the work provides not only the detailed critical description of June 1953 events but also their cultural genealogy.